Comment by necovek
Even with sales tax being on consumption, rich people and their accountants always look how to reduce the burden: say, that trip to Hawaii was a business trip, and that expensive suit a business cost, and sometimes you can claim some of that is "wholesale" purchase to avoid it.
In jurisdictions using VAT (like most of Europe), there are whole schemes like that to effectively reduce your VAT burden through use of company purchasing.
It is insane how much upper-middle-class people commit tax fraud, without even thinking twice about it.
I've heard at least half a dozen stories of kids' computers being bought by daddy's consultancy business, avoiding both income tax and sales tax.
Same with "business lunches", where you're just hanging out with a buddy who happens to be vaguely involved in a similar industry.
The general feeling seems to be that paying taxes is for losers and you're stealing from yourself if you're not doing minor tax fraud.
This kind of tax avoidance simply isn't available to lower-class salaried workers. They are forced to pay the full bill.