{"id":877,"date":"2015-04-23T22:37:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T03:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/?p=877"},"modified":"2015-05-07T14:27:32","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T19:27:32","slug":"a-flat-income-tax-will-benefit-the-rich-at-the-expense-of-the-middle-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/a-flat-income-tax-will-benefit-the-rich-at-the-expense-of-the-middle-class\/","title":{"rendered":"A flat income tax will benefit the rich at the expense of the middle-class"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the surging popularity of the FairTax<\/strong> (H.R.25<\/a><\/strong> and S.155<\/strong><\/a>) DC power-brokers and members of the leadership of both parties are beginning to worry that they might lose their Golden Goose – the one thing that gives them the most power – the income tax. So they have taken a new tack, in order to kill any real tax reform.<\/p>\n

It seems that they learned two things from their failure to stop President Reagan from cutting the number of tax brackets from 16 rates to just two and eliminating most carve-outs. First, they learned that that fighting tax reform head-on, won’t work. Second, they learned that a flat income tax or even a nearly flat income tax won’t stay flat. So in their desperation to save the income tax, they’re resorting to subterfuge.\u00a0While the leaders in Congress aren’t out promoting it, they have a number of candidates out talking about implementing a flat income tax. They are telling voters, “We need to pass a flat income tax, so we can abolish the IRS and send our tax returns in on a postcard.”<\/em> It all sounds well and good\u2026 at least, so long as you don’t look too deeply at the facts.<\/p>\n

The first fallacy of that statement should be obvious. If we had a flat income tax and abolished the IRS, where would taxpayers send all those postcards? Think about it\u2026\u00a0That\u2019s right. As pointed out in a previous article<\/a><\/strong>, as long as the government taxes income, there will, by necessity, be an IRS.<\/p>\n

But the most important issue, concerning a flat income tax, is not so obvious. You see, a flat income tax would result in an increased tax load on the middle-class. This isn’t just some projection or hypothesis, either. It’s based on solid facts that are available to everyone and easy to understand. Consider the following.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The only flat income tax bills currently in Congress, H.R.1040<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and H.R.1824<\/strong><\/a>, both maintain the standard deduction.<\/li>\n
  2. The ongoing flat tax rate\u00a0in both bills is 17%. Also, 17% is the rate most often cited by flat income tax supporters.<\/li>\n
  3. The IRS reports<\/a><\/strong> that under the current income tax, the top 1% of taxpayers pay an average tax rate of 22.83% in 2012.<\/li>\n
  4. The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) reports<\/a><\/strong> that the middle\u00a0quintile (fifth) paid an 11.1% tax rate in 2009.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Look at those sources – the text of the Flat Tax Act, IRS Collections Data, and the CBO\u00a0Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes Report. These are solid numbers. So let’s put these facts together and look at the picture they clearly paint. The standard deduction that remains in both H.R.1040 and H.R.5882 (and will certainly remain in any other flat income tax bill) insures that the poor will not see any appreciable change in their tax rate under a flat income tax. (There is one other flat income tax plan that I would normally not mention, since it has never been introduced as a bill in Congress. But I feel that, I should address the Gohmert plan, since it is the plan that presidential candidate\u00a0Sen. Ted Cruz heartily endorsed<\/a>\u00a0in 2012, even calling it,\u00a0“ideal”<\/em><\/strong>. The Gohmert plan departs from the rest, in that it does eliminate the standard deduction and so, would amount to a huge tax increase for the poor and lower-middle-class.)\u00a0But the rich, who currently pay an average of 22.83% income tax would see their tax rate drop almost six percent (5.83%), under H.R.1040 and almost eight percent (7.83%), under H.R.5882. Under H.R.1040, a 5.83% drop, from 22.83%, amounts to a 25% tax cut for that top 1% of taxpayers (\u00a05.83%\u00a0\/\u00a022.83%\u00a0=\u00a025.5%\u00a0). Under H.R.5882, a 7.83 drop, from 22.83%, amounts to a 34% tax cut for the top 1% of taxpayers (\u00a07.83%\u00a0\/\u00a022.83%\u00a0=\u00a034.3%\u00a0). The same data source shows us similar tax savings for other high income brackets. Using H.R.1040, which is the best-case scenario, we find that the average tax rate for the top 2% is currently 22.52%, which would amount to a 24.5% tax savings under H.R.1040 and it\u2019s 21.97 for the top 3%, giving them a 22.6% tax savings. Those numbers are even larger under H.R.5882.<\/p>\n

