You misinterpreted my comment. I meant that the idea that some people's time is far more valuable than others is what helps invalidate his idea. What you said is what i meant to say

@Happy I was agreeing with your reasoning about the counter intuitive nature of some economic interactions.

I have to say I couldn'y be any more thoroughly uninterested in a conversation.

I think you might misunderstand my idea.

In a flat tax, the doctor would pay a lot more, because for the same effort he earns a lot more.

Let me put it this way.

let's say two people go in on a boat, and they agree when they buy it, that it will take 250 hours to restore. They both pay half for the boat, so they both own it equally, and they agree to do the work themselves (125 hours each). Also, let's assume one guy makes twice as much as the other guy. 

Each put 25 hours into it, and then the rich guy says "you know what let's just pay someone to do the other 200 hours".

Now, you could do this three ways.

1. One is you could hire a guy to do it, and split the cost down the middle. The problem with that, is you obligated the guy who makes less money to work twice as many hours to pay the guy, and thus "working" on the boat twice as much as the rich man.

2. Or, the rich man could pay twice as much as the other guy, and then in turn they put the same amount of hours into the boat.

3. You could also just have the rich man pay for it all, and the poor guy not have to put any effort into finishing up the other 200 hours.

of these three options, which seems the most right?

If you picked 2, why not apply that to a country we all equally own?

Charity is indeed an issue in a flat, or any tax system. On one hand, it's a loophole. Yet on the other, I have seen what charity does: It does a far superior job of society welfare than the government does. I feel that if all the government welfare was stopped, but instead invested into private charities...We would see more done.

Here would be my suggestion:

Impose a 'charity tax' on the flat tax system. What I mean by it is this: When a government would go to set up a flat tax, and set parameters for what the tax rate is, to add a surcharge to the tax. If the US government needed 25% of GDP to come in as tax revenue, it should charge 30%.

On the 30%, levy a 'charity deduction' for all people - rich, poor, blue collar, to deduct a portion (lets say 5%, or 1/6th of the net taxable income).

This way, if a poor person making $25,000 a year would give 10% away to charties, he wouldn't pay '$7,500' in taxes ($10,000 minus $7,500 equals a return of $2,500 on his taxes), but $6,250 (25% of $25,000) - therefore 50% of his deduction was returned to him as credit.

Again, it's my belief that such a 'loophole' should be there because a free society needs to give freely. But I do think that it's in the governments interest to have private people run charities. In this scenario, the government will always count on 25% of their revenue (or it could be any other number. It's simply arbitrary), and may get up to 30% in best-case scenarios.

Which is really sad on your part.  I mean it is a very good point when taken at face value.

If tax revenue never changes... tax increseases are worthless.

The data there is compelling.... of course one wonders what the REST of the taxes are doing.    For example if tax increases for the rich were being countered by decreases for the poor and middle class.  Whether lowering of rates were adjusted also with the closing of deductions etc.

This is hard to see because the it's revenue as a percentage of GDP for total taxes... and not % of GDP paid by the rich.

Which is really sad on your part.  I mean it is a very good point when taken at face value.

If tax revenue never changes... tax increseases are worthless.

The data there is compelling.... of course one wonders what the REST of the taxes are doing.    For example if tax increases for the rich were being countered by decreases for the poor and middle class.  Whether lowering of rates were adjusted also with the closing of deductions etc.

This is hard to see because the it's revenue as a percentage of GDP for total taxes... and not % of GDP paid by the rich.

Oh one thing I should add (my personal belief):

Tax laws create loopholes when they create a complex system. Taxes should be so simple, that they are virtually impossible to avoid, mis-interpret, or otherwise misappropriate the income, since they are essential for a functioning society.

In the case of charity, you aren't creating a loophole by deeming a portion of potential taxes to be available for charity distribution. You create loophole by relying on something that just isn't there - the possibility that a rich man may, or may not, be taking 40% of his taxable income away by giving it to charity, or appropriating it as a 'loss' due to some sort of investment.

Flat tax is this: The man making $1,000,000 a year will pay no less than $250,000 in taxes, and no more than $300,000. The fact is that, right this very second, a man making $1,000,000 may pay anywhere from $0.00 to $400,000 depending on his accountant is a sickening thing. As Kasz has said, our tax system just isn't working because it's too large, too hol-y and can be used and abused by everyone....Not a good way to run a government that is in a major deficit.

Well for an example... Warren Buffet pays less then his secretary does tax rate wise... and he doesn't even try to get out of anything.

I shared a cab with head of accounting for Disney once on the way to the airport (coming from a tax conference). He said the best way to collect tax, is to not have income tax at all, but through sales tax. He made some very compelling arguments, but sadly, I forget them all now.

Needless to say, I was all for it when I left the cab. After the free drinks in first class, I forgot most of it.