So if we go from several progressive tax rates to a single rate, all of a sudden loopholes, deductions, incentives, the bureacracy, armies of accountants, and tax attorneys just disappear? Believers must be potheads.
This will let you make more sense of it..
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v29n4/cpr29n4-1.html
If only the repubs & dems could start towards that flat tax direction; dreaming I guess.
No matter how many income levels and tax rates the IRS comes up with it is a relatively simple thing to read your taxes owed off a table once you know your taxable income.
The complicated part about filling out a tax form is adding up all the different things that constitute income and subtracting all of the different things that are counted as deductions.
Bush, and even Thompson, who claim to be for tax simplification are/were contantly supporting tax "incentives", etc. which amount to additional pages of tax code leading to further complication.
Personally I would be willing to accept a little bit of progressivity in the tax schedule in exchange for the elimination of all or most deductions and "incentives".
We should do this for corporations first. No more "incentives" to invest in solar, or whatever other harebrained ideas they have. Just total up the profits and slap on a tax.
If so, then the job of "tax attorney" might be eliminated in our time.