COST Study Urges States to Move Toward Broad-Based Consumption Taxes

State and local sales tax systems in the United States rely too heavily on income, payroll, and property taxes and not enough on consumption taxes, making them "inefficient, ineffective, and obsolete," according to a report by the Council On State Taxation and the State Tax Research Institute.

The report, which compared the tax systems of the U.S. with those of the EU and Canada, predicted that the current U.S. system will be unable to address the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising federal debt.