How is a percentage of intake "inequitable"? I don't think the tax system should be used to try to correct societal ills--it just leads to corruption and is confusing as heck. Confusion causes waste. Waste is inefficient and eventually promotes human suffering. I am anti-human suffering. There's no evidence because we haven't tried it.

Don't guess at my goals, ask! I want everyone to be able to do his taxes on a calculator within 5 seconds. I want to be able to do my taxes without having to hire a pricey expert who knows the tax laws that change every single year. I want the corruption loopholes to end. I want our costly eternal vigilance of the systems and the people to stop. I want to stop the dubious accounting tricks that those with more money engage in. I want everyone to be confident that everyone else is engaged in fairness, and not feel like a sucker. I want people to stop pointing at the wealthy and assuming that if we can just squeeze their bank accounts a little bit more that that will finally save the country. I want EVERYONE to vote for lower taxes, every time, to where can then decide, as a unified group, how high the taxation percentage should be, versus the class warfare nonsense we enjoy now.

Right now, I'm not talking about stupid presidents, politicians, their moronic decisions and what they do with our taxes. I'm not talking about fixing the state of "the poor". I'm only talking about making everyone vote for lower taxes instead of the random hodgepodge we have now. Can you image if the wealthy used their power to keep everyone's taxes low because this percentage affected equally?!

But I already know it won't happen--this is a chat site, not a "do" site.

That's not enough, I want everything to be flat. I guess I'm not interested in those ancillary things as I see the overall waste and corruption involved everywhere, and at all levels of power when it comes to taxation. After decades of doing my own taxes on paper, I've finally hired a tax accountant recently because it's too complex and requires too much time for something that should be staid by now.

And I consider that a bonus: I think the government is made of idiot turtles all the way down and should keep their hands out of incentivizing (read "gambling with") X, Y or Z. They are not engineers and hence know not what they do most of the time. (Legislation and punishments are enough, if need be wielded.)

Forgive me if I'm skeptical.

Not just consumption, ALL cash transactions would be taxed. Loans, real estate, charitable donations, electricity bills, everything. Simple, easy, fair. Say, 0.05 percent. Everyone would then vote for lower taxes, ending this class warfare nonsense and dubious tax avoision.

This is the kind of stuff I worry about when people cry that nuclear is such a good power option today. They assume that future generations will handle the waste better than we did. ...are.

I can't imagine anything more "fair" than a simple, mathematical percentage. This is not about righting the perceived wrongs of society, this about ending a corruptible, ridiculously complex tax system. How is it fair that those with higher incomes can seek tax avoision via their accountants? That's not possible in my system: all pay, using only a simple calculator.

Near me, the poor already get much free stuff: food, clothes, medicine, phones, and as of yesterday, mental health care house calls at their homeless tents. And if the rate is something like 0.05 percent, they'll probably pay less overall, no?

And what if the amount they pay is actually less? It depends on the percentage. Could the US function with a 0.05 percent universal transaction tax? At $10T transacted per day, that's billions in revenue per day. Do we require more?

I respectfully disagree. The poor transact less and so will pay less. I propose all transactions be taxed, not just income.

Every transaction? Not just income...

Silliness. The poor spend less and so will pay less.

EVERY transaction, not just income. Loans, purchases, investments, real estate, a tiny percentage of everything.

And situations like THIS are why I want us to try a flat tax: It would be the same for every human or entity, every time money changes hands, and no more deductions, ever. No charity breaks, no loopholes, no dubious accounting, no "write offs" , no corruption. Everyone, rich or poor, would then be in the same voting boat, killing off part of the class warfare that occurs on election day as we'd all at least vote for lower taxes.

Slop fighting slop. This is rich.

"The only thing we can be sure of about the future, is that it will be absolutely fantastic" - Arthur C. Clarke. He must have been focusing on the science and not the humans who would use it.

That's a relief, AI will kill us by then...

I'm a C coder in my day job, but I have no horse in the Rust nor *nix races. I wonder whether the switchover will lessen the number of Linux contributors in the future who will have to learn another language. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "just learn this new, better thing now" over my career.