I believe this is the true problem in the USA. Along side with the ethical dilemma of business nationally, but more so globally, in the era of globalization; presents new concerns to ethical policies. Then you are tying in military conflicts globally, with business interests; which are equally important as tax code.

It seems that all of these recent discussions about taxes incorporate some or all of the following obfuscations instead of the real purpose behind progressive taxation:

- The complete lack of discussion of the critical role of progressive taxes in acting as a force (actually the only force) countering the tendency of income and wealth to concentrate in a small percentage of the population; and that greater equality of wealth and income provides greater opportunities and a better quality of life to more of the population.

- Government is viewed as a large condo association who’s “costs” to fix the “roof & roads” must be allocated to the “owners” and everyone must pay their “fair” share; followed by all kinds of subjective arguments about what constitutes “fair.”

- There seems to be an “understanding” that money paid in taxes is just “gone” somehow without regard to the fact that when the government spends that money, it is income to someone else and grows the economy just as much as if someone else spends it. (As if the food at the restaurant had been consumed and now all that’s left is to split up the bill without regard to the fact that this payment is the “income” for the cooks, servers, bus boys, owners and suppliers.)

- The search for some logical justification (other than redistribution) of why those who earn or have more should bear more of the costs than those that have or earn less as well as some justification for how much more “they” should pay, all in a complete vacuum of what our objectives (other than revenue) are. If we articulate our wealth and income concentration objectives, it will become quite obvious that redistribution alone provides sufficient justification.

- There is little recognition or discussion of the fact income and wealth concentration like we have in this country now, means loss of opportunity to large numbers of the population who’s only “opportunity” now is to buy a lottery ticket and hope to become one of the lucky winners. Our wealth Gini is .84 and rising, an incredibly high number considering that 1.0 means that one individual has all of it; yet no one mentions the impact of various tax proposals on this number

- The complete lack of a solid explanation of what the goals are with respect to “progressiveness” of our tax system allows the system itself to be attacked from almost any angle depending on what any person’s specific bias is. If there are no specific goals and rationale for the system it appears arbitrary and corrupt and subject to manipulation by those who influence and control it. So why do we have a “progressive” tax system? Obviously the poor can’t pay their “per capita” share because “you can’t get blood from a turnip,” they simply don’t have the money. So why not take the whole amount and divide it evenly by those that can pay? (Obviously some things need to be worked out at the margins for those who can’t both eat and pay their taxes but that shouldn’t be a show stopper.) Can’t get much more “fair” than that right “flat taxers?” (Of course there are lots of digressions we could get into about who actually uses what government services and how those costs should be allocated to those users but can we stay above the din, even for just a little while?)

- The wealthy would have us believe that the reason for a progressive system is so we can extract more of “their” “hard-earned” money from them to spend on unimportant things that “we” could do without or charge someone else for if “we” really wanted them. The poor and middle class on the other hand, claim that because the wealthy have so much more, its “only fair” that they pay more to ease someone else’s suffering. Round & round we go without ever mentioning that the real reason for a progressive tax system is “REDISTRIBUTION” of the “arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes” that a capitalist system produces; and that this redistribution benefits the entire economy by providing additional demand and growth, two things we are in dire need of.

- There are over 300 million definitions of what a “fair share” is in this country and yet its constantly mentioned in a huge percentage of these tax discussions as if it were something that somehow can be objectively determined and agreed upon. While we may have some agreement on things we can point to as blatantly “unfair” (like over 20% of the entire Nation’s income going to a tiny fraction of the population) we will likely never see any agreed upon objective definition of what a “fair” tax policy is. Its time to move on and stop wasting time talking about “fair” taxes; its an oxymoron and doesn’t really matter anyway. What matters is what’s the “best” tax policy; that’s the one that will achieve our objectives. Asking what the “best” tax policy is will force us to articulate our objectives and discuss possible ways to achieve them. If the objectives are “fair,” the policies that follow will be “fair.” The best tax policy will be the one produces the largest “pie” and distributes this production most effectively to achieve “our” goals. If Keynes was right, we won’t solve our current problems without more effective redistribution of wealth and incomes and recent studies are confirming what he told us 70 years ago: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/09/Berg.htm Its time we started discussing what our goals are for wealth & income concentration (based on objective measures like Gini) and which tax policy gets us there the quickest.

Follow this link for a great discussion of the purpose behind progressive taxation: http://nontrivialpursuits.org/Tax_Policy.htm

There may be no better time than right now to resolve these disputes that produce the gridlock that prevents us from moving beyond this crisis. Let’s find out if Keynes was right: http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/newspapers-across-the-land/#comment-35373

And that the deductions they get on Fed tax for the very regressive state sales and property taxes are a lifeline.

But folks who make more (hundreds of thousands to millions) DO pay more in taxes, at a higher rate.

If only capital gains was taxed the same way (graduated) as wages and salaries.

The government is not in the business of maximizing profits, it is there to put out the fires free market regulations fail to control…it is, after all, a controlled burn this capitalism thing, verdad?