Proportionality, Justice, and the Value-Added Tax

This paper has two purposes: to establish that the most frequently proposed form of value-added tax is really a proportional income tax rather than, as it is popularly seen, an inflationary, regressive sales tax; and to propose that this value-added tax be adopted as an alternative to all existing federal personal and corporate income, as well as federal employment and excise, taxes. Of course, to make such a proposal in light of the government’s propensity to simply add any new tax on top of existing taxes is risky. Nevertheless, the nature of the value-added tax and the argument that it is superior to existing taxes stand apart from the danger that the government will merely add it on to present taxes, I don’t believe we should refrain from identifying a superior taxing plan merely because politicians might treat it as a supplement rather than an alternative...