    With those facts in mind, ask yourself this question. If the poor continue to pay a flat income tax at about the same rates as today and the rich get a 25% to 34% tax break, who will make up the difference? But if Gohmert and Cruz have their way, it won’t be just the middle-class who will take a tax hit. It will seriously impact the poor, who will no longer have access to the standard deduction.<\/p>\n

    Actually, we don\u2019t have to surmise who will pay the difference. This is where the data from the CBO comes in. The IRS data is only broken down as top 1%, top 5%, etc. So, to see how middle-class taxpayers will fare, we\u2019ll go to the CBO numbers, that are broken down in quintiles. That data is three years older than the IRS data, which ends at 2012. But that data should still be fairly close to today\u2019s numbers. Using the CBO data, that middle quintile paid income tax at 11.1% in 2009. So under a flat income tax, they will pay tax at a rate either 3.9% or 5.9% higher than under the current income tax. As a percentage of what they pay now, that amounts to a 53% tax increase, under H.R. 1040 (\u00a05.9%\u00a0\/\u00a011.1%\u00a0=\u00a053.2% ) and a 35% tax increase under H.R.5882 (\u00a03.9%\u00a0\/\u00a011.1%\u00a0=\u00a035.1%\u00a0). Of course, under the Gohmert\/Cruz plan those numbers would drop somewhat, since the poor would pick up a portion of that tax load.<\/p>\n

    In fairness, a flat income tax typically includes a higher standard deduction than does a progressive income tax, so this would have the effect of un-taxing a few more people at the low end. But when you un-tax more people at the low end, all it does is shrink\u00a0the middle and increase the tax rates on that smaller middle-class.<\/p>\n

    Make no mistake, under a flat income tax, it’s always the middle-class who end up bearing the additional tax load.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Remember that Ronald Reagan reduced the number of tax brackets from 16 to just two (15% and 28%). But before one term of Congress had expired after he left office, George H.W. Bush signed into law a third, higher tax bracket. Although the economy was doing great, due to the fact that Reagan had also lowered the top marginal rate from 70% to 28%, the middle class were paying a larger share of the tax load. This was seen as unfair, so a 31% bracket was proposed and ultimately signed into law in November of 1990\u00a0(less than two years after Reagan left office). The idea was\u00a0to tax the rich more, to make up for the effective tax cuts they received and thereby relieve some of the additional tax load on the middle-class. Of course, one of the primary reasons why the power brokers in DC are willing to consider a flat income tax, is because they know that it will give them this exact excuse for making the tax code progressive again.<\/p>\n

    Under currently proposed flat income tax plans, the poor will likely see little change (except for the Gohmert plan),<\/strong>\u00a0the rich will get a massive break and the middle-class will end up shouldering the additional tax load.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Now you know why a number of very rich people, who shall remain nameless, are out there promoting a flat income tax. They know that if a flat income tax becomes law, they will get a major tax break and all they would have to do to get this break, is keep\u00a0the middle class from realizing that they will paying more, till it’s too late.<\/p>\n

    Only the FairTax completely un-taxes poverty. Only the FairTax eliminates, or even can eliminate, the IRS. Only the FairTax provides true tax reform without placing a heavy burden on the producers who make up the middle class.<\/p>\nFollow us on social media
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    With the surging popularity of the FairTax (H.R.25 and S.155) DC power-brokers and members of the leadership of both parties are beginning to worry that they might lose their Golden Goose – the one thing that gives them the most … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,37,53,51,6],"class_list":["post-877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fairtax","tag-flat-tax","tag-irs","tag-rich","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therichdontpaytax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}