10% is 10%. It doesn't matter how much one starts with, the 10% will "hurt" the same. It will "hurt" 10%.

The issue comes down to failure of the government and people managing money wisely.

I always say if I lose my job today I’ll be Democrat tomorrow. While that’s not true I’m sure my current position in life has everything to do with how I feel about taxes.

Flat tax sounds good, but then you got the question of how do you get to that "income" number. If you eliminate depreciation, amortization, and interest deduction you would kill small business and real estate.

Really both. Lower income pay nothing so I think they should pay at least some percentage. However, I am ok with highest incomes paying a slightly higher rate.

This.

Never said I like the present tax system, national sales tax and do away with the IRS and income tax, that way when you buy your $80K pickup truck you pay a tax.

"10% is 10%. It doesn't matter how much one starts with, the 10% will "hurt" the same. It will "hurt" 10%." and this is really flawed thinking. If a 300 pound woman loses thirty pounds and a 100 pound woman loses ten, who would be less affected?

Bingo.

Yeah......that's flawed. I dont think yall have thought this one through.

Can anyone apply $ income ranges to the % brackets?

10-15% national sales tax - that way everyone has skin in the game - legal, illegal, tourist - everyone pays.

Add in a transaction tax on real estate and do away with property taxes also.

^^^^ this

Also, I have a niece who makes less than 30k per year and has two girls (her choice) and her tax return is income to her. What I mean by that is her return for the tax year 2018 was 7,500...she paid in less than 4,000. W.T.F? I'm good with her paying $0 but to actually get more back than she paid in. Something is broken...

they don't want her starting the riots.

Yep, some make 15k with 4 kids and get back 10k...... makes no freaking sense.

These are the same folks that believe wealthy people are evil and greedy. Feel the Bern! Pay their fair share! All the while the wealthy folks are supporting their dumass existences. Truly clueless. Let's demonize the American Dream.

I can't wrap my head around the idea that it is greedy for somebody to want to keep what they earned, but somehow *not* greedy to want what somebody else has earned.

Being poor shouldn't feel good! There should be no incentive to live that way IMO. It should feel uncomfortable, so much so you want to get out of that life. You want to do better for you and your family. But hey what do I know.

How did it take three pages for someone to say this?

Scroll down and there's a chart:
https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

10%--$14,600
25%--$31,200
50%--$63,000
75%--$113,000
90%--$184,200
95%--$248,300
99%--$475,116

At first glance the idea of a flat tax seems not just simple but also equitable. When I first heard about it in the late 90’s I was intrigued.

Since then, after many years in business I’ve adopted a driving principle, for any compensation plan to be successful it must provide the right incentive to drive mutually beneficial behavior. Also, I’ve learned over time if you change horses midstream unexpected and unfair consequences happen to people that made long term investments based on long standing tax code.

Food for thought, for a moment put aside the mindset that taxes are the fuel our wasteful government squanders, most of us can agree on that. Now think about taxes in a new light, as the comp plan that not only funds our sleazy government, but even more importantly, consider how important tax rules are when viewed as a major steering force that drives our economy.

Specific deductions and tax shelters allow people with money to justify spending money to make money. If both individuals and corporations had a flat tax with no deductions spending behavior as we know it would drastically change. That means our economy would drastically change.

What happens if employers can no longer expense payroll, R&D, or any other business related expenses that are currently deductible? What happens if investors can no longer write off risky ventures like oil exploration, real estate, biotech or even bad debt?

A couple of my mentors served as advisors to President Reagan during his first term. Ironically both of them lost fortunes when the 1986 Tax Reform removed the real estate tax shelters they had heavily invested retirement funds in. Sure they were rich and survived but losing the tax shelter caused big money to bail on real estate and was a major contributing factor to the real estate bust. Millions of common people were hurt financially because a tax shelter was taken away that at first glance seemed to only help the top 1 percent...

While most of us hate paying taxes, the current federal income tiered tax rates for individuals are not so bad, especially when you dig in and look at the actual net rate. As an example, a married couple filing jointly only pays a net rate of 20 percent up to $326K, 23 percent up to $414K, 27 percent up to $622K and 30 percent for $1million.

I could easily see a flat tax actually increasing most people’s taxes and more importantly, as others have said, there is no way it wouldn’t increase. The big issue is losing deductions and current tax shelters businesses and investors count on. That would most likely cause a financial train wreck.

Because most people are employees, not employers........

Maybe they make less-risky ventures or do a better analysis up front? And if you have to describe the tax brackets as 'not so bad'...

The main point of the fair tax is simplification and everything you are asking about becomes set when you pick the % of the tax. If it's done as an income tax, then you average out that a company currently gets to write off all these things, reducing their gross income from 3mil to 1mil but increasing their net income from 333k to 1mil. But their tax rate is reduced from 33% to 11%, so in the end they pay the same $110k in taxes. I realize that's a pretty simple scenario and that there would be large adjustments, but it can work. 'Tax shelters' only exist because somebody wanted to take advantage of someone else and got a law making it legal for them to do so.

Even amongst the top 1% there is a massive disparity in incomes between the top and the bottom.

This is true. 95-99% of people on this forum would see their tax rate increase if we went to a flat tax....

The 300 pound (now 270) woman's husband.

This reminds me of an Obamacare story. There was this guy who went to college at the same time I did. From there our paths took different turns. I bought the business I went to work for and he (thirty years later) was still doing his work as a night auditor at a local hotel. He advised he had not done as well as I and he needed that there free health insurance. Obamacare came to be and he end up not securing the insurance to pay the tax instead. It was less expensive for him and his income was too high to get free coverage. yes, Obamacare ended up costing him more.

The point being the talk of a flat tax without deductions might actually increase income taxes for most wage earners. Many here seem to think it would reduce them for everybody. Almost every bit of this is gritching about not liking what they have to pay.