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This. As long as most people have to grind out their own calculations, you can't have both easy taxes and progressive taxation. It's all the bits and bobs that

This. As long as most people have to grind out their own calculations, you can't have both easy taxes and progressive taxation. It's all the bits and bobs that have been done to maintain and (over, arguably) refine the regime of progressive taxation that make the math complicated. The math is only truly easy under a flat tax.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> The math is only truly easy under a flat tax. The actual calculation of the amount due from the taxable income uses a lookup, which is equivalent difficulty under any scheme other than a flat capitation, where the table reduces to a single value, and even the GOP hasn't proposed a capitation. Getting from a collection of other information to the final taxable income is most of the complexity, as are things like credits that apply after the initial application of the rate. But there is nothing inherent about the flat vs. progressive rate distinction which drives practical calculation complexity, they are just orthogonal concerns where the popular one (simplification of calculation) is used as a tool to sell the one that is less compelling to the broad public on its own.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Bracketing isn't the only mechanism for progressive taxation at play. There's also EIC, child tax credit, AMT, and a whole zoo of other exemptions and credits and deductions, etc. Not to mention that the only reason a lookup is being used is to reduce opportunity for error in hand-calculating one's tax obligation. And it's also another big reason the current tax system doesn't fit on a post card: A pretty big chunk of the instruction booklet is those tax tables.
SilasX 8y ago
Tax complexity is mostly unrelated to bracketing (progressive or otherwise); it's mostly due the difficulties of computing "income" against the torrent of schemes out there to obfuscate it.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> The math is only truly easy under a flat tax. The actual calculation of the amount due from the taxable income uses a lookup, which is equivalent difficulty under any scheme other than a flat capitation, where the table reduces to a single value, and even the GOP hasn't proposed a capitation. Getting from a collection of other information to the final taxable income is most of the complexity, as are things like credits that apply after the initial application of the rate. But there is nothing inherent about the flat vs. progressive rate distinction which drives practical calculation complexity, they are just orthogonal concerns where the popular one (simplification of calculation) is used as a tool to sell the one that is less compelling to the broad public on its own.

bunderbunder 8y ago
Bracketing isn't the only mechanism for progressive taxation at play. There's also EIC, child tax credit, AMT, and a whole zoo of other exemptions and credits and deductions, etc. Not to mention that the only reason a lookup is being used is to reduce opportunity for error in hand-calculating one's tax obligation. And it's also another big reason the current tax system doesn't fit on a post card: A pretty big chunk of the instruction booklet is those tax tables.

SilasX 8y ago

Tax complexity is mostly unrelated to bracketing (progressive or otherwise); it's mostly due the difficulties of computing "income" against the torrent of schemes out there to obfuscate it.