Sway the Undecided

[John]

So a person relying on an income of $25,000/year should pay the same percentage as a wealthy person making $1,000,000/year?

Assume a 20% tax rate - Joe Blue Collar is out $5,000 - and he'll miss every penny of that. Bill Gates pays $200,000 but keeps $800,000 - and I'm sure he'll be eating Ramen noodles because of it.

So is that fair? Or does it disproportionally impact the low-income folks? I agree that the current taxation system in this country is broken, but I don't think that a flat tax is the solution...

The current tax code is ridiculously complex true and it needs to be massively simplified. However, the reason I don't agree with flat tax for the most part is that it has a disproportionate effect on people who don't make much money. If you make $1 million a year, 10% tax doesn't mean anything to you. If you're working poor making $15,000, that $1500 is going to hurt you a lot more.

Of course I don't know how the numbers work out. Maybe we could have a flat tax of 7 or 8 percent and be fine. In the end there does need to be tax code reform.

I never stated that ALL basic deductions / exceptions be thrown out. Fact is that the "lower income" people don't pay the full flat tax since they are entitled to basic exemptions, plus the standard one. So somebody making less than $20K / year really won't be paying anything to the government.