The USA has a “progressive” tax system (with “tax brackets”)…should the USA KEEP or CHANGE this fundamental aspect of US individual income taxation?

[Anonymous]

Picture from article 1 below

Reference article 1: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/federal_income_tax.asp

Reference article 2: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/progressivetax.asp

Note 1: This question is a follow-on to another question…

Do the “rich” in the USA pay their “fair share” of taxes?

…and was specifically inspired by @richardcory ‘s opinion on that question.

Note 2: There purposely is NO OTHER ANSWER-OPTION in the poll to this question. Choose the answer-option that most closely matches your response to this question — which is…

”The USA has a “progressive” tax system (with “tax brackets”)…should the USA KEEP or CHANGE this fundamental aspect of US individual income taxation?”

KEEP PROGRESSIVE TAX SYSTEM — The US should continue to have a “progressive” individual income tax system with different “tax brackets” to tax the higher portions of a person’s income at progressively higher rates

CHANGE TO “FLAT TAX” SYSTEM — The US should NOT continue to have a “progressive” individual income tax system AND should change over to having a “flat tax” individual income tax system which “imposes the same percentage tax rate on everyone, regardless of [a person’s individual] income”

CHANGE TO “OTHER-THAN-FLAT TAX” SYSTEM — The US should NOT continue to have a “progressive” individual income tax system AND should change over to an individual income tax system other than a “flat tax” individual income tax system

I’m NOT SURE

I DON’T CARE

I’m NOT SURE and I DON’T CARE

Updates

1 y

UPDATE 1:
PLEASE NOTE — per reference article 2…

“A progressive tax involves a tax rate that increases (or progresses) as taxable income increases. It imposes a lower tax rate on low-income earners and a higher tax rate on those with a higher income. This is usually achieved by creating tax brackets that group taxpayers by income ranges.

…For [the USA in] 2022 and 2023, there are seven tax brackets with rates of 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. There were 16 tax brackets in 1985.”

Updates

1 y

UPDATE 2 — also from ref article 2…

“With a progressive tax… For example, if a single person makes $100,000 in 2022, they fall into the 24% bracket (as well as lower brackets). However, only the portion of their income that exceeds the bracket's minimum threshold of over $89,075 is taxed at that rate. Thus, income is taxed at 10% on the first $10,275, then 12% on income up to $41,775, and 22% on income up to $89,075. In this scenario, only $10,925 ($100,000 - $89,075) would be taxed at 24%.”

[Aerissa_Jade]

I say the poorer people should be taxed higher.

Does that sound absurd? of course it does... now if you switch to the rich being taxed more it is just as absurd. I'm all about about fair and equal and flat tax is by far the best way to do it. In theory if if a flat percentage based tax was put in with zero deductions the government would actually collect more in taxes. The rich would not be able to deduct down to zero, nor would the poor.

There is no reason that there should be different taxing systems for the rich and the poor.

Even though I voted for flat tax, it can be semi flat, semi progressive as you stated. Such as the first 100k being taxed at 5% then from there to 250k at 10%, etc... NOT GOING RETROACTIVE to the first part. Thus if someone made 120k a year, the first 100k would be 5% and the 20k would be 10% giving them slightly over a 5. something tax rate... EXCEPT.

When people talk about taxes they often forget about FICA and Medicare, even if someone pays zero in federal taxes they are still paying 7.65% in Social Security taxes. That means even if someone is in the 10% bracket they are really 17.76% in taxes. Then you add state taxes and people are easily paying 25% of their gross income (at least) into various taxes.

I personally pay 53% of my gross income into taxes between local, state and federal taxes. That combined rate is far too high.

[Asker]

That doesn’t sound so absurd to me because I believe if you want to “get” benefits from the government then you should also be willing to “pay” for them with your tax dollars.

HOWEVER a lot of people would be upset if a flat tax were enacted for everyone because…

- Per Note 2 of the “precursor” (to this “follow-on”) question, “the bottom 75% of U. S. taxpayers paid [only] 13.0% of all U. S. income taxes [in 2018].”

- Per Note 4 of the “precursor” (to this “follow-on”) question, “the percentage of [U. S.] income tax filers who [had] no tax liability [was] 34.7 percent in 2018.”

Do the “rich” in the USA pay their “fair share” of taxes? ↗

[Aerissa_Jade]

I know, people like things like deductions and EIC, they like getting more out of the system than they put in through wealth transfers. They hate it if they get less out than they put in, but they love getting more.

There would be a lot of angry people who currently get more out than they put in.

