The article expresses the view that the current Internal Revenue Code has evolved into a hybrid income tax and consumption tax. It begins by explaining the difference between an income tax and a consumption tax and provides the backgrounds of the alternative forms of consumption tax: (1)...

This article discusses probably the most significant obstacle to the adoption of a consumption tax: the negative effects on existing wealth that the transition from the income tax to most forms of a consumption tax would have. The Congressional Budget Office in its 1997 study posed the question,...