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"Corporations that donate to Democrats, like GE, are exempt, of course." It makes no sense for any Corporation to pay income taxes for exactly the "VAT" effect you stated. Their money comes from customers. GE embedding an additional $50 in the price of every washing machine they sell, just so they can turn it over to the government is just silly. Worse than silly if it means customers choose the LG washing machine and that GE business dies away. We should completely abolish the Corporate income tax. That would eliminate half of the lobbying in DC as nobody needs tax favoritism when there is no tax to begin with. It would also make the USA the most tax-friendly place in the world for business. The Corporate income tax collects $300B/yr. The Individual income tax collects $1T. Total $1.3T/yr. A 10% truly flat tax on Individual incomes with no credits, no deductions, and no exemptions would also collect $1.3T -- a revenue neutral change in tax code. Who are the pathetic losers that can argue with a straight face that even a minimum wage worker shouldn't pay 10 cents out of every dollar they earn to pay for government ? If a truly flat tax is not politically feasible initially, I'd change the AMT so it applied to everybody, high and low, rather than only the high income taxpayer. If after all the credits, deductions, and exemptions your tax rate results in <10% of AGI, you still owe the 10%. If your tax rate results in >15% of AGI, then you only owe 15%. As the effectiveness of deductions dwindles, there will be less resistance to eliminating the hassle in favor of flat rates.