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Would a flat tax be simpler?
	"Our annual tax ritual requires more than 26 hours from the average person filing a standard 1040, and more than 60 percent of Americans will seek professional help. The reason: the U.S. tax code now exceeds 60,000 pages, and those pages often give conflicting advice. In fact, the U.S. Treasury Department now estimates the total cost of complying with the income tax at $125 billion a year. Under a flat tax, all income would be taxed only once and at one rate. All deductions and credits would be eliminated, lowering the overall tax rate. This idea is so popular with the American people because it embraces the core belief that all Americans, rich or poor, should be treated equally before the law. No more favoritism toward some citizens and harassment of others. It's just a simple tax system that allows Americans to file their taxes without frustration and without costing the economy billions of dollars. "
Although a flat tax on the surface may seem to be a good and fair solution, it may also have many inherent flaws. Most agree that the wealthy will feel no effect from a flat tax while it may greatly effect lower and middle class households. It seems that a flat tax has as much to do with the question of fairness as it does with simplicity. It is questionable however whether it would indeed reduce complexity to the tax system and taxpayers in practice.

4 comment(s) so far

JBonnin thinks: The notion of a flat tax is always tempting, since we don´t really know what taxes we are paying for in a gratuated tax system.

The problem is that this would benefit only a wealthy minority, increasing pressure over poor and middle-class.

Maybe a good choice to simplify our tax system without affecting income distribution would be to reduce the amount of exemptions and deductions, which favor mostly the wealthy exclusively.

idesign thinks: I think a flat tax is far too simplistic approach. Why not just add higher sales tax to everything we buy rather than focus on income tax. There are countless illegal residents that would then contribute to a system that they inevitably take advantage of. States focused on tourism would bring in more income from outside their state. Rich people buy more products and therefor would pay more tax. Poor people would buy less products and therefor pay less tax. Makes sense to me.

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