[JimMorrison]

Let me clarify, NTJedi. I don't believe that income taxes are in actuality the means to solve anything, flat or not. The system is much less abusable if we designate a specific point in the flow of currency in which to tax it.

Since I believe that this is not the individual, but rather the business, then we still come to the same point - McCain wants to reduce taxes on large businesses.

I believe the true answer to taxation, is to only tax the execution of business transactions - and never from the side of the individual. Therefore, income taxes and sales taxes would be removed. Taxes on the corporate side would be increased to balance the equation. Stated wages would obviously decrease, however we would no longer have this smokescreen of saying "didn't you know the top earners pay 65% taxes??", when obviously many of us know that those people pay much less than that (and supposedly, sometimes none at all).

To extrapolate from this, if all taxes were shifted to the business side of the economy, and few if any loopholes or deductions were left in place, then the average American should see their tax burden lightened, because if the stated relative balance between high/low income remains the same, the rich will be getting less than they did in the previous system. In effect, you will have a flat tax as far as the individual is concerned, because unless everyone is willing to watch the disparity in stated earnings grow even wider, with more and more billionaires, and more and more people at and below the poverty line - then the system will simply be measurably better than it was before.


We enacted income taxes in 1913. At that time, the bottom tax bracket (and it was easy to even still be exempt, at that time, due to low earnings) paid 1% in income taxes. The top bracket, paid 7%. Many would agree that sounded like a somewhat sane idea. However, considering how badly abused the system has become, and imagining that the same effect could have been handled by simply balancing existing taxes, rather than creating new ones - I am hard pressed to argue for anything other than an abolishment of federal taxes on the individual at all.