Why do citizens support a flat tax?

It would be a public service to post your dealer's contact info.

 

The idea of a flat tax without serious exceptions/deductions is pretty stupid, at least in the sense of workability. A flat tax that raises enough revenue to run the country at anywhere near average spending levels is going to be wildly regressive. A flat tax that makes up for its regressivity with exceptions/deductions isn't going to raise enough revenue to run the country. See any analysis of Cain and Perry's respective plans for plenty of evidence of that: Cain's play is wildly regressive and *still* doesn't raise anywhere near current revenue levels. Perry's plan is slightly less regressive because of certain deductions, and it also fails to raise enough revenue to run the country (of course, both of those plans nix other revenue-raisers outside the income tax, like taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest, the payroll tax, the estate tax, etc.).

What's lost in the "fairness" debate about the progressive tax structure is that everyone theoretically* pays the same rate on the same amount of money. A person making $250,000 pays the same rate on his or her first $50,000 as someone making only $50,000, the same rate on the first $100,000 as someone making $100,000, etc. So in that sense, a progressive income tax is perfectly fair.

*"Theoretically" because deductions, tax credits, etc change the overall effective tax rate, obviously.

 

This is a perfectly reasonable answer with which I happen to disagree, policy-wise. It was option No. 1 in my original post.

However, it doesn't explain the large percentage of people who think that they would be better off under a flat tax. You understand that you would be worse off. But you're a middle-class Warren Buffett, in that you are OK with that.

 

What's even dumber than a flat tax is this idea:

http://johntreed.com/headline/2011/04/25/abolish-the-income-tax/

Everyone, regardless of income, pays the same amount, not the same percentage of their income, the same amount of money, due on their birthday, each year.

The guy says "This tax law would, over the course of a normal life span, collect the same amount form each resident of the U.S. That would be a fair tax to pay for the limited services supplied to each member of the public equally. Warren Buffett does not get any more national defense than a plumber. There is no logical or moral basis for making him pay any more."

Uh yes there is a moral and logical basis. Warren Buffett can afford to pay more. $11,000 or so a year is a much smaller percentage of his income than mine and would be an undue hardship for me.
And no, I don't want my wages garnished for some bullshit reason as if I'm a deadbeat dad or something.

 

Warren Buffett has a lot more to lose from a failure of national defense. So he pays more for it.

 

Here's where his logic fails: People who have kids use more services, like the roads, and benefit from those services times however many kids they have. People who are single only benefit once. So how do we work that out under his system? When I pointed out that Americans are mostly stupid, stupid, stupid and can't even do their own taxes, that's what the problem is. Because they never do them, they don't really understand the tax system. So they think the idea of the "flat" or "fair" tax is good, just because they use the terms "flat" or "fair" to describe them.

 

The NYT column points out that there really isn't anything simpler about Cain's tax plan. The brackets are the easiest part about the IRS Code. The hard part is doing all the exemptions and write-offs. Those would still be there.

 

Intelligence-deficient people like Cain's plan because it's "simple" and "fair."

OK, how about this?

According to latest estimates, the US budget in FY 2012 will be $3.729 trillion.

According to latest estimates, the US population 2012 will be 315 million.

Run the numbers.

Every single person in the United States pays $11,838.10.

No exceptions, no deductions, no deferments, no credits, no age-indexing, no nothing. Everybody has the same "skin in the game." Cradle to grave.

Totally simple and totally fair.

(Plus, we've balanced the budget, which many of the same people want to do!!)

Let's do it.

 

That's what that John T Reed character proposed in the link I posted.

 

Yeah, I read your link while I was editing my last post.

Reed wimps out because he age-indexes -- for some bizarro world reason he doesn't want people paying any taxes until they turn 24. Why should the whipper-snappers age 0-23 get a free ride?

TOTALLY simple and TOTALLY fair. Everyone pays the exact same amount.

 

It's ok to post racial slurs about Republicans. Didn't you get the memo?

 

At this point, is there anyone outside of Cain himself who thinks Cain could actually win the presidency? I know that's not the point of this thread, but I just have a hard time seeing any of this come to fruition. Obama's going to campaign on "I got bin Laden." Cain, fairly or not, will be cast as the philandering corporate exec. And all this hand-wringing over his proposed revenue plan will be moot. I'm convinced that even if by some miracle he gets elected, Cain will never get this plan past Congress.