Americans have to deal with all sorts of taxes from property taxes, to local taxes, to State taxes, to gasoline taxes, to hotel taxes, as well as to Federal taxes, and probably a few more. When it comes to paying our State and Federal taxes, those rates are progressive, in the general sense, that the more that you earn, the more that is required to be paid in taxes, whereas for those that earn very little, the less or the elimination of a tax burden will be incurred. While there are many, many ways that progressive taxes aren't so progressive, because of all the various means to reduce or eliminate personal taxation, through special and specific tax code legislation, favoring one group or class of citizens over another, in point of fact, when it is all said and done, those that earn more, do indeed carry more of the load of paying proportionally more in taxes.
The thing about taxes, is that currently the progressive tax is set up specifically on only taxing progressively the amount of monies earned, not spent. That is to say, in short, the more that you earn, the more that you pay in taxes, because the tax rates are tiered in structure, so that as you reach each respective tier, your percentage of what you owe in taxes, increases. On the other hand, for monies spent, our tax system can be considered flat, that is to say, each person, no matter their wealth, no matter their income, pays the exact same sales tax rate as anybody else. Not only is the sales tax rate, flat, but also, by definition, sales taxes are regressive, in the sense that those that have considerably less, spend considerable more on a sales tax proportionally to their worth, as well as to their income. Further, it must be said, that there is no easy fix so as to ascertain the worth, or the income, of the person purchasing a given item, nevertheless, sales tax rates, could be structured in a manner, that would be progressive in their effect.
Fortunately, we live in a hi-technology world, in which, adjusting the sales tax rate, depending upon the category of the consumer goods, such as whether it is, for instance, a cell phone, or an automobile, or furniture or whatever, makes it fairly straightforward to create separate sales tax rates for separate categories of goods. Additionally, within those categories, price tiers, could easily be setup so that, for instance, automobiles that are price at $20,000 or below, have a sales tax rate of 4%, those at $20,001 to $30,000 are at 5% with the first $20,000 of such car at 4%, and so on and so forth. This would mean in substance that governmental authorities could first make a determination as to whether certain categories of goods, such as your basic toiletries and groceries, be taxed at a very low or even zero rate, whereas luxury goods, such as speed boats or hi-end artifacts, be taxed at a very high progressive rate.
The bottom line is that those that have more money should pay a higher sales tax than those that have less money, and this can be done in a manner that first segregates items that are necessary to purchase in order to live a basic ordinary life at a much lower sales tax rate, and items that are considered basically to be luxuries or discretionary, especially hi-end items of such, should be taxed at both a higher sales tax rate and more progressively.