Paul Volcker is a typical Washington insider who maintains his favorable connections by endorsing bigger government. In recent months, he’s been busy supporting a value-added tax. Now he is saying that it is absolutely critical to address the deficit. Here’s and excerpt from a Bloomberg report:  Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, a top outside adviser […]

Only in the artificial bubble of Washington do you find people who are willing to make preposterous statements such as those contained in this David Ignatius column. He writes that we should adopt a value-added tax to avoid a Greek-style fiscal crisis, appararently oblivious to the fact that Greece adopted a VAT and still had […]

A former Governor of Delaware, Pete DuPont, explains that a value-added tax means bigger government and slower growth. This issue is very important since Obama clearly is trying to set the stage for imposing this European-style national sales tax in the United States:  The VAT has been in use in the European countries since the […]

His article doesn’t completely slam the door on a value-added tax, but Robert Samuleson’s piece in the Washington Post does highlight some of the very serious problems with a VAT – including more government spending, burdens on families, additional complexity, and more corruption: Almost every pro-VAT argument is exaggerated, misleading, incomplete or wrong. The VAT […]

Last Thursday, the Senate took a vote on a non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution concerning a Value Added Tax.  The result was an 85-13 victory for the anti-VAT side.  The roll call can be found here.  The statement of purpose read as follows:  Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Value Added Tax […]

Caroline Baum of Bloomberg has a good column against the value-added tax, in part because she quotes me, but more so because she effectively explains that a national sales tax like the VAT would be an add-on tax that would finance much bigger government:  As Americans awake to the 2009 tax-filing deadline today, they can […]

My life is now devoted to saving America from the European-style national sales tax known as the value-added tax. Writing in the New York Post, I explain that the impact of a VAT in Europe is bigger government, not smaller deficits: The real-world evidence shows that VATs are strongly linked with both higher overall tax […]

With the VAT becoming an ever-bigger issue, Dan Mitchell discusses the issue on CNBC. Dan’s opponent winds up agreeing with him:

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation, joined by 21 of the country’s most influential free-market and taxpayer groups, has sent a letter warning President Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and top Congressional leaders “about the fiscal and economic risks of a value-added tax (VAT).”

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation, joined by 21 of the country’s most influential free-market and taxpayer groups, has sent a letter warning President Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and top Congressional leaders “about the fiscal and economic risks of a value-added tax (VAT).” The Coalition for Tax Competition letter is in response to […]