After searching around, maybe the best explanation with examples that I could find came from the European Economic Union's own Taxation and Customs web page. It's not easy reading, but it does explain in great detail how the EU's Value-Added Taxation system works. I'm going to read it again to see if there are easy ways for a well-lobbied U.S. Congress to establish rules and loopholes that would permit some to escape this type of taxation. If I understand how the EU works, their governing group isn't commonly subject to lobbying by special interest groups, so their laws and legislation more purely represents the intentions of lawmakers and the member countries, without the amendments and loopholes so common in our body of law.

Anyway, here's the link...

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs...s/index_en.htm