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[Il Palazzo]

How about you cut all expenses but police, military, judical system and foreign diplomacy?

edit:
in the case of UK, some 100 pounds per month per capita would give a yearly revenues of about 50 billion pounds. Compare to 155 billion that UK's government is gathering from income taxes now. The difference is more or less exactly what the healthcare system consumes.

[kuro_suna]

After some quick research I seriously doubt you could run a developed country on less than $4,000 per capita per year even if you strip defence to the bare minimum and ignore the long term ramification of scrapping public education and even that is probably ignoring municipal level government.

[Il Palazzo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_budget
edit:
the point is, income tax is not the only source of revenues:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_taxes.svg

[kuro_suna]

But why bother with eliminating progressive income tax if your going to keep corporate taxes that pretty much have to be a progressive tax unless you want to take the same amount from the corner general store as BP.

[Footkerchief]

True, but it's also the case that higher earners don't use a proportionally higher amount of public services. On the contrary, they probably use less.

You sure about that?  That's probably true for some services like healthcare (although that's hardly a given when the poor are plausibly less equipped to make use of healthcare), but I doubt it's true for, say, highways.

[Il Palazzo]

But why bother with eliminating progressive income tax if your going to keep corporate taxes that pretty much have to be a progressive tax unless you want to take the same amount from the corner general store as BP.

Look, personally, I'd love to hack away at most taxes and expenses alike. Presently, I don't see how it could all work out in the end, I'm no economist, just a homebrew political idealist. But heck, getting progressive tax out of the way would at least be a small step towards my ideal vision of the libertarian government.

[Timst]

I'm all against progressive taxation. Even with the same tax rate for everybody, the rich are paying more than the poor(as in:20% of 30000$ is more than 20% of 10000$). Taking more money from somebody who, due to his own hard work, became more wealthy than your average person, is not exactly promoting resourcefulness in people.
Hell, in an ideal world, I'd like to see a tax system where everybody is required to pay a fixed amount of cash every year, and whatever he earns above that is nobody's business but his.

That ends up being nonsensical. If you do that, the logical outcome is to not work and take advantage of welfare services. Your system is trivially gamed.

Unless you think that debtor prisons are a good idea.

You just need to reduce welfare system to necessary minimum. E.g. lack of job wouldn't qualify you to get free monies from the government.
Then the logical outcome is to quit whining and get a job.

Or starve to death in the streets because your system will only "work" (and I'm not sure it will actually work even in the best conditions) if the total number of jobs available equal the active population, which is not the case in most countries. Soviet Russia already had trouble providing a job for each citizen, and it was a communist state...

And good luck surviving if you happen to lose your job. Suddenly, you find yourself without ANY income, and if you don't have a family (ie, wealthy parents / siblings) to back you up, you're basically left for dead, unless you are able to quickly find a new job.

Also, the "rich people pay more because 10 % of 100 000 € is larger than 10 % of 10 000 €" point is moot... of course if you take the absolute value, rich people pay more. But the goal is to make everyone participate at the same level : otherwise some will have considerable difficulties paying their taxes (imagine someone who earn 1000 € a month but have to pay 1500 € of taxes..) and other won't even notice it.

That should be the same for fines also, because if you're rich, you can basically park anywhere you want or drive at the speed you want (hopefully, it never happens, but it could), because hey, what is a 150 € fine when you earn 20 000 € a month ? Definitely worth the extra speed.

[Blacken]

I also don't think he realizes that if you put that many people out of work, they will rise up and fucking kill you.

How do you think these things happen?

[Duke 2.0]

 10% of 100 is larger to the owner of the 100 than 10% of 1000? It's both 10% of your total. Proportionally it's the same amount. From the view of the government it makes more sense to tax rich people more because every percent tax nets you a lot more than the lower-middle class, but this means you have to determine how much extra you can tax them. How much is too much? How much can you tax them and justify it for the greater good?
 I understand governments rather well need this to survive in their current states, but I still don't like the concept.

[Blacken]

10% of 100 is larger to the owner of the 100 than 10% of 1000? It's both 10% of your total. Proportionally it's the same amount. From the view of the government it makes more sense to tax rich people more because every percent tax nets you a lot more than the lower-middle class, but this means you have to determine how much extra you can tax them. How much is too much? How much can you tax them and justify it for the greater good?
 I understand governments rather well need this to survive in their current states, but I still don't like the concept.

It costs X to maintain a baseline standard of living. X is proportionally far greater of the income generated by the poor than by the rich.

They do have extra. The question is how much extra the government can take without damaging the economy (and taking into account the ethical implications of it, etcetera etcetera).

Whether you like it or not doesn't really matter at the end of the day, I'm afraid, because there's no other system of taxation that works effectively (defined as both bringing in the money and not torquing off the poor to the point where they get the pitchforks).

[Nilocy]

I still stick by my bread costs the same if your poor or rich comment. Poor people have to spend a much larger amount just to survive than the richer people. So yeah, tax them. Its not like they're going to miss it.

[Blacken]

I still stick by my bread costs the same if your poor or rich comment. Poor people have to spend a much larger amount just to survive than the richer people. So yeah, tax them. Its not like they're going to miss it.

Repeating it doesn't make it true.

You don't find a ditchdigger who's employing other people. You do find doctors and lawyers who employ other people. Your class-envy "they won't miss it" line ignores this in favor of the easy, and wrong, answer.

