[lbo-talk] Progressive taxation vs flat tax

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Thu Aug 5 09:43:15 PDT 2004


On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:


> R wrote:
>
> >a flat tax is the most regressive tax there is.
>
> No it's not - a flat tax is flat (and if there's a large exemption,
> it can be moderately progressive up to a point). A sales tax is
> regressive because the poorer people are, the larger the share of
> their income they consume. People at the bottom of the distribution
> could end up paying many times the percentage of their income in
> sales taxes as those at the top.
>
> Doug

Yeah, I teach in Washington State, and I'm amazed by the acceptance of the brutal tax regime there: it's all sales tax, no income tax, so poor people spend about 18% of their income on taxes, and people in the top 5% spend about 3% of their income on taxes. Now that's regressive! A flat tax would be a massive improvement.

Miles



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