Flat Tax

Thank you. I would like to point out that I personally believe that an elimination of income tax in favor of an increased sales tax would be beneficial, so I will specifically be debating that a flat tax is superior to a progressive tax. The concept of a progressive tax is indeed an appealing argument. Increased taxes on the rich allow the poor to be under less of a financial burden from the government. However, the system is inherently flawed. Our economy is based on returns on investment, specifically investment of time and labor in this case. An increase in time and labor spent leads to a proportional increase in pay, whether it be monetary or related to other things, such as working conditions. A progressive tax hinders and in some extreme cases even removes that system: under a progressive tax, an increase in labor leads to a less substantial return. This disincentivizes hard work, giving people a better work to money ratio with lower salaries. And at the point where an increase in work gives a smaller return than the benefits of working less, people will stay at their level of work, as they consider it foolish to work any harder. So instead of increasing the benefits of people in more difficult situations, it reduces our GDP substantially, which over time makes it more difficult to provide for them. The flaw with the progressive tax system is that it assumes that people are solely driven by money. If people are driven only by money, anyone with the ability to work more would choose to, so people in poorer conditions must have been let down by the economy, and need help to be put back into it. This would also imply that people with larger salaries would not be deterred by an increased tax: more money, even if not a great amount, is still more money, right? However, there are more factors at play. Specifically, earning money requires work. There is a point for all people for which a certain increase in work is not worth a given increase in money. If someone will not make much more by doubling their hours, they will continue working the amount that they are. So in a progressive tax system, people are incentivized to work less at lower salaries than in a flat tax system, where people would be willing to work more at higher salaries. In a flat tax system, we cannot assume that people will not receive as much money or as many benefits solely because the government does not provide them. In a flat tax system, if people find a certain salary not worth the work it demands, companies will not have a sufficient amount of employees, and will increase their benefits in order to attract more potential employees. So the people already have the ability to improve their benefits: they can leave jobs with insufficient benefits to move to jobs that either have better benefits or less work. This over time will deplete the human capital of a company with lower pay, and they will be forced to increase their benefits to survive as a company. So a progressive tax is trying to accommodate for something a flat tax system already allows. In conclusion, the progressive taxation system is a fundamentally ineffective system that attempts to compebsate for a power to the people already provided by a flat tax, while a flat tax system is superior both for the economy and the individual. Please only respond with your opening statements and not with rebuttals, which will be withheld until round 3.