In terms of quality of life, a flat tax places an unfair, substantially heavier burden on the poor.

This debate is not over whether or not the flat tax is "fair" in the most absolute sense--it is over whether or not the burden (on quality of life) is fair. Furthermore, whether or not this extra burden (on the poor) is substantial when compared to the rich (although not specifically stated, I think it's clear that we are arguing over poor vs. rich in terms of burden). So I refer readers to the general outline of Con's arguments:1) Substantial - this is no doubt subjective. Even Con's own definition does not give an objective measure. In terms of numbers, is 1% substantial? Probably not, what about 10%, 20%, 100%, etc. Ultimately, I leave it up to the readers to determine what they think is substantial. In R1, Pro showed that as defined by Pro, the poor (50K) vs. rich (150K) pays an amount of taxes in proportion to their luxury spending that is 20% higher than the rich person. Again I cannot really argue, by the definition of substantial, that 20% constitutes a substantially larger portion. Rather, I argue, subjectively, that Pro believes 20% to not be insignificant (as opposed to say a 1%, 2%, or even 5% difference would be insignificant).On this issue, I believe Pro has presented numbers that are compelling while Con has not.2) Fairness - Con states that, in terms of absolute amounts, the rich pay far more (up to ~3,000%) more. This argument is completely irrelevant to the resolution. The resolution does not state whether or not the flat tax is fair in any sense, it states the the flat taxes places an unfair burden on the poor. For this line of argument to go through, Con must show that this 3,000% extra in absolute taxes presents an unfair (or at least fair) burden on the rich compared to the poor. Specifically, Con must state how paying 3,000% extra in absolute taxes burdens the rich compared to the poor.3) Quality of Life Definition - This is the meat of this debate. This (and argument 1) is where the debate will be decided. For Con to win this argument, they must show that the availability of luxury spending has either no bearing or an insignificant bearing on quality of life. If Pro can show that luxury spending has a significant effect on quality of life, then there is no doubt that taxes burden the poor more so than the rich in this regard and thus a flat tax's tax rate presents more of a burden on the poor's quality of life than the rich's. The following will be a combination of rebuttals against Con's claim and arguments for Pro's claims. Specifically, Pro will maintain 1) a person's quality of life is proportional to the amount of luxury spending they have (or at least dependent) and 2) that some of Con's arguments are irrelevant to the resolution (i.e. fairness irrespective of burden is not part of the resolution).Pro makes the argument that rich pay more in taxes in absolute terms, irrespective of proportional taxes. This is completely irrelevant, as proportions do a better job of explaining relative burden vs. absolute terms.Con, R1: "I own that the gold shop owner has rights to the basic freedom of property ownership...The fact that she has a greater amount of luxury spending doesn't mean she no longer has property rights."This is irrelevant. It's the government coming in and taking a portion of the gold, not individuals. Under a flat tax the government would come in and take a portion of the gold from everyone! So they are not unfairly targeting the rich and only taking away the rich's property rights.Let's put this argument into context as whether it is fair or unfair in terms of burden on the quality of life. I think most readers are familiar with the story of Robin Hood where the king asked for taxes of everyone including the poor. Let's say that one can survive off of 2 gold nuggets (in whatever time span--say a year). Furthermore, let's say the "king" (or government) imposes a flat tax of 50% of income to everyone. Now there are two people: one rich with 6 gold nuggets and one poor with 2 nuggets (notice that's in proportion to 50K --> 150K). Who has a larger burden placed on them after taxes? The person left with 4 nuggets (twice as many as necessary to live) or the person left with 1 nuggets (half as many as is necessary to live)? I think the answer is obvious. The poor person, left with less money than is necessary to live has a substantially larger burden while the rich person, while they got the same proportion taken out, not only has enough to live but has extra!Con R1: "I think my opponent would agree that there is only so much material wealth any individual can hold."Most people do not seem to hold this same ideal, although the point is correct. In terms of my measure, there would be very little difference in taxes in proportion to luxury spending if you compared the rich with the über wealthy. This fact is easy to see since I set the minimum cost of living so low. Let's look at the numbers:Luxury Spending (after minimum cost of living): (Pro has added the percent of taxes compared to luxury spending)Poor Person: 30K --> 24K - 20K = 4K --> 150%Poor Person: 50K --> 40K - 20K = 20K --> 50%Rich Person: 150K --> 120K - 20K = 100K --> 30%Rich Person: 250K --> 200K - 20K = 180K --> 27.78%Rich Person: 1,000K --> 800K - 20K = 780K --> 25.64%Rich Person: 1,000,000K --> 800,000K - 20K = 799,980K --> 25.00%(Pro/readers can check these numbers for themselves here: http://my.cs.utsa.edu... )Now, this is all math, so you can skew these numbers so that the person making $1 million a year vs. $1 billion pays a substantially larger percent of their luxury spending. Although to do that, you would have to either drastically increase the flat tax or more importantly drastically increase the minimum cost of living.Con R1: " The annual billion dollars vs. the annual million dollars will bring both wage earners a potential for a luxuriant life."Pro agrees: there is a limit to how much luxury spending can actually affect one's quality of life. Furthermore, Pro concedes that a millionaire vs. billionaire probably doesn't have a drastically different quality of life. However, look at the percentages above! Pro's measure of taxes in proportion to luxury spending shows this notion! Someone making 250K, under the same flat tax and same minimum cost of living pays nearly the same proportion of taxes to luxury spending as a billionaire--there is only a 2.7% difference! Compare that with a 20% difference when comparing 50K to 150K or, even worse, 125% difference when comparing 30K to 1,000,000K! Surely Con and readers agree these are substantial differences!Con R1: "Unlike progressive taxes, flat taxes allows for this very 'trickle-down' of money."The claim is that the rich having more money will result in the poor having more money, this is totally false: between 1975 to 2005 while the top fifth percentile's wealth has increased by a factor of 80%, the bottom fifth's has increased by a factor of 6%. [2]Finally, Pro argues that luxury spending is not the only measure for quality of life. No doubt this is true. However, these arguments are all irrelevant to the burden that taxes place on people. Again, the argument is not whether or not having more money makes one happier, it's that having less places a burden on people and the flat tax places a substantially higher and unfair burden on the poor. Simply put, both rich and poor could, financially, have the same life (as long as they made over 20K), the amount they choose to live their life beyond this minimum is dependent on extra income. The portion of the poor person's luxury spending is cut much deeper by taxes than the rich person's, thus the poor face a heavier burden of taxes compared to their potential to live a more luxurious life above and beyond the bare minimum required to survive.Sources:[2] http://useconomy.about.com...