[hcknwscommenter]

I agree with your overall point. But I find it odd that you consider sales taxes to be the "fairest". Similarly, I find it odd that you put "progressive" taxes in some tension with "fair" taxes. Folks in the highest income range arguably benefit the most from govt services (e.g., infrastructure, defense, R&D, rule of law). They also have a much higher ability to pay well beyond basic survival needs. And, they can reduce sales tax burden by saving versus consuming, a choice that is not available to lower-income.

[JKCalhoun]

I agree that a regressive tax like sales tax is not "fair" at all.

I had a coworker that argued for a flat tax—considered that fair. I explained that anything less than a progressive tax was going to make the poor pay more and the wealthy pay less. Really, that's fair?

You should be so lucky to have enough that you're in the highest tax bracket.

[vunderba]

Yeah, I can't imagine somebody arguing in good faith that a flat tax is fair unless they are completely oblivious to the concept of the diminishing marginal utility of income.

[seanmcdirmid]

Mississippi taxes groceries and has a flat income tax (well, it has a deduction at least). That state is just never going to get better.

[michtzik]

> I explained that anything less than a progressive tax was going to make the poor pay more and the wealthy pay less.

Here's a formally-verified proof in Lean that with a flat tax, if you have more income, then you pay more tax: https://live.lean-lang.org/#codez=JYWwDg9gTgLgBAWQIYwBYBtgCM...

The theorem uses one important assumption: that the flat tax rate is positive.