Tax Simplification and the Flat Tax
Chris Edwards has an op-ed in The Washington Post pivoting off the tax problems of some prominent Democrats to argue for major tax reform. Since I knew Edwards was a flat tax proponent, I knew he was going to wind up touting the flat tax as the solution. And I was all prepared to fire back with a blog post making the point that what makes the tax code complicated isn’t its non-flat, progressive nature but it’s very complicated definition of the tax base. But he winds up conceding that point in the course of the argument:
The solution to all these problems — from the Enron debacle to Obama’s tax-troubled nominees — is to reform the tax code. With a simple and consistent base, taxpayers would know what they owe, and the IRS could easily enforce it. That is the promise of the “flat tax,” which would tax all income once and create a level playing field with no tax-free loopholes. The notion of a flat tax debuted three decades ago and was initially championed by Democrats such as Obama’s pick for CIA director, former congressman Leon Panetta. The flat tax later became a Republican cause, but there is no reason why Democrats couldn’t rediscover their tax-reform roots. In fact, this nomination season would appear to give them ample reason to do so. [...]
In the past, flat-tax lovers and haters have clashed over the desirability of a single rate. But it is the simple base of the flat tax that is really revolutionary. The simple base — free of exemptions, deductions and credits — would vanquish the 1040 instruction book, which has swollen from 112 to 161 pages in just the past 10 years and keeps on growing.
Well there we go then! But at this point, I’m not even sure what we’re disagreeing about. Liberals aren’t hostile to the idea of expanding the tax base and lowering tax rates. But expanding the base and lowering the rates isn’t what a flat tax is. A flat tax is about reducing the number of tax brackets. That’s what progressives don’t like, and it has nothing to do with the complexity of the tax code.
44 Responses to “Tax Simplification and the Flat Tax”
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February 9th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
This kind of B.S. misdirection is at the heart of pretty much every income tax overhaul scheme out there. There is of course no connection what so ever between loopholes, deductions and other complications and the “flat” tax, the “fair” tax, or whatever other snake-oil is on offer.
“Fair tax” knuckledraggers like to sport “NO IRS” bumper stickers, and don’t even seem to notice that their own scheme calls for a massive government agency responsible for mailing out those “prebate” checks they’re so fond of. And one year after the fair tax is implemented, we’ll pass a law to add the value of home mortgage interest to a family’s prebate check…and we’re right back to square one.
No one _really_ likes paying taxes, I don’t think, but I have to side with Oliver Wendell Holmes in noting that with our taxes, we buy civilization. And I do think that’s a pretty good purchase.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Not to mention the “Progressive tax” butt-pirates and prepubescent fairies. Oh noes, someone who is different than me… Run, get the gun!
February 9th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Yeah the flat taxers are distorting things by makign ti seem liek prsgeesivity is what makes taxes complex. WHether you hav e1 bracket or 10 brackets, finding the percent you owe is easy.
The complexiity is in what is deductible (somewhat complicated, but not for most people) and how income is defined (that is where the real messiness comes into play)
I have no porblem with eliminating all deductions and defining all income the same as long as you keep progressivity.
How about this for a simple tax (no idea if percentages work, just a rough idea, and while they seem low remmeber no deductions at all, for example I made $97K last year but thanks to deductions only had $55K in taxable income), all income is equal capital gains vs salary vs inheritamce you name it:
0-50K no income tax (just FICA)
50-75K 10% income
75-100K 15%
100-150K 20%
150-500 25%
500-1 mil 30%
over a mil 50%
February 9th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
This is another one of those areas where maybe it would take someone of Obama’s ability to explain to people why what intuitively SEEMS fairer — taking the same proportion from everyone — actually ISN’T fairer. We all naturally use marginal utility in our everyday life… but seeing its implications for things like the tax code is not at all easy.
