Personally there is no such thing as fair in taxes or even in life. there is only what "the people" can agree on via their representatives. one way to rational

Personally there is no such thing as fair in taxes or even in life. there is only what "the people" can agree on via their representatives. one way to rationalize it is like insurance. someone protecting a 100K house pays much less than someone protecting a 500K house. It might not be linear with the value of the house. Your share of the military is larger than someone that makes less because the military is creating more value for you by protecting more assets. Your share of the SEC is because you receive more value from the SEC than the poor etc It is value based taxation instead of cost based taxation. Is that really less fair? In the end the only thing that matters is 1) enough taxation to pay for the things "the people" want. 2) minimize the drag that taxation causes on the economy.