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If the US went to a flat tax, would the "poor" still be taxed unfairly?

• andbberger 8y ago
  Sure if it's still as difficult to file as it is now. I'm not talking about a literal tax
• tstrimple 8y ago
  Yes. Fair doesn't necessarily mean equal. A 10% tax could eat up literally all the disposable income of someone who is barely scraping by, but is hardly noticed by a person who is bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
  • jniedrauer 8y ago
    In a fair society, it would become more and more challenging to move up the economic ladder as you reach higher levels. In our society, life gets easier as you move up. Beyond a certain threshold, you can set up a self-maintaining rent seeking empire and stop working entirely, while your wealth accumulation continues to accelerate.
• clarkmoody 8y ago
  Well, you've got dozens of different taxes out there, and most of them are regressive. A "flat tax" income tax would probably have a lower bound number below which your taxes scale linearly down to zero. But tweaking the income tax does nothing for the other payroll extractions. Or the gasoline excise tax. Or the sales tax. Or property tax (paid through rent). Or tariffs. Or the hidden tax on the everyone: inflation. That paycheck doesn't go quite as far each year, does it? Beyond that, you've got land-use controls and building restrictions that artificially drive up the cost of housing close to job centers. Then school zones create more barriers. You'll spend more time commuting, which means the rest of your life is more difficult. And buying a car is more expensive as the regulatory burden on auto-makers increases year after year. Unfortunately, this is where many say, "Well the government just needs to help those in need." So taxes go up. Rent control is added. Rinse & repeat.
• fwip 8y ago
  Flat is simple, not fair.