Post

here’s a flat tax i would support. 10% tax on all corporate recipients. not profit. not after expenses. not after other special taxincebtives/deductions. from dollar 1 thru the door. treat their earnings the way we treat payroll taxes.

Wicksell forced me to read Hawtrey. Which took me to Keynes Treatise on money. Back to General Theory But you see where this is headed. Converted mid career to post-Keynesian with an MMT flavour. Now retired and can watch from a safe distance.

I mean I definitely get how much admin there is, but I just kind of feel like "an income tax at a flat percentage" was at the latest invented the exact same moment as graduated tax brackets, since it's just "a tax braket of 'this one'" and the 16th amendment was 1913, which like, technically means

Swedish Bank Prize Committee standing athwart history yelling "stop! it ended already!"

My favorite flat tax trick is from the 1986 tax reform: 15% and 28% tax brackets, with 28% kicking in when the 7.55% SocSec/Medicare/aid taxes shut off (employer match). So in the 15% bracket, the next 100 on the paystub was 107.55 employer cash cost, 30.10 in taxes, and a 27.99% rate.