[freeweed]

1. It's set up this way not to confuse people, but to buy votes. Every single tax deduction that you see has been created to target a specific group of people during an election campaign. And it's political suicide to try to remove any deductions. Decades later, here we are.

2. The biggest problem with the rich not paying taxes is that much if not most of their money is not "income". It has little to nothing to do with tax deductions or loopholes. Raise everyone's personal income tax rate to 90% and you'll still miss most of the rich folks. We have to start introducing wealth and inheritance taxes before we can really make these people pay their fair share.

3. Income taxation is progressive - ie: the more you have, the more you can contribute. The idea is that really poor people should pay very little, but as you earn more, you can afford a little bit more out of each paycheque, proportionally. And as you earn waaaay more and your costs of living are more than covered, you can contribute even more. Because of this, most "flat tax" proposals are actually more beneficial to the upper classes as they're entirely regressive. Tax rates increase for lower/middle class folks, but actually would DECREASE for the wealthy.

Personally I'd be in favour of a progressive flat tax. Use similar brackets as we have today (first $x,000 is untaxed, next $y,000 is 17%, next is 24% etc) and NO deductions. Simple, neat, fair. But parents, seniors, farmers, northern workers, disabled people - basically every group you can think of will scream.