Should we have a flat tax?

A flat tax is when everyone – no matter how much they make – pays the same percentage of their income in tax, say 15%. Currently, we have a progressive income tax, which means that if you make more you pay a higher percentage.

One side says:
(Flip all cards) (Flip all cards)

  • It's simple and fair.

    You earn a dollar, you pay fifteen cents. You earn a billion dollars, you pay a hundred and fifty million dollars. It's simple.

  • A flat tax makes gaming the system impossible.

    The current tax code is 70,000 pages long. Most of that is about ways of getting out of paying your share of taxes, which favors those with fancy accountants. A flat tax fixes that.

  • A flat tax will reduce the taxes of regular folks.

    The flat tax eliminates tax breaks, which means that some people pay much less than their share.

  • Rand Paul's Fair And Flat Tax
  • The Progressive Income Tax: A Tale of Three Brothers

The other side says:
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  • What makes the tax code complicated and unfair are the tax breaks.

    We can keep the different tax brackets and get rid of the tax breaks, and the tax code would be simple and fair.

  • A flat tax puts an unfair burden on those who earn less.

    The reason we have progressive tax brackets is because reducing your family's monthly take-home from, say, $3,300 to $2,800 is a far greater burden than going from $33,000 to $28,000.

  • Many of Conservatives' favorite thinkers have been in support of a progressive system of taxation.

    These include Adam Smith, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and George W. Bush.

  • Warren Buffet On Why U.S. Taxes Are Too Low For The Wealthy
  • A Moral Argument for Progressive Taxes - David Cay Johnston