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Rebel2Tyrants's avatar

I was just pondering this same idea the other day, and had come to a similar conclusion. It seems that a tariff is essentially a consumption tax that is collected early in the process, then paid by consumers, without any violation of privacy, when they make a purchase of the finished goods.

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Red-State Secession's avatar

Well said, but the biggest benefit is that all taxes punish behavior, and punishing being economically dependent on foreign trade is much better than punishing income or domestic sales. Because foreign governments can embargo you as leverage over your sovereignty.

One concern is that it can be difficult to get federal government spending low enough to fit within a tariff budget (like the US before 1913). Wait, I guess that's another benefit.

But really state and local gov are still going to rely on sales tax or something much worse like property, income, inheritance...

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