What really bugs me about this argument though is that many of the people who advocate a flat tax, and use the argument that it’s fairer — Steve Forbes, say, or Andrew Sullivan — actually understand very well how marginal utility applies in this context. They’re simply being disingenuous and opportunistic in seizing on the fact that most of the people they’re talking to don’t understand it.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
I always thought of the Flat Tax as part of the bargain. In exchange for conservatives giving up their loopholes, we agree to a non-progressive tax. In reality, the tax code isn’t progressive these days, so it does make some sense.
Also, many flat tax proposals actually have two tiers. The lower tier has a rate of zero and the higher tier it the actual flat tax. Given that, it can still be fairly progressive.
In fact, I kind of like the simplicity of a 50/50 flat tax. Only tax money made above the median income, so 50% of the people pay no tax. Every dollar earned above that amount is taxed at 50%.
February 9th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Some years ago, when Steve Forbes was running for pres. he was big on the flat tax. His flat tax was a single rate applied to all income. However, his definition of income excluded capital gains and dividends. Only earned income was to be taxed, along with pensions related to previously earned income.
This flat tax concept is just another scheme to tax the working class and exclude trust fund babies (like Mr. Forbes) from taxation on their “investment, ” i.e., inherited income.
February 9th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
That’s what progressives don’t like, and it has nothing to do with the complexity of the tax code.
Right. I’ve never found the difficult part of doing my taxes to be looking up what I owed in the tables at the back of the booklet.
to explain to people why what intuitively SEEMS fairer — taking the same proportion from everyone — actually ISN’T fairer.
Why does that seem “intuitively” fair? I’d argue it’s substantially more intuitive for millionaire to pay a higher proportion than the poor.
How about this for a simple tax
Eric K: those numbers look pretty fair and reasonable to my eyes, but as various people (Yglesias among them IIRC) have pointed out from time to time, we don’t really need “brackets” as such (or rather, we can implement an infinite number of brackets) by simply formulating a curve (I’m sure I’m getting the math jargon wrong here) that would be more precise, and would eliminate the sudden “steps.”
February 9th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
The moment conservatives figure out that simplification means removing the special deductions, exemptions, and tax breaks they’ve lobbied and paid for over the years, support for “flat taxes” will dry up.
Real world example: France, that well known offshore tax haven, has a simplified tax code for rental properties. Landlords pay tax on a defined fraction of the gross rent they receive. There are no deductions for interest, depreciation, maintenance, management fees, travel, no nothing.
Simple, yeah. But expensive. In the US, there are so many complex deductions that if landlords and their accountants can’t get their net property revenues negative (generating a tax credit), they’re doing it wrong.
February 9th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
to explain to people why what intuitively SEEMS fairer — taking the same proportion from everyone — actually ISN’T fairer.
Why does that seem “intuitively” fair? I’d argue it’s substantially more intuitive for millionaire to pay a higher proportion than the poor.
“Intuitively fair” can mean a lot of things. I could also argue it’s intuitively fair for every American to shoulder the burden of government equally, therefore we should divide government spending by the population and — voila! — everyone’s tax bill.
February 9th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Isn’t it the progressive factor of the current income tax a factor in the desire to expand tax exemptions? (and creating loopholes)
EG, if you make 1 Million, you would instead hire your son at 500,000 so you get more income taxed at a low rate.
Or put all your interest bearing accounts in his name, so they don’t impact your taxation.
But if you had one flat percentage, it wouldn’t matter how you divvy the dollars, the same tax would be paid.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
But if you had one flat percentage, it wouldn’t matter how you divvy the dollars, the same tax would be paid.
Since even the flat taxers envision an exemption for the first n dollars of income (10,000 or a little more) and deductions for dependent children, this will never be true.
I’m for the “smooth curve” argument. I have no idea why the percentage function is fetishized as the incarnation of fairness. If you for some reason believe that only a single mathematical function can instantiate fairness, make it an equation.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Liberals aren’t hostile to the idea of expanding the tax base and lowering tax rates.
For crying out loud. The defining principle of “liberal” nowadays is, in effect, hostility to lowering the tax rate*. “Liberal” preferences and voting patterns can for all practical purposes be predicted by just the one variable, “does it lower tax rates?”
