(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
We Need a Fair Tax Code [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-25
FOR TOO MANY YEARS, the wealthiest 1% of Americans have shaped government policy to serve their own greedy interests, and we’ve been watching the dreadful results unfold before our eyes. It’s time for the pendulum to swing the other way, and to wrest control of the government back from the oligarchs. A good place to start would be a total revision of their major source of power: the U.S. tax code.
The present complicated system disproportionately benefits the ultra-wealthy. For example, a billionaire equity fund manager is able to pay a lower effective tax rate than a nurse due to a loophole called "carried interest," a bit of make-believe that most of us can’t even define. Under the proposed system, such loopholes would be eliminated. What’s needed is a simplified set of rules written by and for the rest of us. Here’s what that could look like:
All sources of personal income—wages, rent, capital gains, inheritances, Social Security, and so on—would be combined and subjected to a single tax. There would be only two possible deductions: 1, a generous standard deduction adjusted for household size, and 2, a charitable deduction for donations to qualifying nonprofits. The remaining net income would be taxed under a strongly progressive rate structure, with marginal tax brackets ranging from 5% to 99%, the point being to prevent vast accumulations of wealth in the future and, ultimately, to reduce existing accumulations.
A similar single tax system would apply to all businesses and organizations—for profit, not-for-profit, and nonprofit—with only four possible deductions: 1, a standard deduction based on the number of full-time employees; 2, carefully defined legitimate business expenses; 3, a schedule of deductions for large capital expenditures; and 4, a charitable deduction for donations to qualifying nonprofits.
A revised code would include a healthy enforcement budget to detect and prosecute fraudulent behavior, with severe punishments, including prison time, for cheats.
The point is not to impoverish the wealthy. When all is said and done they’ll still be plenty rich, just not obscenely so.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/25/2335141/-We-Need-a-Fair-Tax-Code?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
