The concept of a “People’s Flat Tax” is intriguing. This flat tax would keep the feature of one rate for income, one rate for sales, and one rate for corporate tax that is included in other flat tax proposals to replace our current federal income tax system.
The difference for the People’s Flat Tax is in the base it will be applied to and what it will cover.
To set the stage, according to the Citizens for Tax Justice, the wealthy and the middle class pay nearly the same percentage of their income in total taxes. (top 1% of income pay 30.8% in total tax; $66,000 in income pay 28.5% in total tax).
What’s missing from this picture is the impact of the cost of health care.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, health care cost is about $8,000 a person or $24,000 for a family of three. This cost is either paid out of pocket, through insurance, or by an employer with money that could have been in the employees paycheck. This health care “tax” adds an additional 33% tax burden on a family of three earning $72,000 per year and a 2.4% tax on a million dollar income.
So, together we have a combined tax and health care cost of about 61.5% for the $72,000 wage earner as compared to a combined tax and health care cost of about 33% for the people making a million dollars a year.
Our current tax system, when health care is considered, is very regressive.
To correct this inequity and fix other problems in our tax structure the People’s Flat Tax would pay for the following items (in addition to providing general revenue):
• Basic Social Security for all retirees. One dollar amount in retirement for everyone. This is an amount that would allow for a basic safe, healthy lifestyle for the elderly.
• Basic health coverage, including long-term care for everyone.
• A payment to the states of $10,000 for each K-12 student to be used for education.
In order to pay for all of this without it being too large a percentage, it is important to spread the costs over the broadest base possible. All income, starting at a value that exempts an amount that allows for necessities, would be included in the flat rate with no deductions. Taxed income would include earned income, unearned income, income from estates, income from insurance, etc. All sales would be taxed including services, energy, and goods. Corporations would also be taxed at the same rate.
The People’s Flat Tax would be simple and much more fair than our current system. Importantly, it will remove the albatross of payroll taxes and medical insurance costs on businesses, unleashing the amazing ability of our entrepreneurs to innovate, and allowing us to be more competitive in the international marketplace.
There would also be a significant cut in property taxes when most of the cost of education is paid for through the flat tax. The education payments will substantially reduce the competition for the bottom among states when it comes to education funding. Our children will finally be able to get the education they need.
Our tax code is riddled with foolish and counter-productive deductions and credits as well as some that have merit. When deductions and tax credits are eliminated, money would be appropriated for those things that are needed.
Of course there are many details to work out and a new system like this would have to be phased in over several years. The amount of progressiveness would be transparent and would depend primarily on the dollar amount of the personal exemption. There is also the possibility of having a second tier level on the income tax over a certain income.