Reply #18: but small businesses do

[pop goes the weasel]

and they already have to deal with tax withholding from paychecks, so this would not greatly add to their burdens while at the same time it would greatly simplify life at the sales counter. Replace the property tax with an income tax at the same time--make it a twofer--and you would have conservative Texans singing the praises of the the income tax. That is what the Populists had in mind when they first proposed an income tax, after all. It was to be a more-just substitute tax, not an additional tax.