That, of course, is a political choice. And indeeed, in countries with too much tax evasion a value added tax is often the only option. From economic theory the argument against it would be that income has a declining marginal utility. Therefore, the disutility/pain hurts more for the poor than for the rich. Is that morally right? The effect would also depress national income given the declining marginal propensity to consume. Only relying on a value added tax to cover the required tax income would raise that tax to levels that would seriously depress demand and stifle economic growth, and is impossible if other countries do not follow suit. Right now, all EU countries have fairly similar levels of VAT. Just imagine if the Netherlands would more than double its VAT rate to make up for lost income tax. People would simply go abroad for their shopping.
Most economists agree that too much inequality is a bad thing for the economy (see e.g. Acemoglu and Robinson, Why Nations Fail). However, many countries have witnessed increasing (within country) social inequality over the last few decades, after many post war decades of declining inequality. The net effect has been that much of the gdp growth of the recent decades has ended up in the pockets of the top few percent. The rest of the population has hardly seen any income growth for many years, or worse. This, I think, is at the root of much current populist discontent. One other thing to add is that inequality between countries has decreased, because of the rapid economic growth of some emerging economies, in Asia in particular. Lower income groups in Western countries now have a lower standard of living than some middle class people in the emerging economies. Finally, one more piece of bibliography: read the work by Branko Milanović on inequality. Sorry, professors want you to read - Branko is a good read, and the world's leading expert on this.
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