In the US, we argue about two things with respect to politics. One is what's the responsibility of government, and two is who is going to pay for it. 

Here is why I think we need a flat tax.

First off, I need to explain what money really is. Money, is effort. It's a transfer if my time into something others want. A full time job in the US is 2080 hours a year. If the government says they want 25% of my income, they are taking 520 hours of effort from me to run the country.

My philosophy is everyone in this country needs to pitch in equally. We all own the country as a collective, and thus we all have a responsibility for it's upkeep collectively. Now, and example is in some farm communities, they have barn raisins for people who need a new barn. When they do this, everyone comes out and works for a day or two, to make it happen. It does not matter how much money you make. You owe the community x number of hours, and everyone pitches in equally.

Same thing should apply to the US. If they need 300 hours of everyones time to make it work, then they need 300 hours. Everyone pitches in, and then the rest of the time, is there time.

This means flat tax. If we had a flat tax, everyone puts in the same effort.

Here is the huge advantage of this:

When we talk about social programs, we can talk about them from the perspective that everyone will pay for them with the same level of effort. if you have to raise taxes 2% to pay for a program, everyone has to work 41.6 hours a year more to generate it. Everyone.

No longer, would you have a group of people voting for a program that requires another group of people to work to pay for. Everyone is equal. No longer will you have a group of people complaining about a program strictly because they have to pay for a benefit that's not for them. 

So to use healthcare for example. If you have government healthcare for all, and everyone contributed the same level of effort to pay for it, the only question would be is this something government should be doing. It's a much smaller debate then what we have today. Hell, many people who are against it would be all for it.

If the government collected taxes this way, we would have far less debates on what government should do. It would solve a huge number of other problems.

We need a flat tax, no exceptions. 

Its a compelling argument, mr. mafoo.

I'd like to see how a flat tax would affect the revenue system of the united states.

The way I see it, tax revenue would go WAY down if this were implemented, and the rich would become SUPER rich.

Theoretically, the extra money the rich would have would simply be spent investing into more business, thereby creating more jobs and a higher revenue base.


I think this would only be feasible if the government became SUPER STREAMLINED. Basically we'd be cutting back on everything; military, social programs, etc. etc.

We'd probably even see less money put into infrastructure, so there would probably be a lot more toll roads.

You're asking government to give up their power to change behavior through taxes. Politicians will never give any power back.

Ehh, I hope you realize how silly this is. The whole point of capitalism is that it's greatly flawed and it's not always fair, but it's the best damn system we have. If someone makes 10 times as much as someone else, they didn't work anywhere close to 10 times as hard. Part of pitching in is contributing to something, even if it doesn't relate to you.

When you were younger, you might have remembered having to clean up a mess (such as in preschool), even if you didn't contribute to it at all. Well, why is that fair? Because, if you're in the same situation, someone else might clean up the mess that you should clean up. I don't have any children, but I still pay taxes on education. And I'm happy to do it, because I recognize the value of children, and I hope to have some of my someday.

You speak about us all contributing to the country collectively, but that doesn't mean we can pick and choose what we want to pay for. This isn't some utopian capitalist system, we have to make due with what we have. A flat tax wouldn't make everyone put forward the same effort. People aren't robots, and they don't have jerk reactions. Flat taxes don't work due to simple rules of mathematics. Once you get to the higher levels of wealth, the percentages from a flat tax just aren't good enough. They don't need that extra money, and they got all that money from the work of other people. I don't have anything against this, but they shouldn't be complaining that they have to sacrifice slightly more of their vast wealth.

/thread

Montana = win

OT: I feel as though a flat tax is unfeasible in the USA. The reason is because the USA' distribution of wealth is so uneven as can be seen here. The bottom 20% of citizens in the USA only control 5.2% of the money, the next 20% only control 10.5% and the third 20% only control 15.6%. That's 31.3% wealth for 60% of the population. These people don't earn much money (obviously), The average wage in te USA is only $36,764 and they earn below this amount, but we will take this number as a given. Nw someone as rich as yourself (and that's a good thing) may feel as though these people should pay as much as you, but if you have a flat tax this would cripple their lives. According to the IRS the tax rate for this size household is 15%. Now because these people own suc an insignificant amount of wealth this means nothing to the IRS and if they implemented a fair tax system you taxes would only decrease by a few percent whilst theirs skyrocket to maybe 35% (due to the wealth they control being so insignificant) which would cause them to starve.

You may think progressive taxation is unfair, but because the distribution of wealth is so uneven is the flaw with the flat tax system. It may save you a few bucks, but 60% of the USa would need to seriously cut back, perhaps to the point of starvation.

I could do the maths but I haven't had my morning coffee yet lol.

Do you guys not know what a flat tax is?

To use your numbers Highwaystar, the bottom 20% of the country would only be paying 5.2% of the taxes.

And Montana, if you make 10 times more money, the government collects 10 times more money from you, because it took you 1/10th the effort to earn it.

If person A makes $10 and hour, and person B makes $1,000 an hour, and the tax rate was 25%, the government collects $2.5 an hour from person A, and $250 from person B. That's 15 minutes of each of there times.

And like "That Guy" said, we would need to streamline government, but if it becomes everyones responsibly equally (in effort, not money), then everyone would equally want to streamline it.

It's that saying. There are two kinds of money. My money, and your money. People treat them very differently, and for 40% of the voter base today, it's all your money.

With a flat tax, everyone will think of paying for programs from the perspective of "it's my money", and things will run vastly different imo.

Oh, and Akuma, please contribute or don't post. Trolling? I expected more from you.

That sounds a bit communist-like...

I don't really believe that anyone who makes 10 times more money put forth 10 times as much effort. They just found a way to make far more money for similar effort. They probably had to be clever to work there, and they likely had to work hard, but they still don't deserve that much money. It's not me hating the rich, it's just what I see from mathematics. There comes a point where the wealthy shouldn't be complaining about taxes. Now, for example, the government was taxing a wealthy person down to middle class income, I'd definitely side with them. But if you're a millionaire, billionaire, or anyone else with large amounts of money, you probably got most of it off of other people's work, and you're far past the point of living. You're even past the point of living luxuriously. If I had the money, I'd buy a Mercedes Benz for the safety features and to look snazzy. I don't need a yacht, nor my own private island. Sorry to go off on a rant here.

Point is, capitalism is a flawed system, and it needs to change with the market. That's why it's the best system, and that's why a flat tax contradicts it.

Ha ha. That flashed across my mind too.