Reply #9: Yeah, we live here

[magellan]

...but we run a business in the UK. (Hubby's a Brit.) Sales taxes are bad but not as bad as VAT which is similar to Repub-proposed Flat Tax schemes. It's a regressive tax and everyone has to pay the same amount on products/services regardless of where they live or income. It also is applied to every part of the supply chain, not just to the end consumer.

The benefit of VAT for businesses is that they can offset what they "owe" the gov't by applying the VAT from their business purchases against the VAT collected from sales.

Say for example we collected 3000 pounds in VAT one quarter. We then add up the VAT on purchases we made during that time and deduct the total from the sales VAT. So unless the business hasn't bought anything, we end up paying less than 3000. Consumers do not have that ability; everything they pay in VAT is gone, just like sales tax.

I wonder if the oil companies can do that with the tax they collect on gasoline?