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[theweaselking]

James Nicoll explains his plans for the true Flat Tax.

You know, I'm not a guy with a crazy tax plan, but I have yet to have anyone explain to me why the plan of "Exempt the first X income from taxes, tax the rest at a Y flat rate" is unworkable.

And, honestly, I think I really must be missing something, here, because nobody *does* it.

Define your poverty-plus-a-bit level - pulling a number completely out of my ass, say $25,000/yr.
Define your tax rate - from a similar location, let's say 20%.

The first $25,000 you make in a year, from any source, is tax-free.
The rest, no matter how little or how much it is, is taxed at the flat rate.

Calculate exemptions however you want, but simply make all exemptions count as additional money you can claim tax-free over your initial $25,000. If you want education to be subsidised, deduct tuition at accredited institutions from your total earned income. Want to encourage children and make things easier for families? Add $10,000 per dependent child to the allowed "no-tax" amount.

Obviously, I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass. That's not the point. The point is, in PRINCIPLE, what am I missing? Why does this not actually work?

Comments

[drjamez.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you've had a chance to read the Wikipedia on Flat Taxes, but it does address both pros and cons. Hopefully, something there will answer your question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax

- James -

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

But every one of the suggested plans that they're arguing against has a blatant "screw the poor" component added, like Forbes' definition of what should be taxed as "income minus savings", leading to the poor being heavily taxed as a percentage of their income and the rich paying damn near nothing, or Armey's total exclusion of everything except wages paid from an employer as untaxable.