*and of course, I’m talking about tax rates on people who are actually net-payers of taxes.
A flat tax is about reducing the number of tax brackets. That’s what progressives don’t like, and it has nothing to do with the complexity of the tax code.
What does it have to do with, just out of curiosity? Why do you care about there being more than one tax bracket?
By the way, a ‘flat tax’ with a standard deduction would be, by definition, progressive. There’s nothing central to progressivity or its definition that requires more than one tax bracket.
February 9th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
The flat tax is like price control. Sounds good in theory, but it ignores fundamentals of the market place. All those loopholes in the tax code come from the political market place. That is, they’ve been put into the tax code by lobbyists, the wealthy, sometimes even, if we get a break, by pressure from a progressive group. A flat tax will hardly freeze the political market, since it will not be accompanied by, say, a law against lobbying. It will simply shift the terms of the market to the wealthy, who can afford to shoot holes in whatever tax code is produced in order to gain advantage in their competition one with another.
However, the pretence that congress isn’t a market is all very sweet and nice, and serves the powers that be. I’m sure it would shock the editorial board of the Washington Post, for instance.
February 9th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I’m very defintiely left of center and yet i don’t understand the knee-jerk reaction to a “flat tax”. If we have a standard deduction for adults over 18 and those under 18 (say $8000 and $4000, respectively) when a family of four making $48,000 has an effective tax rate of half whatever the stated rate is, while a family of four making $4.8 million has an effective that’s pretty darn close to the stated rate — essentially twice that of the “typical” middle income family.
Now, make the employee’s share of payoll taxes (FICA and Medicare) part of the general tax rate, rather than a separate tax and you’ve eliminated the regressivity of FICA and actually added a bit of progressiveness to Medicare taxes. (In fact, thate family of four making less than $24000 will really pay no federal taxes, not just no Federal *income* taxes.
Further, if you want to play “gotcha” politics (and i’m not adverse to that, when i’m the one issuing the gotcha’s), explain that a flat tax should treat all income the same — whether it’s wage income or passive (capital gains, dividends or interest) income and end the discussions about why those forms of income should get preferential tax treatment.
February 9th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
A flat tax will hardly freeze the political market, since it will not be accompanied by, say, a law against lobbying. It will simply shift the terms of the market to the wealthy, who can afford to shoot holes in whatever tax code is produced in order to gain advantage in their competition one with another.
Fair point, but I always thought a big part of the argument was that with a flat tax there would be much less incentive to do so. One can imagine folks having a calculation that goes like: ‘It’s worth spending X dollars to lobby/bribe/etc in order to save Y dollars on taxes.’ But presumably you realize that this calculation does not hold for all X and Y.
To be clear, I don’t necessarily favor a flat tax per se – as Matt Steinglass points out, the tax rate is just a function, there’s no good reason to fetishize this or that percentage (or piecewise-constant set of percentages! there’s no a priori reason for there to be ‘brackets’ at all!) – and I tend to agree with Matthew, and Edwards, that simplifying the tax code by removing loopholes would be much more useful. But it’s fair to ask where the incentive to game the system with a spiderweb of loopholes comes from, and whether this incentive could be reduced and make the whole thing more efficient.
February 9th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Sadly, no. What about “the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases” is unclear?
February 9th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
What about “the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases” is unclear?
It seems we have competing definitions. I was using and have always understood it to be this definition, obviously: “A tax that takes a larger percentage from the income of high-income people than it does from low-income people.” The Wiki author brought the ‘taxable amount’ notion into it, unnecessarily IMHO.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I can see why someone making 22k won’t be required to pay taxes under any scheme. What I can’t understand is why the rate would be different for someone making 155k vs someone making 255k.
At least in my experience once you start talking about people making more than 100k, how much they make is pretty much a function of the choices they have made.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
THe problem with the FLAT TAX is that it is impossible to define “TAXABLE INCOME” in less that 10,000,000 words.
