[coldtea]

>This is why I truly believe in a consumption/sales tax instead of income tax (aka FairTax). You can build as much wealth as you'd like, but it doesn't do you any good until you spend it. At that point there is no avoiding the tax and it's much easier for the IRS to track.

That would be even less fair. For a rich person, spending (even with luxuries in) is a small percentage of their income.

For a poor person rent for a small apartment, plus food, plus basic clothing for the kids basic healthcare, etc eats most of their income (or all in most cases).

Rich people also don't need to spend as much. For most of their fortune, they can accumulate and wait. For the rest, they can arrange all kinds of schemes (e.g. their car is leased by their company, not them personally, and so on) to appear not to spend themselves.

Plus, a lot of what they do is buying influence, which you can do with political donations, "charity", and other such things, that are low or not taxed (and in some cases, are even tax deductible).