Being largely unable to implement the same degree of redistribution (remember also that income taxes are higher in Europe), I don't buy the argument that having more regressive taxation schemes ala a higher Sales/VAT in the United States would have a negligible effect on inequality.
I don't know about you, but 50%+ of my income went into consumption. Plus, any way you cit
Anyhow, to the best of my knowledge, the best study on the subject is summarized in this graph: http://goo.gl/tmywx
What that shows is that no tax system has a significant impact on Gini. Switching from the most progressive tax system in the study (the US one) to the least (the UK one) would result in a change of Gini of around 0.02. If you rank OECD members by Gini coefficients, such a large change in taxation wouldn't even change the ranking; the US would remain at 4th most unequal. As such, I think it's fair to say that we can tinker with the tax system without fear of victimizing the poorest off. (And, also, that if we want to help the poorest off, we need to pull some lever other than tax policy.)
Yes, 100% true. I agree: the resolution obviously lies in pursuing redistribution more aggressively.
I'm just uncomfortable with regressive solutions as a whole. If your answer is "it raises overall revenue which allows more redistribution" I may be persuaded, but again your correlation between Gini coefficients and the regressiveness of a given tax system feels specious at best.
I reserve the right to admit that I am wrong at a later date, however.