Flat Tax

[mvd10]

A flat tax is extremely vague and broad btw. I mean, you could have a 25-30% flat tax with no deductions or exemptions where capital gains income is taxed just like normal income combined with a very significant fully refundable tax rebate. I imagine something like that would actually be pretty progressive.

[mvd10]

It's worked pretty well in Russia (and I guess Estonia as well, but that's hard to say). But the problem is that those were Eastern European economies who basically had to build everything up from scratch after the fall of the Soviet Union. I suppose circumstances would be completely different in North America or Western Europe. Like I said before, a very broad flat tax with some form of refundable tax credit to make it progressive would be something I'd go for when building up a tax system from scratch, but I don't think it's feasible to just completely replace the American tax system with something like a flat tax. Eliminating deductions and slightly reducing the rates probably is the best you can hope for.