Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
Which tax?
Flat 0 (0%)
Progressive 5 (100%)
Total Votes: 5
Flat Tax vs Progressive Tax
Topic Started: Jun 24 2018, 11:49 AM (60 Views)
Soopairik
Member Avatar
Administrator
Which one do you think is better for society?

In a flat tax system, every person pays the same percentage of their income to the government.

In a progressive tax system, more rich people pay larger amounts of money to the government compared to their income.

Which system would you prefer to have?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Jinfengopteryx
Member Avatar

The progressive tax system.

While I'm not as "socialist" as I was a few years ago, I still see social inequality as undesirable.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ngc1514

You should add one more option: John Linder's Fair Tax.
Fair Tax

Pushed by Linder and conservative talk show host, Neal Boortz, it's not a bad plan as proposed. But, as with any tax overhaul, who knows what's actually going to come out the other end of the process. It is a consumption tax that taxes what you spend and not what you earn.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kyng
Member Avatar

In theory, I'd be open to supporting a flat tax, but only once poverty has been eradicated.

While poverty still exists, I fully support a progressive tax system.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ngc1514

Kyng
Jun 26 2018, 01:44 PM
In theory, I'd be open to supporting a flat tax, but only once poverty has been eradicated.

While poverty still exists, I fully support a progressive tax system.
Poverty will never be eliminated. Prices always rise faster than income and history is inflationary. Nixon tried wage and price controls and the result was awful. You could find a nice house, with low down payment, but the interest on the mortgage was 16%!

The point is there will always be people at the low end of the wage scale. Doesn’t matter if you set the minimum wage at $100 an hour, the cost of production will increase proportionally, the cost of everything will rise and they will still be at the bottom of the pay scale.
Edited by Ngc1514, Jun 27 2018, 01:00 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
earthling

Kyng
Jun 26 2018, 01:44 PM
In theory, I'd be open to supporting a flat tax, but only once poverty has been eradicated.

While poverty still exists, I fully support a progressive tax system.
The Fair Tax is pretty close to that. It is a flat national sales tax where everyone pays the same percentage, but includes a fixed annual rebate payment from the government to the citizens (they call it a 'prebate') that everyone gets. The 'prebate' effectively cancels the Fair Tax taxes paid by people up to a certain level of income.

The (huge) advantage would be eliminating the American federal income tax and all of its complicated and often unfair rules. That would save a tremendous amount of human time and energy Americans now spend on planning, avoiding, and filing income taxes--it's worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year or more, for free. That's pretty good. And the present very complicated system is undemocratic--you cannot evaluate and consent to the fairness of a system that is too complicated for anyone to understand.

I worry about the 'prebate' though. I do not like the idea of conditioning the entire population to expect a monthly check from the federal government, possibly of borrowed money when we are running budget deficits. And of course, it would take all of two seconds before politicians started campaigning on promises of larger and larger prebates.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ngc1514

That’s not what worries me. I think it wouldn’t take long for the politicians to see the need for a small income tax... taxes never go away.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · General Political Discussion · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Replied