Taxes? You think the wealthy should be worried about something as paltry as taxes? If the present trends of concentrating more and more wealth in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population continues, they better start worrying guillotines.
Sothernxyl: Under a flat tax you still wouldn’t be able to pre-figure your taxes exactly, there will be a floor/std deduct/ exemption amounts. Under the current system, you can figure your taxes pretty damn close. A small refund has no appreciable interest.
Techchick: you make some good points. However, a 25% sales tax simply won’t work. note also that employees pay more in employment taxes than you; when an employer decides salaries, they calculate TOTAL cost of the worker. The employer paying half, just means he pays less out in salaries, the net is the same. TANSTAAFL
While I can appreciate, though not support, the desire for equity in taxation(I’m more in the socially responsible camp here) I would have to point out that sales taxes are not only not-progressive, they are in fact regressive. In other words, they tax the poor more than they do the rich.
Say that (poor)person x makes 100 dollars a year(yes I’m using that cause it’s an easy number) and rich person y makes 1,000,000 dollars a year.
X must spend, say, 90 dolllars a year on things that he needs, either for basic subsistence or to maintain his lifestyle, whichever.
Y must spend 200,000 dollars a year on things that he needs.
So, for X, 90% of his income is taxed at a rate of, say, 10%.
And for Y, 20% of his income is taxed at a rate of 10%.
In other words, overall, person x pays 9% of his income in taxes every year, and person y pays 2% of his income in taxes every year.
This is why a sales tax is not a good idea at all, taking more in taxes from the poor than the rich is indefensible as far as I’m concerned.
Both a tax on income and a sales tax may be either regressive, neutral, or progressive. The proportional qualities are independent of the type of transaction taxed.
So there are really two questions here:
Should we tax sales, income or both?
For each type of transaction taxes, should that tax be progressive, neutral or regressive?
Our current system has a somewhat progressive income tax (more income, higher percentage of income paid) and a somewhat regressive sales tax (less income, higher percentage of income paid).
I have to note for the sales tax that ordinary food is not usually taxed; thus perhaps a poor person who spends proportionally more on food might have a lower overall tax rate than a wealthier person who spends a larger proportion of his income on items that impose the tax.
If Cecil Adams did not exist, we would be obliged to create Him.
This is what I think should be happening, in general terms:
Federal income tax of 10% (including capital gains). Every working man and woman past the age of 16 will have 10% of their paycheck clearly taxed. No SS, Medicare or State taxes will taken from wage earners. Deductions (come April 15) can amount to no more than 25% of that 10%. I’m still split over Federal taxes on gasoline and trade goods (i.e., tariffs).
States may tax consumer goods, but may not levy income, property or inheritance taxes.
I’d also chop the IRS down to size and eliminate the unconstitutional armed enforcement division they use to violently raise revenue. No IRS agent should be permitted to forcibly enter taxpayers homes and confiscate personal property at gunpoint.
Oh, yeah, and all musicians and other artists are exempt from taxation. 
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Gee, Sake, in order todothat we would have to cancel social Security & cut spending by about 50-75%. A point can be made for cutting spending, or even shutting the Gov’t down entirely, but that is not what we are discussing here. It is nice to SAY a 10% tax rate, but you have to make it “revenue neutral”, ie bring in about the same amount of . Gee, I'd like 0 taxes on incomes under 1000000, but unless I can suggest a way to come up w/ the extra , I’m just babbling.
What “unconstitutional armed force” are you talking about? How many times have IRS “Jackbooted Thugs” broke down your door? The IRS does have a very few armed Agents, who arrest people for Tax Fraud, ect. They do not sieze property to pay taxes.
In other words, states can only use regressive taxation methods, and the government is restricted to neutral ones. Hm, I wonder who would benefit from this arrangement…