I was talking about flat income tax. Sales taxes without exceptions are actually regressive as the poor need to spend a higher percentage of their income to survive. A sales tax with exceptions doesn't avoid the complexity that people complain about with progressive taxes anyway.

For what its worth, I've never seen a proponent offer a flat tax plan that didn't include some sort of prebate system that had a simple exemption based on if the person filed separately or jointly. i.e. the first $15,000 of a single person's income or $30,000 of joint income was tax-free. After that number, the tax kicked in.

So a single person making $30,000 under such a system at, say, a 20% flat tax would have to pay $3,000 (20% of $15,000) while a family making $100,000 would have to pay $14,000 (20% of $70,000).

The attraction of a flat tax is that, outside of the poverty exemption, there are no loopholes. No millionaire will pay less than 19.9% of his income in taxes, without exception (assuming a 20% flat tax).

The atrocity of the American tax system is that corruption thrives in complexity. The higher the taxes and the more loopholes that exist, the more incentive there is for people to do what they can to reduce their burden. Its called the Laffer Curve effect. When you have a tax code that is 20,000 pages or so and has exemptions for everything, you can get away with a lot.

The problem with the consumption tax is while it sifts for revenues not made in America (fixing the problem of tax-haven corporations by simply forcing them to either pay the tax or not sell products in America at all), it is also a regressive tax and ends up hurting the bottom far more than the top.

More stringent progressive taxation is needed. Restore the payroll tax when hiring picks up (because no-one is going to hire someone that they wouldn't have been able to hire if it weren't for the payroll tax cut, unless we're talking about short-term employment), then destroy the Bush tax cuts. Streamline the military industrial complex by rewiring our defense strategy (the Cold War is over, yet the positioning of so many bases over the world leaves the other impression), and also by changing military procurement procedures to be more competitive, and plow that saved revenue into human welfare: health, social security, educational grants, scholarships. As human welfare improves, the need to spend as much on human welfare will ironically shrink, and in the long run less spending will be needed on matters of human economic rights.

If it were to bring capital gains and inheritance in line with everything else, i could favor a flat tax system structured this way.

IMO, capital gains != income

As for inheritance, I think that is a real tricky line, because the income has already been taxed once.

Yea, I realized my post wasn't what you were talking about while I was driving to work (a little too late).  I was thinking you were talking about a sales tax and not flat income.  It seems like no one can agree on a tax system for the US to use.  There are always pros and cons with most systems.  Seems like most have more cons than pros but there has to be something better than the current system.  What do you suggest?

Honestly, the middle class and "poor" are heavily impacted by the moronic economic policies of this (and previous) administrations. A light-weight and effective regulatory system, with a simple taxation system and low taxes benefits small companies which are the primary drivers of job growth; and successful small companies are far more likely to pay decent wages and give appropriate raises than large companies.

In contrast, the excessive regulation, tax system filled with bizzarre loopholes and exceptions, governments giving large subsidies to gigantic corporations, and high taxes all benefit large corporations.

Wouldn't that mean a sales tax would be progressive?  If the poor are spending a higher precentage of their income to survive... neccessities being exempt from a sales tax... wouldn't they be paying a lower tax rate?

The arguement for it being Regressive, would be that the rich unlike the poor, are unlikely to spend all of their money in one year.  The poor spending what's left of their money on entertainment and non essential things.

Example.  Say you spend 70% of your income on needs, and 30% on non-needs.   At 20% tax your paying 6% of your income to the state.

While if your super rich and spend 1% of your income on needs and like... 10% on non needs your paying 3% of your income to the state.  While the rest is presumibly making you money somewhere.

Although LONGTERM it'd still end up being progressive because all that money has to be spent sometime, and little of it would go toawrds needs.

Yeah, I'm opposed to sales tax as much as I am to income tax.