Not really because it is applied at every stop on the supply chain. You pay the final price plus an additional sales tax. You do not see the built in taxes along the way
What you do get with a VAT is access to all the untaxed money from illicit gains from prostitution, drugs and gambling.
Want to pay less tax, spend less.
The VAT is an ass of an idea. A VAT and a sales tax combined is grabbing the ass with both hands sort of idea.
But with sales taxes it’s fairly easy, at least in Texas, to have a Tax-ID number so that your purchases as a business are frequently tax exempt.
Now, here are some of my tax related ideas to help you know where I’m coming from....
Sales taxes ONLY on the first retail sale of a product / personal property, or of a product reconditioned for sale in a formal retail venue. Thus there would be no taxes due on the sale of your old car, boat, what you sell at an estate sale or garage sale and so forth.
No taxes on the purchase of gold or silver ... ever. This because our so-called “legal tender” is actually not, the Constitution forbids the States to pay their obligations with anything but gold and silver coin. They should not be in the business of taxing the only money lawful for them to use even if we don’t use gold and silver coin for our money as we ought to.
While I flatly oppose inheritance taxes in ALL circumstances whatsoever, at a minimum these should only be ever applied to fungible assets. Either real assets or personal property, even if it’s a priceless work of art, should never be counted.
Likewise, no fan of income taxes here, only renumeration in a form that is fungible should ever be taxed ... it is simply not the basic function of people to fund their government just as all the money isn’t the government’s so that they can count a tax break as a subsidy. So as a consequence, people bartering would never have to be accounted for, nor would the value of having a company car or other non-fungable benefits.
I fully agree with Justice Bushrod Washington writing for Corfield v Coryell that it is a fundamental right to not be taxed more than other citizens. If a tax is on a valuation then all should pay the same percentage of that valuation, as it pertains to them. If it is a tax on an event, say a stamp act or admission to a State park, then all such valuations would be the same amount per person. Both progressive and regressive taxation are odious, vile situations. Rather a person’s circumstances should never be considered as to how they are taxed.
I would support the ability of Citizens, actual flesh-and-blood Persons ... not mere entities or even limited liability partnerships, to obtain and pass on to their heirs who are also Citizens, Allodial Title, both in city and countryside, and to provide a system whereby any ordinary total may become allodial ... probably by paying the State a fee on the valuation of the land in relation to property taxes currently being gathered. If a corporation, entity, of non-Citizen comes into possession of the land it’s Status is voided.
(I’m not particularly fond of property taxes either, as you may have noticed).
These sorts of propositions do several things which you may have noticed in addition to their obvious aspects: they reduce administrative overhead to some degree for example.
Also, though not a tax, I would support changes to our intellectual property laws as follows...
All time periods are the same as with technical patents on inventions. The one exception is ACTIVE trademarks ... but that simply means that the IP in question has to be kept in use ... so if Disney wants to keep their mouse they just gotta keep cranking out Mouse cartoons.
Flesh and blood persons should be able to obtain longer times of IP protections than any entity. This could simply take the form of, a second renewable time rather than just one renewal allowed by current law. A third might be nice too (i.e. maybe up to 60 years protection for a Person but only 30 for a corporation). Or their terms could just be longer. Entities could not buy IP rights past what would have applied had they been the ones to originally file, but they may, of course, lease the right to use a Person’s IP during the extended period not otherwise available to them). This is in acknowledgment that entities often have easier time raising funds to exploit IP, whereas there is a history of inventors having to plot along till they have no rights and also no ability to compete.