Maybe I missed it, but is this a tax that would be placed on top of individual states / counties sales taxes?
Now that the federal government is doling out billions in stimulus spending and bailouts, and looking for billions more for health care reform, the prospect of a national sales tax could be gaining some traction.
The value-added tax, or VAT, as it is called, amounts to a tax-on-everything -- or TOE, for the acronym-inclined. It's a tax on goods that's applied in pieces throughout the chain of production and distribution and results in an increase in the cost of virtually everything you buy.
Some conservatives have called for something similar -- the so-called Fair Tax -- that would replace the federal income tax system with a national retail sales tax.
But critics of the VAT say it would almost certainly not be implemented as a replacement for the income tax system -- rather, it would be just another tax, on top of the income tax, the state sales tax and everything else.