Comment: From an economical

From an economical standpoint, this is a bad idea.

It has been shown that VAT or sales taxes are really bad in one way: they are most easily passed on to the customer. Since the customer is "punished" more for consuming, he will consume less. Since he consumes less, the producers will lay off workers because they desire to produce less supply. It is a bad cycle that ends up with the economy in worse-off shape.

On the other hands, taxation of profits and income have less of a deletrious effect. Taxation of income happens wether money is spent or not, so consumption is only primarly affected by the level of taxation. Taxation of profits is shared by the customer, the producer, the worker, and the investor. For economical examples, we've seen that the Bush tax cuts passed almost nothing along to the customer (investors took everything), while profit taxes in Europe have been almost completely absored by investors.

It is perhaps less principled, but it is more pragmatic.