Progressive Federal Taxes

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The United States government was created to uniformly protect and represent all of its states, as well as any and all constituents within those states. Among maintaining defense and running a free market economy, there are a myriad of other expenses the government embraces as the country grows. With increasing expenditures, politicians had to seek ways of financing the government. Federal taxes were levied as the American people proved to be the largest source of revenue for the government. The most notable being Income taxes, as they are the largest contributor. Taxes have been a significant topic of discussion in American politics; affecting everyone in the country, they are a prominent subject of debate during every election season. There …show more content…

A progressive rate is characterized as one that increases as the individual's wealth increases. For example, an individual with an income of $5000 pays a 5% rate but a person making $50000 pays a 15% rate. This is vastly different from a flat tax, in which everyone would pay the same percentage of their income regardless of the amount they make, and completely opposite from a regressive tax, which is characterized as a rate that decreases as the individual’s wealth increases (debate.org). While there were many attempts to deem income taxes unconstitutional, there has been miniscule debate surrounding the progressive tax rate. Depending on the school of legal thought one subscribes to, you could have multiple differing interpretations to the legality of a progressive tax. While a legal positivist may support the law as it stands, arguing that just-lawmakers created in addition to its acceptance by society, a legal naturalist may express a completely different view. It would be plausible that a legal naturalist would find the progressive tax unconstitutional, opting to replace it with a flat tax. A naturalist interprets the law and it’s wording in nature. They could find issue regarding equal representation under the law. If 10% of the population is contributing to 70% of the income tax revenue and they only represent 10% of a vote, aren’t they paying for more representation that they are receiving? This argument was supported professor Richard Epstein who suggested that progressive rates violate the taking clause of the fifth amendment (law.yale.edu). The clause states that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation” (progressivereform.org). While the argument does align with the notion of an unequal compensation, it does ignore significant court

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