I wonder has either American party looked at what we did in Australia, eliminating some of the taxes and replacing them with a 10% GST - Goods and Services Tax.

The theory was to have a straight tax of a simple percentage, applied to all purchases of goods or services. So far, so good. Then politicking cut in.

"We must encourage exporting." Loophole. As long as you can show an overseas address, and you take it out of the country within (I think) 3 months, you don't have to pay GST.

"We can't tax basic food." Horrid, horrid loophole. What's basic food? Is anything edible tax-free? So it's decided that anything ready-to-eat is taxable, anything that needs to be prepared isn't. Which means that certain types of expensive fish (luxury food, definitely) slip in GST-free, and yet some much more 'basic' foods, since they don't need any preparation, attract a tax.

And so we have quite a mess. Do you want to have a new system in America that is actually clean and easy to use? Lobby for a simple tax with NO special reservations. NONE. But will pollies do it? Not likely. They want to be able to make tax breaks to buy votes. So we have to show them that ANY tax break will lose them votes. And I wish you luck persuading people of this...