Warren Buffett, billionaire, pays a total tax rate (federal, state, local, corporate) of 11% of his investment gains. A typical single person earning a minimum wage pays taxes amounting to 37% of her wages, double Mr. Buffett’s rate.http://fairsharetaxes.org/ The top 1% in the US have gone from owning 22% to 40% of the nation's wealth in the last thirty years. This is largely due to the tax cuts for the wealthy investor class, started under Reagan. They were supposed to encourage investment and strengthen the economy. Since then, the average annual GDP growth dropped by one-quarter and we had the worst recession since the Great Depression (which happened the last time the richest 1% owned 40% on the nation's wealth). http://fairsharetaxes

I suggest: forget the VAT, reduce but reform income taxes, eliminate regressive sales, property and social security taxes, eliminate capital gains taxes, eliminate estate taxes and ADD A WEALTH TAX of 1-2% on net worths over about $500,000.

The wealth tax would amount to a 20% tax on investment returns, making it on par with taxes on work income. Right now work is taxed at 5-10-fold rates greater than investment returns. For the very rich (Warren Buffett 2006) investment return are taxed at rates 200-fold less than work income

A Wealth Tax would:
1 -make taxes more proportional to ability to pay
2- make taxes proportion to the extent a household has profited from economic infrastructure provided by...