Montana senator Jon Tester says he will defeat the GOP's 'awful plan' for a national sales tax

[Disaffected]

15. That would be an issue alright.

But, another national pastime is avoiding income tax so the two balance out to some extent. I dunno but I'm guessing catching sales tax cheats would be easier in a lot of respects than catching income tax cheats, particularly involving those in high income brackets.

Anyhow, sales taxes are not new so procedures already exist for catching cheating. IIRC, the VAT in Europe is pretty high compared to most sales taxes so I imagine they have ways to deal with it.

In any case, imposing a flat tax of 30% or whatever on pretty much everything is nutso from the outset. A much better way would be to have different tax levels on different types of goods & services and, value levels before the tax cuts in. You would also need a kind of guaranteed income on the individual level to compensate folks who pay little or no income tax now because they have little income.