Yeah, a rare Soviet L, i guess there were troubles in tax collection during NEP, since iirc it was implemented around that point. Still, the context of this tax in socialism and capitalism is kinda different, right now indirect taxes in general are main part of overall regressive tax system (like in Poland poor people pay total around 60% tax, rich one 20-30% and richest who know how much, probably even less). And Poland for example did not had VAT in socialism.
Yeah