eagleseven, flat-taxes are macroeconomically inept,
That's only if you assume that the poor can grow economies faster than the rich...a Keynesian fallacy.
moreover the effective burden of tax is not flat, just the rate. i see sales tax and point of sales VAT as equally inept, and not likely a constitutional recourse of congress in the US. these are shit policies which only romania would combine. they do so out of cluelessness. the US tax system is one of the best laid in the world, and offers greater potential to support business while funding the largess than do other systems in place elsewhere.
I disagree. The US Tax system is a haphazard collection of idiotic rules and endless loopholes thrown together by a hundred Congresses all jockeying to buy the votes of their respective generation.
It is proof that you can make a flawed system functional by pouring enough money into it.
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Do you know any tax accountants who sing the praises of our tax system? Do you know anyone who loves to do their taxes?
i think tax accountants sing opera when they are in annual demand. maybe not to our faces.
loving to do your taxes is not the sort of positive characteristic i had in mind. the system of expensibility which is unique to our tax code in the degree which it is implemented is. while this is a mass of cobbled loopholes, i dont think it's idiotic. it coerces our economy more effectively and with lesser repercussions than systems like those in much of europe, for example. i feel this role is crucial to a tax system in that it rewards investment and the displacement of government burdens within the private sector.
on progressive tax, i contend this is more fundamental to classical capitalist economics than to keynesianism. keynes likely considered it a given, as all competent tax systems work progressively, and it is advocated by pillars like adam smith a over a century prior.
because our tax system targets uninvested retained earnings, the argument that the rich can grow the economy fastest is rendered moot. those inclined are coerced to do so, while a portion of what they've
not invested is put in the hands of the government.
i argue that the government which commonly invests in excess of tax revenue into the economy will 'grow the economy' to a greater degree with those same funds than if they were left to hoarding -- another classical capitalist economic concept related to uninvested retained earnings -- or luxury consumption alone.
where the government is charged with the wellbeing of its constituents and the stewardship of an economy with the sort of popular demand base (your keynes observation) capable of supporting the consumption and commerce which constitute a good business environment, it is counterproductive to tax folks out of their expendable income in an effort to salvage uninvested retained earnings from higher earners whose subsistence is substantially smaller in ratio to what they make. flat taxing would be bad economics, moreover the externalities could be even more problematic.