Not April Fools: Americans support infrastructure spending IF more taxes are levied on the wealthy.

[oldsoftie]

13. There used to be a luxury tax but it was repealed. And here's the article.

The luxury tax was meant to tax the wealthy on their purchases. The result, as usual, was avoidance & hurting business. The rich simply bought used boats & cars or bought them out of country. It devastated the US luxury boat industry and raised little money. So it was repealed.

"How to sink an industry & not soak the rich"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/07/16/how-to-sink-an-industry-and-not-soak-the-rich/08ea5310-4a4b-4674-ab88-fad8c42cf55b/

"The progressive tax myth"
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-10-31/taxes-werent-more-progressive-in-the-1950s

These articles point out things that most folks here just dont want to hear. And thats why I made sure the articles came from reliable sources. Everyone is always eager to jump on the "feel good" train regardless of the reality of how tax rates really work in real life and how far people will go to not pay more than what THEY think is fair. And its another reason sales tax votes pass so often; nobody likes to pay, but if they know everyone else is they'll go along. We need REAL revenue. The debt is out of control. And while the rich DO need to pay more, focusing only on them does little to fix the problem

As for the regressiveness of a sales tax, we're sending out stimulus checks right now. So we send out a flat rate monthly to those under a certain income level, equal to the amount of sales tax they WOULD pay.
It really is the only tax that most will not avoid & that will tax ALL income.