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

This is mostly a hypothetical debate. However, I will present numbers which Con is more than welcome to question.In this debate we will be looking at relatively modern Western Societies and specifically the United States (although I think this would easily apply to modern European countries such as the UK, France, Germany, etc.). This stipulation is particularly important when defining the minimum cost of living (since one could say that in 3rd world countries the cost of living is drastically lower).The philosophical part of this debate is what constitutes quality of life, whether or not my mathematical definition of financial burden is correct, and whether or not placing a heavier burden on the poor is fair. I hold that the quality of a person's life is determined by the amount of luxuries they can afford above and beyond the minimum necessities. So obviously a very wealthy person has a better quality of life than a very poor person because they have much more income to spend on luxuries.I also hold that placing a heavier burden on the poor is unfair to the poor. If anything, there should be a heavier burden on the wealthy, but at the very least, it should be equal.Finally, as you will see, I think the financial burden of taxes can be quantified as a ratio of taxes paid to the amount of available luxury spending. That is the percentage of taxes as compared to one's quality of life.I will now present some hypothetical numbers, which again, Con is free to debate over whether or not these numbers are reasonable. Minimum Cost of living: 20KFlat Tax Rate: 20% of gross incomePoor Person: gross income of 50KRich Person: gross income of 150KI will now go through the numbers and calculate the amount that the poor person vs. the rich person has available to spend on luxuries. I will show that the taxes a rich person pays compared to their quality of life (amount available to spend on luxuries) is substantially lower than the amount the poor person will pay in proportion to the poor person's luxury spending.Taxes:Poor Person: 20% of 50K = 10K in taxesRich Person: 20% of 150K = 30K in taxesNet Income:Poor Person: 50K - 10K = 40KRich Person: 150K - 30K = 120KLuxury Spending (after minimum cost of living):Poor Person: 40K - 20K = 20KRich Person: 120K - 20K = 100KTax Burden as Percent of Luxury Spending:Poor Person: 10K/ 20K = 50%Rich Person: 30K/100K = 30%We can see, that in terms of the quality of life, which I am arguing is proportional to the amount of luxury spending an individual has, the poor person pays a larger percentage of taxes on their luxury spending as opposed to a rich person if we use a flat tax. This means that a flat tax cuts deeper into a poor persons discretionary spending than it does for a rich person.As a math exercise, if we keep the poor person's taxes at 20%, what tax rate would be required for the rich person (making 150K) so that they both paid the same 50% of their luxury spending in taxes?x: tax rate for rich personTaxes: x * 150KLuxury spending: 150K * (1 - x) - 20KEquation to arrive at 50% Tax Rate: 150x / (150(1 - x) - 20) = 0.5If we solve this equation we find:150x = 75 - 75x - 10 --> 225x = 65x ≈ 28.89%This leads to:Taxes: 43.33KLuxury Spending: 86.67KSo while a flat tax places a higher burden on the poor person (in proportion to their luxury spending), we can achieve equality (with my numbers) with a very reasonable progressive tax of 28.89%. Even in the case of the progressive tax, the rich person still has more money for luxury spending than the poor person grosses.