[henry quirk]

"...plan would hurt you the poorer you are, and benefit you the richer you are."

"A recipe for aristocracy."


And this would be different than things are NOW in what way?

I get the whole 'regressive' thing of my proposal, but, consider...

Leave the income tax exactly as it (on all levels) with one crucial difference: anyone making $20,000 or below pays nothing; anyone making $1 million or above pays 90% (state and federal combined) (those folks in-between you can gradate as you like).

The million dollar earner (the lowest amount one can earn and legitimately be considered a 'millionaire') still walks away with $100,000 after taxes.

Changing nothing in the tax system and making it incredibly burdensome on the rich guy still nets the rich guy $80,000 more than the poor guy.

Bump it up to a fellow making 400,000,000 annually: paying 90% (state and federal combined) in taxes and he still walks away with $40,000,000.

*shrug*

My proposal isn't perfect (I never said it was). But -- if equity is the issue -- my proposal is much further down the road to putting the control of taxes in the hands of individuals (which, seems to me, to be the whole point of 'equity').

#

"The rich wouldn't be taxed on the extra left over."

That depends on what you mean by the 'extra left over'.

For example: every investment is a service rendered (pay the tax), the on-going service of a bank (or banks) watching over your money (pay the tax), etc.

Couple the taxes with no exemptions, loopholes, credits, cuts, lower rates based on kind of service or product, and the field gets evener.

Unless rich guy is taking his moola and burying (in many, many, many) coffee cans in his very large back yard, that money will be involved in transactions regularly and, therefore, taxed.