A VAT would be fine. Just drop the federal income tax first.

Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them, passing the burden to consumers as a cost of production. And corporate taxation is a feast of rent-seeking — a cornucopia of credits, exemptions and other subsidies conferred by the political class on favored, and grateful, corporations. Because the income tax is not broadly based, it radiates moral hazard: Its incentives are for perverse behavior. The top 1 percent of earners provide 40 percent of that tax’s receipts; the top 5 percent provide 61 percent; the bottom 50 percent provide 3 percent. So the tax makes a substantial majority complacent about government’s growth.

Increasingly, the income tax is codified envy. A VAT is the political class’ recourse when the resources of the minority that is targeted by the envious are insufficient to finance ravenous government…

Because a VAT potentially taxes everything, it would be riddled with exemptions. This is because it maximizes the political class’ opportunities for showing favoritism — by, for example, exempting certain “green” goods. It also widens that class’ scope for the pleasure of being bossy. For example, it could reduce a VAT’s regressiveness — like rain, a VAT falls equally on the rich and the poor, but the poor devote a larger portion of their income to consumption — by exempting most foods but not those that the nanny state disapproves: “Put down that sugary soda and step away from the vending machine!”