Flat Tax

[Blue3]

I wonder what the rate would need to be to balance the budget, no deductions/credits or rebates or exceptions, with current spending levels... anyone know?

[Blue3]

I wonder what the rate would need to be to balance the budget, no deductions/credits or rebates or exceptions, with current spending levels... anyone know?

Considering the size of the deficit and that the top 10% pay 80% of the taxes, it would almost assuredly have to be higher than the current highest income bracket to balance the budget. If not higher, it would certainly be very close to it.

I believe that someone ran the numbers and found that if you tax the top 10% at 100% you still wouldn’t balance the budget on taxes alone, so it’s definitely possible that it is impossible to balance the budget without spending cuts. There’s certainly no realistic way to tax our way out of the deficit at this point.

I am just wondering as a thought experiment.

Also, I'm not sure about the top 10% being taxed at 100% not solving the deficit. Maybe if those were the only taxes... but a moderate hike from the pre-Trump Tax Cuts would have probably done it, since Obama got the deficit down to about $380 billion from the $1 trillion+ of his first year or two.