The only flat tax would be to make everone pay so many dollars a year. Even the rich people.
We are all citizens, so why sould people that work harder than I do, pay more?
Are they just lucky?
Actually every citizen should only pay in proportion to the benefit they receive from this nations as measured by their consumption of goods and services, not by what they contribute to the nation in their productivity as measured by their income.
[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, XIII,c.14:]
- "A capitation is more natural to slavery; a duty on merchandise is more natural to liberty, by reason it has not so direct a relation to the person."
--Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention June 12, 1788:
- "the oppression arising from taxation, is not from the amount but, from the mode -- a thorough acquaintance with the condition of the people, is necessary to a just distribution of taxes. The whole wisdom of the science of Government, with respect to taxation, consists in selecting the mode of collection which will best accommodate to the convenience of the people."
That which was held to be true then has as much to recommend it today.
- "A nation cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no government will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had at all events. In this country, if the principal part be not drawn from commerce, it must fall with oppressive weight upon land."
- "The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury."
- It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. ... Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of indirect taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part of the revenue raised in this country.
"Let me see if I understand you. An NRST collected by retailers tacking on 30% onto everyone's goodies, is somehow to be equated with a 2% tax that would only hit the richest two percent."
I wasn't equating tax rates. I was pointing out that what starts out small and simple may not remain that way. The NRST, even if enacted as proposed, will change just as the original income tax changed. The solution is not to change the way of taxation but to reduce the size of government.
"ROTFLMAO, half the voting population pays no income tax, and has no reason to even file a tax return much less write a check to the treasury. Many of them infact receive money from the treasury via the EITC."
They all pay Social Security.