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If the exemptions are only limited to basic items needed by everyone for day to day life and not politically selected it would be pretty simple. Have you seen the size of the existing US tax code?
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That idea makes sense. Now, I know it's about as original as Al Sharpton's plan for a Flat Tax (remember THAT?) for you to propose that, but occasionally you stumble across a good idea.
The reduction of a couple hundred billion dollars of "compliance complexity" is one desirable aspect.
But the other is, you don't consume, you don't pay tax. I assume you would exempt things like food, housing and transportation, right? GREAT! That's about 75% of my household budget as a New Yorker! The rest goes into my savings account or into equity investment in small-cap growth companies, so I wouldn't pay any taxes at all!
Bring it on!
Oh wait, wouldn't that remove your capacity for SOCIAL ARCHITECTURE? What about JEALOUSY or REVENGE or the sense that SOMEBODY is BETTER OFF and they have to PAY their FAIR SHARE? You wouldn't be able to PUNISH me for going a couple hundred grand in debt to attend grad school, so I could live in a 250 square foot apartment in Hell's Kitchen to become one of America's RICH!
It's pretty easy to sit back and talk about this stuff in the rhetorical abstract, but until you've felt what it's like to work 100 hours a week and be saddled with 38% federal, 8.6% state and 4% local income tax, along with 8.6% sales tax and property taxes, you don't have ANY IDEA about progressive taxation. STAY at home in your air-conditioned suburban homes and bemoan how "the rich" are really making out great . . .