Right now, Gross Income or Adjusted Gross Income is pretty simple because we don’t pay tax on that number.
We pay tax on “TAXABLE INCOME”.
I used to create all sorts of ways to change income into something else. It didn’t matter what it was, as long as it wasn’t taxable.
The tax rate is the easy part. I don’t care if you have 5 brackets or one bracket. It is easy to calculate after you calculate “TAXABLE INCOME”.
Remember that over 75% of the people file a one or two page tax return. Our tax system is easy for most people. I make over 6 figures but don’t own a house so I don’t itemize. It takes me 15 minutes on TurboTax to do my taxes.
I used to do Corporate taxes for a living. Our tax system is not that difficult for most people, period.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:38 am
Simple tax systems, like inflexible criminal laws, are inevitably unfair. Do you really want to fully tax medical expenses? Do you want to encourage charity? Help folks pay expenses for their kids? A flat tax is, in my mind, simply wrongheaded because it ignores what is obvious to anyone who has lived in different financial circumstances: your ability to pay, and your stake in the system, rise dramatically as your income does.
And there is also demonstrated pathology, on ample display recently, that results when you encourage the rich to award themselves enormous sums of money.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:55 am
In exchange for conservatives giving up their loopholes, we agree to a non-progressive tax.
If they passed a flat tax tomorrow, they’d pass a new package of deductions by Friday. That’s the nature of Congress (and certainly the Republicans in it).
February 10th, 2009 at 4:21 am
Perhaps we can agree to ban all exemptions — income is income, no matter where it comes from — and then make the case for a progressive schedule that imposes a higher rate on larger incomes.
February 10th, 2009 at 5:02 am
I never hear liberals answer the argument that a flat tax is progressive if it includes an exemption. Suppose for example a flat tax of 15% with an exemption for the first $20,000. Here are the effective tax rates payed by 3 hypothetical individuals:
Individual 1: income of 20,000 per year. This guy pays zero percent in income tax because his entire income falls within the exemption.
Individual 2: income of 40,000 per year. This guy pays an effective rate of 7.5 percent of his income in tax (15 percent on the $20,000 after the exemption).
Individual 3: income of 100,000 per year. This guy pays an effective rate of 12 percent (15 percent on the $80,000 after the exemption).
The tax rate and the size of the exemption would be contentious issues, but the structure of the tax is indisputably progressive, no?
February 10th, 2009 at 6:59 am
“Do you really want to fully tax medical expenses? … charity? … kids?”
First of all none of these are or would be “taxed” as these are outflows, not income. What you mean to say is, don’t flat taxers want these costs to be deducted from taxable income?
Speaking for myself the answer is no. What I want instead is for taxes to be low enough that individuals can afford to spend on these things they might need (or other good things you and I may not have thought of) in the first place. This leading to at least as good a result as you claim to seek, but in a much simpler way and without the government getting into the business of prescribing what individuals “should” be spending money on (cf. the mortgage interest deduction).
February 10th, 2009 at 7:14 am
All of you are wrong. STEP-FUNTION TAX RATES ARE INHERENTLY UNFAIR. ALL HAIL THE CONTINUOUS TAX, ONLY THE CONTINUOUS TAX CAN SAVE US FROM LOOPHOLES AND OTHER FINANCIAL DISCONTINUITIES…
I propose a continuous tax as an infinitely differentiable monotonic curve over the open set domain (0,inf) with a range of (0,1), where total taxes owed is simply and elegantly calculated by integrating the CONTINUOUS TAX-RATE from 0 to x (x being income)
ONLY THROUGH THE CONTINUOUS TAX-RATE CAN WE AVOID THE IRRATIONALITY OF OUR OVERLY COMPLEX TAX SYSTEM.
THE FLAT TAX IS A LIE!!! DEATH TO ALL STEP-FUNCTIONS!
the logic is clear and simple, to achieve true, well-defined progressivity, the increase in marginal utility of every infinitismal increment of income must be accounted for with a corresponding infinitismal increase in TAX RATE. THIS NECESSITATES A MONOTONIC INCREASING CONTINUOUS, INFINITELY DIFFERENTIABLE TAX-RATE.
