Quote:
Originally Posted by nwarounder
All Americans should pay the same tax rate, as equals. The more money you make the more dollars you pay. No deductions for being a good christian, having a jet, kids, poor, etc.
No spin on who who pays more by intermingling tax rates vs. total tax dollars paid. No matter what side of the fence you are on, only a moron would be unable to interpret the difference.
Oops sorry, didn't directly answer your question: The same rate as the 99%.
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If you were starting a system from a clean sheet this might work. That doesn't mean it would be "fair" or "ballanced" or the right thing to do. It may be one alternative that works.
It would also be "equal" if everyone paid the same amount.
Neither of those--nor an accelerated tax that pays a higher rate as you earn more--is inherently more right or more wrong.
The bigger problem are deductions. All politicians use them to foster what they want to support but can't pass a more overt law for. These often are much more unjust than the rates, whatever form the rates take.
The problem is retroactively changing the rules. Example:
A person buys a home and factors in the tax break to determine it's affordable. They do everything right and play by the rules as written the day they bought the house. Tomorrow you change the rules and remove the deduction. Now they can't paiy their mortgage.
Easy answer--and maybe the right answer--is to grandfather them in and say all homes bought from now on will not allow the deduction. That is going to be perceived as inequitable by many: you and I live in identical houses across the street yet you get several hundred a month in tax breaks but I don't.
Supply and demand will likely then drive housing prices (a very artificially priced commodity anyway) down substantially as lots of people cannot afford the same priced house they used to be able to afford. Now the people grandfathered in are also angry because the price of the house they bought dropped almost overnight.
About the only people you can count on to not be upset are people living in a paid off home who don't plan on selling it.
We almost always vastly oversimplify the human emotions of self interest.
