How can consumption taxes be made progressive? Consumption taxes (VAT, sales tax) are mostly applied at a flat rate. Some countries have exemptions or lower ratings for essential goods. But even with that, the tax is much less progressive than other taxes, like income tax.
There have been some suggestions that countries should move away from income tax and corporation tax and generate most revenue from consumption taxes. I just mention this as background, I know there's no clear consensus, and my question is not about that.
If consumption taxes were used more than income tax, how could these be made progressive?
Edit: I did some searches for progressive consumption tax and found this article that is most promoting a book and presupposes knowledge of terms like Flat Tax. Wikipedia on X Tax is interesting but brief. Further elaboration would be informative.
This answer simply points out what is, I think, an important part of 1muflon1's answer. There are two ways to think of consumption taxes: One is to tax certain consumption goods with a VAT. Making this progressive is an uphill battle and will cause a lot of distortions that have little to do with distributional concerns. On the other hand, you can simply tax the money spent on consumption, and this can be done in a progressive way. Income equals consumption plus saving. So by making savings tax-exempt, you turn a progressive income tax into a progressive consumption tax.