Comment Re:Or a simple way to fix it. (Score 1) 839
I'm interested in protecting the middle class. The poor don't need to be taxed and by removing them reduces the government subsidy required to help sustain them. The wealthy, because of the way are tax code is written often have a very low effective tax rate, so currently, it is the middle class with the biggest tax burden. Going to a system, like I (and many others) proposed, balances out the tax burden between the wealthy and the middle class so they both have the same tax burden.
You don't need a sliding scale if the tax rate is applied to all income instead of just wages. A sliding scale is the sign of a system that has built in inequities. However, with the current system, that favors the accumulation of wealth, if I am paid wages of $100,000, I am taxed higher than somebody who has the brunt of their income in the form of realized gains. Base taxes on all wealth and it doesn't matter how the money is made. That is part of the design behind consumption taxes except that you can shelter consumption taxes by investing it instead of spending it. Unfortunately, the middle class can't afford to set aside that much of their income to avoid paying taxes on it.
A flat tax on all income (no exemptions or deductions), whether you include a poverty break or not, is the fairest system. Everybody pays the same percentage of what they have.