They already suffer, and the benefit is to free the poor and middle class from personal income tax. The rich already escaped as generally their money is not personal income for purpose of income tax.
When the king takes a portion of my labor 'because he can', then I am a slave. The rich generally understand how to escape the income tax slavery. Let's free the poor.
Personally I'd rather see the loopholes get closed instead of adding a tax on consumer goods.
Remove some of the loopholes for trusts that let people avoid inheritance taxes. Add another tax bracket or two for capital gains. Get rid of the carried interest loophole.
There is merit to closing loopholes. It seems difficult to implement considering how codes and laws are actually crafted. Huge business of leeches creating tax code and then helping people to utilize the tax codes to maximum effect.
Straight consumption tax (excluding uncooked food) and it becomes very simple to implement. And nobody would file a personal income tax again. Employers would not do payroll tax withholding so wage slaves would get an immediate increase of take-home pay.
How is it weird the top 20% of income tax payers pay the most? Is that by definition what makes the top 20% of income tax payers the top 20%?
The very rich can structure affairs to have capital gains, minimize income, and therefore not be in the top 20% of income tax payers.
Poor and middle-class wage slaves have income (per IRS definition) and generally don't escape income tax beyond the standard deduction which applies to everyone who files.
The rich understand these phrases: "capital gains", "everyone who files". Those with minimal wage income may not even need to file.
Capital gains are assessed when recognized, not like a yearly schedule so rich can defer this and choose when to recognize it. Will certainly take many fun 'business' trips that year to offset.
Remove payroll taxes (which support collection of income tax) and employee take-home pay increases. Employers can stop hassles of the withholding accounting. Employees can stop hassles of yearly income tax filing to IRS.
There would be a temporary increase of unemployed payroll tax bookkeepers and storefront tax prep people. Hopefully they will find something more productive to do.
When the king takes a portion of my labor 'because he can', then I am a slave. The rich generally understand how to escape the income tax slavery. Let's free the poor.