Furthermore, people have complained about the difficulty in calculating their taxes with so many brackets. With the TRULY PROGRESSIVE CONTINUOUS MONOTONIC INCREASING CONTINUOUS INFINITELY DIFFERENTIABLE TAX-RATE, ALL TAX CALCULATION ARE INCREDIBLY SIMPLE. THE TAX FUNCTION IS SIMPLY EXPANDED INTO A POWER SERIES AROUND THE INCOME VALUE, AND INTEGRATED STEPWISE, TERM-BY-TERM. It’s so easy a child could do it. No more headaches.
Furthermore, tax cuts and hikes would be incredibly simplified, with adjustments made simply by having congress vote on changes in various parameters in the function.
THE FUTURE IS CONTINUOUS TAX, FLAT-TAX IS A LIE!!!! DAETH TO FLAT-TAX…
[homage to Time Cube]
February 10th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Tax simplification, some variant of “flat”, has worked everywhere it’s been tried.
The current financial meltdown is the perfect time to make redundant the army of tax consultants, lobbyists, and special pleaders who are at the root of our problems. They won’t go down without a fight, but it’s a fight worth fighting.
February 10th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Liberals aren’t hostile to the idea of expanding the tax base and lowering tax rates.
Yes they are. Liberals just love tax credits. Check out the so-called stimulus package. Tax credits for all sorts of favored activities. Check out almost any congressman’s website. He’ll speak glowingly of tax credits for education, home buying, child care, medical expenses, and on and on and on.
You cannot favor a plethora of tax credits and simultaneously favor expanding the tax base.
February 10th, 2009 at 9:55 am
I never hear liberals answer the argument that a flat tax is progressive if it includes an exemption.
The answer is that it’s not a “flat tax” at all: it’s simply a progressive tax with a 0% bracket and a 15% bracket. And if you’re going to do that, why not split the 15% bracket up so you have a 10% bracket, a 15% bracket, and a 25% bracket?
robert powell, the army of tax consultants has nothing to do with the graduated nature of income taxes but rather with deductions.
February 10th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Democrats should double the standard deduction. Millions of Americans would be spared from itemizing overnight. Everyone would get a tax cut, except for hard headed millionaires indulging their peculiar obsession with spending a dollar to deprive the government of 35 cents.
Once it’s firmly established that tax accountants are for corporations and millionaires instead of plumbers and nurses, then the IRS should quadruple the number of auditors and focus their work on millionaires who itemize.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Sonic, this “Fair point, but I always thought a big part of the argument was that with a flat tax there would be much less incentive to do so” is a variant of the prisoner’s dilemma point. X’s incentive to have a flat tax is only as good as Y’s incentive not to insist on a loophole. And the half life of Y’s incentive is about 2 seconds. The tax system has become a substitute for government policy – in other places, the government intervenes and, like, provides a health service, in the U.S. we provide a tax break for a pill company.
I see no way that we could “ban exemptions” or ban anything – congress is infinitely wise in putting up bans for show and getting around them. We don’t have to dream up circumstances when we can actually look at, like, the history of tax laws in congress. It is a history that should discourage anyone who thinks the flat tax will kick out those accountants of the rich – yes, mr. moneybags will just turn in his one sheet like everybody else. He’ll pay his Forbes approved pittance! Like hell he will. A pittance quickly turns into a burden, and after all, as Bush liked to say (like a hypnotist in an infocommercial), “it’s your money.” The you, here, applied solely to the upper income vermin.
It amazes me that marketdroids think they can simply legislate market behavior out of existence. But they’ve never been too bright or consistent, anyway, have they?
February 10th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
The “flat tax” proposal wouldn’t address the Daschle situation — his employer provided a car and driver but the employer did not include such amounts as part of Daschle’s compensation in a W-2 or a 1099. Apart from the amount, it really doesn’t differ from:
–employers paying cellphone bills;
–employer-provided swag (shirts, jackets, etc.);
–employer-provided parking (especially in downtown areas) or bus passes;
and other employer-paid costs that the employer does not consider to be compensation.
