Gould,
What do you think of using a VAT (Value Added Tax) similar to the tax used
in most of Europe?

Not much.

I prefer a flat tax, with no tax extracted from the first $30,000 or so of
income. For some, that would mean no tax paid on the money earned during the
first week of the year, and for others that would exempt all income. The
desperately poor should be absolutely untaxed- and maybe they will have enough
left over to save and invest and start getting slightly ahead.

For the rest of us, after the same $30,000 exemption everybody else gets, tax
income at a rate sufficient to balance the budget every year. Maybe 15, 20, or
25%. Those spendthift legislators would be more reluctant to pee away so much
money if it meant they had to immediately tell their constituents that taxes
were going up 2,3, or 4 percent to pay for the latest government program.

We would tax *all* income under the flat tax plan, with a streamlined formula
for measuring "net profit" (the source of most chicanery in the current tax
system).