Yes, a flat tax is generally taken to mean a system wherein everyone pays the same percentage of their income. This still winds up being IMHO a bad system because, say, 20% for a poor person is much more of a burden than 20% for a rich person. A constant rebate would improve things somewhat but really, the extremely poor would do well to get a bit more than $0-2000 back, and the extremely rich could certainly afford to pay more than 20%. And I hope you don't set the poverty level at $10,000! I'm no economist but it would seem feasible to me to implement a tax/refund/minimum-wage/welfare/whatever system wherein noone who works full time is below the poverty level, AND the poverty level really is enough to reasonably live on. The United States is surely a wealthy enough country to accomplish this if we decide to.
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Yes, a flat tax is generally taken to mean a system wherein everyone pays the same percentage of their income. This still winds up being IMHO a bad system because, say, 20% for a poor person is much more of a burden than 20% for a rich person. A constant rebate would improve things somewhat but really, the extremely poor would do well to get a bit more than $0-2000 back, and the extremely rich could certainly afford to pay more than 20%. And I hope you don't set the poverty level at $10,000! I'm no economist but it would seem feasible to me to implement a tax/refund/minimum-wage/welfare/whatever system wherein noone who works full time is below the poverty level, AND the poverty level really is enough to reasonably live on. The United States is surely a wealthy enough country to accomplish this if we decide to.