[0]: If you feel the need to point out the difference between tax-avoidance and tax-evasion then please watch this first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2q-Csk-ktc
I currently spend a little over 30% of my income as the sticker price to living in a first world country. Compared to the price of renting an apartment in my city, I think this is a steal.
People who never set foot in any type of public school or university benefit from everyone else being educated, because everyone else designs their clothes, their cars, their planes, their buildings, roads, computing devices, etc.
No one is self sufficient in the society I live in. It's totally possible to go and be self sufficient. This reduces your income so you don't pay taxes, since you're not interacting with government-protected, government-manipulated currency. Seems reasonable to me.
Consumption tax is also easier to be set to a geographic location, and harder to shift to different tax jurisdiction.
Harder to play games in comparison to an income tax.
But nobody wants it. Very unpopular in a vote because, people rather have someone else pay such as rich people and corporations.
Certain items can be excempt from sales tax, such as groceries.
> Likely to hurt businesses
Since when is the HN crowd worried about hurting businesses. Most people here want higher taxes for corporations.
[0] They're not wrong of course; everything claimed in that comment is entirely (or 'mostly', at least) correct. I'd love to see you try to refute any of it.
All of that costs money, and paying taxes is more or less funding my lifestyle as it is now. If you want to not pay taxes, then stop paying taxes and give up everything you purchase with them. Go subsistence farm in the woods or something, or deal with bartering instead of money (which itself is only useful because there is some regulation to keep it useful).