Sales taxes are Sales Tax weighed to be regressive tax; that is, low income people tend to spend a greater percentage of their income in taxable sales (using a cross section time-frame) than university income people. However, this calculation is derived when the tax paid is divided not by the excise lowly (the flock spent) but by income, which is argued to create an arbitrary relationship.

Most nonaligned nations in the macrocosm have sales taxes or value-added taxes at all or hardly any of the national, state, county or city government levels. Underdeveloped Nations in western Europe, especially in Scandinavia have some of the world's highest valued-added taxes. Norway, Denmark and Sweden have the highest VATs at 25%, although reduced rates are used in some cases, as for groceries and newspaper.