We nearly pay a flat tax now. If you’re good with spreadsheets enter wages into column A, the corresponding tax for those wages into column B, the employer part of SS into column C, and the employee part of social security into column D. In column E add together the cells for column B + C + D. In column F, divide column E by column A.
You will discover that those making minimum wage pay less, but everybody else pays around 33%. There is a curious blip around $80,000 where the middle class actually pays at the higher rate of around 38%. There are also tax free bonds and other things that give the opulent a tax rate of around 25%. I believe John Kerry’s wife paid around 25% the year he ran.
If you take the cap off of social security taxes, and add a flat tax of 20% starting at around $25,000 and you get a tax with no bulge for the middleclass; you get a tax where the rich don’t pay at a lower percentage than the middleclass.
Including SS, our taxes are flat under the present system.
Take the cap off SS and add to that a flat tax. This new system would look identical to the old tax system, except that the buldge at around 80,000 would not be there.
Note: This is the result of an investigation made in 2002.