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"We should start from the fundamental question: why should this guy pay more than Joe Schmo at all? Why shouldn't the tax bill be spread equally over everybody,
by lsc 16y ago
"We should start from the fundamental question: why should this guy pay more than Joe Schmo at all? Why shouldn't the tax bill be spread equally over everybody, so it's (say) ten thousand dollars per head? That would be what I call "fair"."
Let us leave aside "fair" or "unfair" for a moment.
The problem with a poll tax is that you can only raise the amount of money you can charge the poorest people you are taxing multiplied by the number of people you are taxing.
A tax scheme that operates on a percentage of income (or even increases that percentage as income increases) allows the government to maximize its income in the same way that having higher margin 'premium' products and lower margin "economy" products so rich people can pay more and poor people can pay less allows a business to maximize it's income.
- pts101 16y agoProgressive taxes are approximations of flat taxes that are based on utility rather than nominal dollars.
- lsc 16y agomaybe so. But even without the relationship you describe between what you pay and what you get, a progressive tax system still maximizes the government's income vs a poll tax. I'm just pointing out that even before you get to talking about what's fair or what's right, you simply could not support a government as expensive as ours on a poll tax. - so there is a reason why we have a progressive tax rate that has nothing to do with perceived fairness.