Imagine tax reform which collects an extra 1% of sales tax for items you have already purchased.
I'm all for reforming tax such that the wealthy cannot dodge them and pay a higher effective tax rate. I just don't know how to get there.
This is precisely the difficulty you cited.
> Imagine tax reform which collects an extra 1% of sales tax for items you have already purchased
Literally property tax.
> I just don't know how to get there
Constitutionally authorize a national property tax that can only be increased by both an act of the Congress and affirmation in referendum alongside the next Presidential election. (It’s high time we brought plebiscite into our federal system.)
Politically: use its proceeds to cut taxes for the middle class. Double the income tax brackets. Provide a per-capita citizen’s dividend.
So I probably agree with you.
But that’s empirically untrue. Every sales tax is precisely this. Every property-tax increase, too. They’re unpopular, as are all tax increases. But I don’t think they’re more difficult than raising first-pass income taxes.