What is a consumption tax?

Ah consumption wasn't that a disease in the 17th century like you know your lungs filled up with water, couldn't be a tax on that... Hmm, like how would they ever collect.

Well, in fact a consumption tax in finance land is about taxing what you consume.

Yeah duh.

So continuing from the 17th century and then 18th centuries remember that Boston Tea Party thing, yeah that thing.

Well the Brits wanted to tax American tea like a farthing per bushel or whatever the currency and measures were back then but that was a tax per unit or per element of consumption, yeah consumption tax.

Gas tax, that's a consumption tax.

Gas is 3 bucks a gallon or so and the tax is per gallon something like 80 cents give or take in a red state and more than that in the blue so the more gas you consume the more tax you pay.

All right consumption tax, real estate well it's usually taxed based on the market value of the place you just bought, buy a more expensive house and well you'll pay a higher amount of tax so what's a non consumption tax if all those are consumption taxes.

Well income tax for one, you're not consuming anything.

Your yearly tax bill isn't based on how much stuff you buy but how much dough you made.

Well same with a payroll tax.

Payroll tax is based on how much money someone makes at a job and the conditions of their employment, again not about the consumption of any goods or service you know other than all your free time...

All right well the estate tax is another example unless Congress passes a bill the taxes are zombiefied brethren based on the amount of brains they consume, all the estate tax is based on income sort of, definitions of income are squishy.. rather than consumption.

So yeah that's kind of an iffy one.

All right then again those zombies have been dodging the IRS for a while now.

And you know we got to make them pay their fair share let's say they foot the tax bill for the next being how about that, no but that's not gonna work everyone knows you know the zombies well they're a bunch of deadbeats.