Even if it was and even if it did, that still wouldn't make it fair.
Please don't take this as being argumentative, but what is fair when it comes to taxation? Taxing the rich to pay the freight for the poor doesn't seem fair. Giving the rich a break, while socking it to the middle class does not seem fair. Allowing the poor to pay no taxes seems unfair. So exactly what is fair? A value added tax (VAT) is a regressive tax precisely because everyone pays it, regardless of how much money they make. People who are barely scraping by, would still pay taxes on what they purchase, but my guess is they buy a lot less than people who have more money. So to in some respects, it is probably the most fair tax of all.
Under current tax laws, people who have home mortgages can deduct the interest and points they pay on that mortgage. I think it is reasonable to say that many poor people cannot afford to buy property, so they rent. Guess what, they don't get to deduct the portion of their rent that goes to paying their landlord's mortgage. For the average wage earner and tax payer, if you don't have the mortgage deduction, you probably cannot itemize your deductions, so you are stuck with the standard deduction. There is an inherent unfairness in this.
Currently, if you are wealthy, you have access to other deductions that middle income and poor people don't. This helps explain why the tax rate on the wealthy is often only 15%, while it is much higher for middle income people, often around 40%. -Hardly fair.
I am something of a control freak (in case you hadn't noticed). This is particularly true when it comes to my money. There is no legal way to control taxes on income, which is frustrating for me. If we replace income tax with a VAT, I could at least control how much money I spend, up to a point. For example, if I want a new car, I can decide if I want to pay the tax on a $50,000 automobile or a $25,000 one. Better still, I can say the heck with it and fix my current car, thereby avoiding any major tax bite. In the European countries, which have a VAT, food is taxed at a lower rate than other commodities. This way, all but the poorest folks can still afford to purchase food items and pay the tax.
Whatever tax system we have, people won't like it. Nobody is happy about paying the tax man. However, we live in a world with a lot of other people, some of which cannot provide for themselves and need government assistance. We enjoy the benefits public agencies provide us and really couldn't get by without them. Everything comes at a cost. Part of the cost of living as well as we do as a society comes from paying taxes. This is nothing new, btw. Taxation has been with us forever in one form or another, fair or not.