February 10th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
I fear that only AZmando has put his finger on the key problem with the flat tax. All the current major flat tax proposals — and certainly those proposed by instituions like Cato — are CONSUMPTION TAXES. At the individual level, these proposals would tax income from labor but not from dividends, interest payments, or capital gains. This means that someone who derives his or her entire income from returns to investment — even if runs into the tens of millions of dollars — would NOT PAY A CENT OF TAX.
This — far, far more than the single marginal rate — is why conservatives push the flat tax.
February 10th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
The thing about a flat tax is that just about no one really believes in one–not even Steve Forbes, its supposedly strongest proponent.
Forbes, along with just about every other “flat” taxer, allows an exemption for the first x thousand dollars of income. But then it’s no longer a flat tax: it’s a two-tier system with a rate of 0% up to the exempted amount and then the “flat” rate for every dollar above that amount. That’s actually a progressive rate system with two brackets.
And the justification for the “exemption” is what justifies progressive tax brackets. Most people believe that it’s unfair to ask those who are making barely enough to get by (or less) to pay any taxes at all. But if that’s true, then why is it fair to ask those who make just above that threshold to pay the “full” flat rate on every additional dollar? Won’t it be a real burden for them? If so, why not graduate them up to the full rate as they make more money? And there’s your progressive rate system.
So if we’re going to have an exemption, there’s no reason not to have more than two brackets. The assumption of an exemption destroys the notion of a true flat tax from the start.
And, of course, the author’s original point is right: most of the arguments for a flat tax have nothing to do with a flat tax. We could get rid of deductions, different rates for different kinds of income, end the double taxation of dividends, have an overall tax cut, etc., all without having a flat system. Flatness itself has just about nothing to do with simplicity; the only complexity added by progressivity is looking up a number in a chart at the end. (And most Americans are so bad at math that they’d probably have to look up the number in a chart even under a “flat” system anyway.)
February 16th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I don’t think the basic problem is tax rates or progressivity, but rather the types of taxes we impose. Why do we tax the very things we desire? If we tax cigarettes and alcohol becaue we know that raising the price will reduce the quantity demanded, what is the rationale for taxing income and capital? Do we want less of those things?
Tax revenue has averaged roughly 20% of GDP regardless of income tax rates. There seems to be some kind of natural ceiling on the amount that can be collected by taxing income and capital. That could be because increased taxation of income produces a lower growth rate (through incentive effects) or because the higher rate encourages evasion (legal or otherwise). Probably it is some combination of all of the above, but the fact is that we haven’t been able to collect more than that by taxing income.
It seems to me that we face a choice. We can reduce government spending to fit within that revenue or we change the type of taxation so we can collect a higher percentage of GDP. I favor the first choice, but for those who favor the latter, you aren’t going to get there with taxes on income whether flat, progressive or continuous.
If you want to fund a higher level of government spending you will have to change the mix. Reduce taxes on income and capital to produce a higher growth rate and raise taxes on consumption to generate the difference in revenue. I think you can probably collect a higher percentage of GDP using sales or value added taxes than you can with income and capital taxes (or at least that is the case in other countries). Sales and value added taxes are harder to evade and don’t have the negative incentive effects.
I think the best course would be to do both things. Reduce government spending to fit within the 20% of GDP revenue level and change the mix of taxation. I think you would get a higher long term growth rate since it would mean a higher level of savings and investment. I think it would also positively affect net exports, which should also add to growth.
The typical objection to a sales or value added tax is that it is regressive but I think you could maintain progressivity through tax credits for lower incomes.
We need to think outside these old arguments about flat taxes, fair taxes, taxing the rich, etc and look at the situation anew. Proposals like the flat tax just lock everyone in their little ideological box and the result is a deadlock. Why not use the best ideas from all sides and come up with something that works better than any one by itself?
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