Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjaman370z
Again, flat tax is a perfect world scenario that doesn't work in the real world.  |
I don't buy that for a minute. My parents are from HongKong and most of my extended family is still there. HongKong had a flat tax system while they were under British rule (I don't know if that's still the case after they were re-absorbed into China). The tax rate was 17% across the board, if I remember correctly. It worked just fine. Just look at how prosperous HongKong is. My parents moved from HongKong to Britain (where I was born), then to Canada. I still remember the utter shock my aunts and uncles had when my parents explained to them how a progressive income tax system worked. I mean, they were screaming in horror. They were saying things like 'When everyone pays the same flat rate, everyone has an incentive to work harder to make more money, because the more money you make, the more money you keep. If the government is just going to take a bigger slice of my pie the bigger I bake it, what incentive do I have to make a bigger pie??' Mind you, they were screaming this in Cantonese, which kinda grates on the eardrums, but that's another topic altogether.
Anyway, my point is simply that flat tax systems can and have worked in the real world. HongKong isn't perfect. But I'd hardly call it an economic disaster either.