[chaoticag]

A larger amount still makes more sense though. Looking at people with higher incomes, maybe there ought to be a luxury tax instead? (Forgive me if there is: in the UAE, virtually all government spending comes from the oil industry here.) Where buying luxury goods costs you a bit more than buying basic goods, ie. Sports cars cost more, electric cars cost less.

The rich may not be able to enjoy themselves as much as they used to, but it hopefully shouldn't affect the economy too much and the poor should be fine so long as they don't spend idiotically.

(Plus, a tax that is equal among all members of society couldn't last as they would vote you out either because you cannot make ends meet or your working class gets thrown into jail for failure to pay taxes. If it does work, then it still comes out of the rich, since wages will need to go up to pay for the working class taxes.)

[Duke 2.0]

 The Luxury Tax I can get behind, as it it indirectly taxes the rich as opposed to the iffy statement of 'they won't miss it.' A stingy businessman who worked for his wealth damn will miss money used to get their kids an education at the best college possible. That same businessman won't throw money away at luxury goods and instead invest it in said college fund. A system where the rich are taxed based on choices they make as opposed to how much money can be sucked out of them before they reach the acceptable wealth level.

[Il Palazzo]

Or starve to death in the streets because your system will only "work" (and I'm not sure it will actually work even in the best conditions) if the total number of jobs available equal the active population, which is not the case in most countries. Soviet Russia already had trouble providing a job for each citizen, and it was a communist state...

And good luck surviving if you happen to lose your job. Suddenly, you find yourself without ANY income, and if you don't have a family (ie, wealthy parents / siblings) to back you up, you're basically left for dead, unless you are able to quickly find a new job.

Also, the "rich people pay more because 10 % of 100 000 € is larger than 10 % of 10 000 €" point is moot... of course if you take the absolute value, rich people pay more. But the goal is to make everyone participate at the same level : otherwise some will have considerable difficulties paying their taxes (imagine someone who earn 1000 € a month but have to pay 1500 € of taxes..) and other won't even notice it.

That should be the same for fines also, because if you're rich, you can basically park anywhere you want or drive at the speed you want (hopefully, it never happens, but it could), because hey, what is a 150 € fine when you earn 20 000 € a month ? Definitely worth the extra speed.

OR, you get a society with rich people being encouraged to stat their businesses, as they don't face the need to part with larger and larger part of their income the more successful they are. Which creates jobs.
Then you get people who WANT to work more, because they always need to pay just a fixed amount in taxes, so earning more equals exactly owning more.
On top of that, you get a society which encourages starting large families, and having family life, not because the government is spending millions on promoing such a lifestyle, but because people want to have somebody to turn to, should they get unlucky at some point in their lives. This creates more taxpayers and saves on another wasteful governmental spending.
If you also cut on welfare and healthcare, you won't have people happily living their lives as parasites. The money that stays thus in welthy taxpayer's pocket, will be spent, among other things, on creating new jobs AND charity, which takes care of all those who really are in need of help, again without all the wastefulness of centralized organization that the welfare system is.
Also, why is the goal to make everyone "participate on the same level"? Whence does this idea come from? I suppose that some people think that taxes are some kind of divine punishment sent upon this world, so equality means that everyone should suffer the same. This is so very wrong. Equality means everyone owes to the country the same, literally, so you don't punish successful people for being just that - successful.
That comment on fines, it's about the same fallacy. You think that paying taxes is the same as paying fines, i.e. it's a punishment. On another note, fines are where linear taxation of income would work just about right. You break the law, so you have to pay, let's say 1% of your yearly income in taxes, at the end of the taxyear. It's a good idea here, again, because it's a punishment.
And the last thing, is the communists comment: you somehow fail to notice that what communists did was tax everybody at 100% so that they could provide for the poor(which now was also everybody). This wasn't very efficient, because centralized spending of revenues is always going to be ridden with corruption, nepotism and a general feeling that everybody's money is nobody's money, so it's ok to steal some, or at least manage carelessly. This is also the case today, people haven't changed. If you increase revenues to fund more government-run areas of society's life, you'll get the same type of beurocratic wastefulness that brought communism(as an idea) down.
What I'm proposing is to let the rich keep their money. They won't put in their sockets and bury in their gardens - they will spend it and invest it. When the rich get richier, so does the society.

Since I'm at it, I'd like to point out how I despise that Robin Hood mentality. Robin Hood is the personification of progressive tax system. He takes(robs) from the wealthy(poor pay less, and very poor are often exempt from paying taxes thanks to "personal allowances"), deducts some amount to pay for food and pleasantries for his jolly company(bureaucracy support and wastefulness), then gives away the rest to the "poor"(i.e.people living off welfare, and defending Robin because he provides them with easy and effortless source of income). Nobody cares if the now-penniless merchant which happened upon Robbin' Hoodlum has to fire all five of his servants, won't be able to buy resources for his small manufacture, and being unable to pay off the debt that he took to start his business, he'll join the ranks of poor uneployed people, together with his servants, his family, his ex-workers, and maybe also local barber and theater troupe, who until recently had paying customers. Ultimately, all of them will end up turning to Robin for help.

tl;dr;
Robin must go.

@chaoticag: that's assuming that those taxes would be somehow higher than they are now. All you need is to reduce spending instead of looking for new ways to rob people of their money.