Why not move to a flat tax ?

Almost nobody pays an effective rate of 25% unless they make 500,000 or more a year is why.

That would raise the same revenue as the current system however.

For the guy who thinks he pays more than that already, I doubt that he does if he has any writeoffs at all. If he has a home mortgage, for example, then I'd say that is impossible. If he's got an IRA or 401K, then it's not possible unless he's raking in more than about 500 grand.

The average effective rate for the top quintile is 15.6%.

The math to figure out your effective rate is simple: take the amount you paid in income tax and divide by your gross income, not your adjusted gross income.

It's not like this flat tax type of thing wasn't tried out before, and it's not like a progressive tax is something radical or new. Adam Smith, of all people, was the first to propose a progressive tax as the most equitable system.

Time to move into at least the 18th century if not more recent centuries, for God's sake.

If you are in the US, it would take a miracle. The US Constitution had to be amended to allow for the income tax. If the amendment had to be amended, it would be very difficult.
The US tax code is the play toy of the Congress. They use it for social engineering, to buy votes from the poor, to wield power and so on. They are not going to willingly give up their power.

What would it accomplish? This why I get so frustrated with the Flat Tax proponents.

The problem isn't how we collect taxes, it's how much we spend. No matter how you structure taxes, we have to pony up 3 trillion dollars.

Reduce the size of government, and taxes can go down no matter what system you use. Don't reduce and it doesn't matter what formula you use.

Why go through the effort to reform taxes if we are going to have to collect the same amount of money anyway.

But then you couldn't pander for votes!!!!! Don't you get it? nearly 50% tax on the wealth is too small and those 'fat cats' need to pay up more so that those that don't pay taxes at all can get better support services than those that do pay taxes but aren't rich enough to not work.

Because then Liberals couldn't use it as a political wedge. Obama summed up the Liberal mentality toward taxes best when he said " i'm really not concerned about the government revenue going up or down as long as it's fair"..........
Obiogeek no it wouldn't hurt ,everybody would pay the same PERCENTAGE geeze...............

The only people that tax system works great for is the richest 5%. I'm in the top 20%, I'd probably be just fine, as I pay more than that already, but if you make 50 grand a year or less (like most everyone in the country!!!) , that's gonna hurt.