The proportion of tax paid is the same at any income level. Anything that would counteract any "regressive" tax system would have to happen on the personal income side. Which means better education, opportunities, etc., to increase income levels.
I'd support a rule though that said if you make less than the poverty line (around 32k I believe?), you pay no income tax at the federal level.
It's regressive in that it causes the poor to pay more than they do now. With regard to taxes, progressive and regressive have specific meaning.
> The proportion of tax paid is the same at any income level.
I don't believe this is true. You'll have to back up a statement like that with references, rather than just repeating it continuously.
What you are talking about is the effective tax rate. That said, you might find this table of effective tax rates by quintile[1] interesting, as it directly disproves that point.
1: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-average...
Under that meaning, a flat tax is the border between progressive and regressive taxation. It is not an example of a regressive tax.
Increasing the amount that poor people pay makes a tax scheme relatively more regressive, but if it's no more regressive than a flat tax, it's still not "regressive".
That depends entirely how you measure. If you measure by total income, then yes. If you measure by income after necessities for living are accounted for, then a very simple progressive tax that takes that into consideration might be considered the baseline, and a flat tax that doesn't take that into consideration could be considered regressive. On the other end of the spectrum, if you make people account for all subsidized government services used and count that as income, then a flat tax is progressive. Without an agreement on the baseline for measurement (which I believe is where a lot of people start disagreeing), you can't even necessarily agree on what is progressive and regressive.
If the rate is 10%, the proportion of tax is the same, whether you make $10 or $1 million, you are still paying 10% of your income.
Yes, the effective tax rate collected. The reference you provided only supports my claim. It looks like the effective tax rate, which is the actual rate collected by the IRS is around 20% since 1979. I'd have to find it, but if you take the data all the way back to the New Deal, the effective tax rate is around 17%. Most likely due to it being easier to "hide" income back then.
Regardless, the effective tax rate has stayed around 17-22% over almost the last century, despite the large differences in the tax rates at different brackets. Remember, the top rate during the Eisenhower administration was 90%. Yet the effective tax rate average was unchanged.
Exactly why do you believe that since the total percentage of income collected hasn't really changed that means a flat tax is a good idea? The reason for a progressive tax is not to raise the total amount of taxes collected, but to change which people it is collected from proportionally. I'm not sure what the total percentage collected has to do with that.
A family earning $50K will have $40K left after federal taxes to live on. A family earning $250K will have $200K left to live on. One of these families is hurt more than the other by a flat tax. This is what is meant when a flat tax is criticized as being regressive.
A single "family" of one making 50k though should most likely be paying their portion of tax, whatever the tax rate is. At some point an individual has to be accountable and live within their means.
So in the end, the tax rate would be flat, but effective tax rate would not.
Also, a single "family" of one, pays more in taxes today then say a family of four with 2 kids earning the same household income. Apologies ahead of time if I misconstrued your argument.