[FeelingGroovy]

Politicians have been campaigning on a flat tax for years. They're all full of shit. They will never do what they promise to do.

[Asker]

Which answer-option did you select in the poll to this question?

[FeelingGroovy]

With all due respect, I boycott polls, and you should, too. Your question is a personal question for Americans ONLY, and some dick head from Sweden chimed in.

[Asker]

Why do you boycott polls?

And oncerning this question, it was NOT a personal question for Americans ONLY,

And who was the from Swedish person who “chimed in,” and where did they do that (on this question)?

[Asker]

* And who was the Swedish person…

[Soteris]

I mean.. that is now what progressive tax system means. Tax brackets could mean anything like how USA currently works when people at the top sometimes pays less percent in tax than everyone of their employees. A progressive tax system is about where the burden of tax is put, namely on the rich, and not specifically about something such as tax brackets.

[Asker]

NOTE: For what THIS QUESTION means by the words “progressive tax/progressive tax system/tax brackets” — see UPDATE 1 & reference article 2.

What Is a Progressive Tax?

[Asker]

* CORRECTION: DISREGARD “What Is a Progressive Tax?” above

[Asker]

ALSO: See UPDATE 2 (which I just added) to this question.

[FeelingGroovy]

What state in America do you live?

[Asker]

@FeelingGroovy why do you ask that?

[Soteris]

Yeah, I know how tax brackets work but there is nothing inherently saying that they need to be progressive. They could as well just lower the taxes for higher tax brackets or roll a dice and arbitrarily assign the burden based on random chance.

[Asker]

Regarding the word “progressive” with respect to taxes and the English language & the USA, per UPDATE 1 to this question, “A progressive tax involves a tax rate that increases (or progresses) as taxable income increases.”

[Asker]

…And regarding progressive tax & tax brackets, UPDATE 1 goes on to say “ [A progressive tax] imposes a lower tax rate on low-income earners and a higher tax rate on those with a higher income. This is usually achieved by creating tax brackets that group taxpayers by income ranges.”

[joesheks]

@Soteris you seem to opine about things and have literally no clue what you are talking about. A progressive system must have tax brackets to increase the load at higher income levels. Otherwise it would be a proportional tax system or regressive.

The rich already pay the overwhelming majority of taxes. Most people pay nothing. It’s cuter to talk about employers paying lower effective tax rates than employees and this might be true if employers derive their income through dividends or business owner distributions, but it fails to take into account the risks that the employer takes running a business or the taxes the employer must pay on behalf of the employee which of course doesn’t get entered into determining the effective tax rate

[exitseven]

It should be a flat tax, everyone pays the same. It is the only fair way. We should get rid of all dseductins too. If everyone would pay 5% instead of half the people paying nothing and the very rich being able to hire people to make it so they pay nothing too we could balance the national debt in notime.

[Asker]

I’m not sure whether or not a 5% flat tax would be enough to make up for the loss of the tax money not received from not taxing the top taxpayers at the current tax bracket rates; but certainly the current ~ 1/3 of U. S. taxpayers who have no tax liability (and who pay no taxes) — per Note 4 in the “precursor” question to this question…

Do the “rich” in the USA pay their “fair share” of taxes? ↗

…would certainly balk at any flat tax being enacted.

[exitseven]

The very rich like Bezos don't pay taxes. That leaves the middle class to pick up the rabbit for everyone with a whopping 24 percent. for many

[AngryCarl2]

Almost every country in the world has progressive taxation. That's because a flat tax system would mean the government wouldn't be able to collect as much tax. And governments love to collect tax because that is what pays their wages.

[Asker]

Ok.
So did you select the “KEEP PROGRESSIVE TAX SYSTEM” answer-option in the poll to this question?

[FeelingGroovy]

We give most of our money to other countries. We gave Covid relief money to Pakistan for gender studies.

[jshm2]

The USA has a terrible tax system, which is similar to Eritrea

[Asker]

How is it similar to Eritrea?
And which answer-option did you select in the poll to this question?

[Anonymous]

the federal tax system should be abolished, and the states left to collect what they deem as a fair sales tax only.

[Asker]

Did you select “CHANGE TO “OTHER-THAN-FLAT TAX” SYSTEM” in the poll to this question?

[FeelingGroovy]

Best answer yet.

[Jennz6]

If they change it, lower my taxes

[Asker]

Which answer-option did you select in the poll to this question?

[Jennz6]

I checked “I’m not sure”

[Asker]

Ok, thanks for responding to this question and voting in it’s poll