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Originally Posted by MartinSE

All true.

The top 10% pay a rate of 19% and average 175,000 (three-year-old data, sorry), so they pay around $30K in taxes if they don't have any deductions (they do, like MOST have a home mortgage). Leaving them $145,000 to try to get by on.

Bottom 10% make under $15,000. So, a 17% tax would be $2500, leaving them to try to get by on $12,500.

The point of a progressive tax base is that the burden is more of a burden the lower your income.

At around bottom 15%, income is still only around $25,000, so 17% would be about $4,000, leaving around $21,000.

The poverty level in the US is defined at $21,000 for a family of 3. That means a 17% tax rate would place half of those in the bottom 15% from not in poverty (barely) to in poverty,

I have no problem with everyone paying their fair share, but let's start with raising the corporate tax to where it was under Reagan, 38.5% instead of the 21% they are currently paying. And oh, yea, how about the top 1% of corporations pay something instead of nothing?

I think a company earning $25B paying an actual 12% would be less of a burden than a person earning $15,000. However, as we know, many corporations don't actually pay any taxes.

Personally, I disagree with a flat rate it sounds simple and fair, but I don't think it is.

I think a progressive rate that shares the burden equally with NO deductions is much fairer. Say start at 5% at the bottom end and go to maybe 20% at the top.

During Regan, corporations paid 38%, and everyone cheered because of the huge tax cut from over 50%.

And while at it, let's toss the 34,000 pages of tax code that allow the rich and companies to play games and stop filing tax forms yearly. With a fixed rate and no deductions, the government could just take the taxes out of people's income from the person paying them.

And EVERYTHING counts as income, all those corporate perks, cars, drivers, travel expensive accounts, entertainment expense accounts - you know, ALL those things the poor do not get to enjoy, but anyone making over $100K gets some of, and those making over $1M get a LOT of (private jets?).

Simple and fair.

As someone else said earlier, what's this got to do with climate change?