Is progressive taxation fair

A couple of days ago I saw a Tweet on Twitter asking "Why is progressive taxation fair?" I've been wondering this myself for a long time and decided to write something about it.

Why progressive taxation is not fair

I myself would base the argument against progressive taxation on the basis of morality. One has to ask why someone making $100,000 should pay more than someone making $10,000. Of course the left would say "Because progressive taxation is fair" and anyone who opposes that is greedy. But, what is really greed is wanting to keep the money you have earned yourself, in the words of the famous economist Thomas Sowell:

I've never understood why it's greedy to want to keep the money you've earned, but not greedy to take someone else's money.

Because anyone who understands even a little math knows that 10% of $100,000 is already more than 10% of $10,000 anyway. In fact, the only argument for progressive taxation is: "You earn more, I earn less, and since I can't make more, I'll will just take it from you".

Of course, I can also extend my argument a little to nearby areas, why someone should pay more for the same services or products. Should a rich person pay more for the same education, the same health care,... just based on being more productive and earning more, why? Let's imagine a world in which someone who earns $100,000 would pay $10 at a grocery store, and someone who earns $10,000 would pay $1. It is simply illogical and especially not moral.

What is the alternative?

The alternative is quite simple: I would introduce a flat tax, that is, everyone would pay the same percentage of their salary, regardless of the amount of earnings. The system would eliminate all reliefs except those that would apply to children. But here comes the problem again, even though the middle class, upper middle class, and rich would pay less, minimum wage earners would pay more . Under this proposal, people on the minimum wage would pay no income tax. Let me point out that this would not affect the income tax, because anyway, percentage wise, they pay nothing.

One of the advantages of such a system is its simplicity. A flat tax would reduce the bureaucracy and complexity associated with the income tax system.

The left would say, what about the money for the budget, if everyone pays less, then there will be no money for education, roads...

Let's say that the money that would be returned to the taxpayers would not flow back into the state coffers (This is otherwise impossible, as the money would be spent and since there are a multitude of different taxes, the money would return to the coffers). According to the proposal, income tax contributions would be reduced by a maximum of 50%. This would mean a deficit in the budget of about 950 million (Contributions from income tax will contribute about 1.9 billion to the state treasury this year). However, given the estimated budget of 15,500 billion, this amount would only represent crumbs.

In reality, the problem is not how much money the government collects, but how much it spends. Therefore, the money that would be returned to taxpayers could easily be replaced by the rationalization of the operation of the entire public administration (reduction in the number of employees, rationalization of procedures,...) and return state spending to pre-coronavirus times.

Link to the consolidated state budget: https://www.gov.si/assets/ministrstva/MF/Proracun-direktorat/Drzavni-proracun/Sprejeti-proracun/Sprejeti-2024/Izpisi/SP2024_SPL.pdf