Reply #15: Yeah remove the loopholes [View All]

[Ravenseye]

Even when the top tax rate was much higher than today, thanks to creative accounting, most of the people who fell into the ultra-rich bracket paid, percentage wise, less than nearly every other bracket. Unfortunately the tax code is so convoluted at this point, that it would almost make more sense to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch, except that wouldn't work.

My father tried to talk me into a flat tax as being the simplest way to go (he's a libertarian). Besides being a regressive tax, which wouldn't get any traction with him, I asked him how likely it would be that the tax code of the United States would become one page. Even if it was proposed as a 1 page flat tax, or any new tax system progressive or not, it would be hundreds, if not thousands of pages long before it was passed with tax exemptions for everything from farm equipment sales, to penthouse apartment rent credits. The wealthy would have more sway over these ammendments, and would probably end up paying even less than before.

So I'm with you. A progressive system with a higher top brakcet, where people actually have to pay their due. I just have no idea how to make it happen with our current system.