This would (according to the Amazon link):

Make America’s tax code truly voluntary, without reducing revenue
Replace today’s indecipherable tax code with one simple sales tax
Protect lower-income Americans by covering the tax on basic necessities
Eliminate billions of dollars in embedded taxes we don’t even know we’re paying
Bring offshore corporate dollars back into the U.S. economy

Think about it; since people will pay taxes based on their consumption so it does create a progressive tax system. This will render the argument that the rich can shield their income moot. You want to live in a mansion and drive a Lamborghini? You’ll pay the appropriate taxes to do so.

I see it as incentive. People have offshore accounts for various reasons, primarily because it benefits them in one way or another. So other people get the finances and monies, while the funds are transfered away from America.

In terms of law, law should be made so as to give rewards to people to do the right thing and to punish when the wrong action is taken.

There are many laws that do things right and wrong. And even the right law, won’t always work as intended.

Whatever form of taxation is imposed, however fair and enlightened it purports to be, somebody will attempt to beat it.

The aim is not eliminating tax fraud or greed. The aim should be to make it easier for honest folks to be honest, and harder for dishonest folks to be dishonest.

You think if people hire lawyers to find ways to beat taxes at 38 percent, that if the tax rate is reduced to 20 percent, they will hire 18 percent fewer lawyers, or spend 18 percent less time to evade paying? Sorry, guys, it don’t work that way.

I think it does work that way, because it is called the law of diminishing returns. As demand goes down, and supply goes up, along the z axis of time, they will hire less tax evading lawyers because they won’t need them as bad. A flat tax means there are no excemptions that lawyers can “find” out. It is flat, there is no loopholes, or least fewer loopholes. So hiring lawyers just spends money that doesn’t do anything to get more money. People hire lawyers because it saves them money, even with what they pay per hour. Make it so that the system causes people to spend more than they get back from tax lawyers, and you create a system that prevents abuse instead of invites.

Someone who gets taxed 60% might find it very pleasant to hire a lawyer for .5% of his income, to save 10% on taxes. It doesn’t matter how honest a person is, if he believes the price too high for survival, he will cheat. The goal should be to make it easier on honest people, and try to find ways to discourage the dishonest.

I’m not for the flat tax for the equitability so much as for the simplicity and cost/time savings. Besides, it reduces the IRS and gov mint bureacracy. Aren’t people for that?

I’m perfectly fine with rich Democrats like Barclay who says his Bush tax returns was just another blackjack game to him, being taxed at 60-70%. I have no moral, ethical, or systemic complaints about that. Does anyone?

Which you in your job know perfectly well.

I don’t care about other people’s returns, but I object strenuously to political BS.

There ought to be one of those guys who rode in triumphal processions in ancient Rome in the chariot right behind the conquering hero, whose job was to whisper into the hero’s ear as the parade wound along: “this too will pass.”

Only in the case of Schumer, Clinton, Pelosi, Kennedy et al, it would be someone standing at their elbow who would reach out and smack them every time they began: “the rich need to…” BAM! Right in the chops.

Could only do them - and all of us - good.

Then what the hell do you care about people with higher incomes paying higher tax rates?

And envy is certainly helped along by one political party that specializes in it.

Not sure what it has to with Ann Coulter - but then, I came in late.

As soon as you start tinkering with that straightforward proposition, such as : “A has more (a bigger basis) than B does, therefore A should pay more because he/she/it can afford to” - it may be fine, it may fit your definiton of “fair,” but that’s no longer equality, and is therefore by definition not equitable.

“Progressive” anything by definition can’t be equitable.

If 20% of me is bigger than 20% of you, then the IRS will indeed collect more from me than from you - equitably.

Great IRS answer, though Z - “I don’t see anything wrong with the wealthy paying a higher rate. They have more money after all.”

Class envy, in a nutshell.

In a global economy, with Japanese and French subsidized companies, putting a tax on the profits of these companies, lowers their ability to compete and therefore destroys American companies and thus American jobs.