I don't see why everyone has such complicated ladder systems ...
Determine what the cost is to adequately cover the essential needs in life (food clothing and shelter), and tax people equally on all money earned beyond that point. Ultimately, it would (probably) work out to being $12,000 to $18,000 tax free for an individual ($24,000 to $36,000 for a couple regardless of who earns it) and an tax rate of 20% to 25% on money earned beyond that point. You don't have tax deductions, you don't have tax credits, and you simply stop trying to promote certain lifestyle choices with your tax code. At the end of the year your tax return could be on one side of a single page of paper in a machine readable format; and the efficiency gains would be dramatic being that the IRS would (realistically) need 10% as many employees, and countless accountants hired to dissect the insane tax code would be out of business.
