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Highlander,

At least in current discussions in the United States, a flat tax is not a poll (i.e. "head") tax, but an income tax with a fixed rate of taxation across all income levels (usually with an exemption for some fixed amount, allowing those with small incomes to forego paying income tax altogether).

Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding of the term used. Of course, a set percentage of income contributed by everyone is a very different proposition, and I believe comes closest to the biblical ideal of "tithing" though a tithe (ten per cent) is too low to sustain a modern country.
Sorry about inflicing the unnecessary history lesson!

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Second plank in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. I think of these words every year when my property taxes go up. Ties in well with the first plank. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. There will never be a shortage of social programs out there to steal peoples earnings to finance.

Dear Highlander,

Our problem here is that most of the super rich do not pay income tax. It is the middle class that foots the bill for the USA.

Now we have an income tax that taxes those with lower incomes at a low rate, and those with a higher income with a high rate. Then we have the poor that pay nothing, and the super rich that pay nothing.

Now why is that? Because over the years lobbyists in Washington DC have filled the IRS books with deductions. There are charitable deductions which are necessary, and mortgage deductions which have become a way of life here. But in addition to that there are at least five big fat volumes of deductions that help exclude the super wealthy from paying anything.

A flat tax will eliminate all those deductions, and no doubt put the accountants out of work, (I guess they'd never allow that)...but of course the problem is the charities and mortgages. As for real estate taxes, they will probably never go away. :rolleyes:

Zenovia