Taxing the citizen’s income is extremely important for government funding, and the government would not be able to function without the aid from this taxation.  Although people may hate having money taken away because of taxes, there is no denying the importance of doing such.  The federal government is allowed to tax personal incomes by the 16th amendment.  The 16th amendment reads, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”  The amendment gives the federal government income taxation abilities directly rather than through the state.  The second half of the amendment is in regards to how taxes were originally and “directly” collected by the federal government.  Taxes were required from each state government and was based off of the population of each state, so if a state had five percent of the population, it would be liable for paying five percent of the national taxes.  This is a broken system because of the different taxation types vary across the many states, for example one state with a small amount of property would be required to pay the same as another state with a large amount of property if both states had the same population.  This led to taxation being indirect rather than direct, so there is no apportionment.  The amendment first, constitutionally allowed the federal government to tax citizens, and secondly, fixed the indirect taxation problems.  Even though the amendment is positive for our government, it still brings a decent amount of controversy with it.

Some of the controversy does not come from the fact that there is federal income tax, but instead, the method the American government taxes.  The current taxing system works using brackets based of off each person’s salary.  The chart to the left displays how large these ranges are and the tax rate for each.  The alternative, a flat tax rate for everyone, is heavily debated, and there is pros and cons to both methods.

There are some obvious pros to having a flat rate for everyone.  The flat rate would allow everyone to be on the same terms and pay the government the same percentage.  This is technically the fairer option because no one would be forced to contribute more of their income.  Also, there has been evidence of flat taxes stimulating the economy and causing it to grow.  If the United States decided to implement a flat tax rate, some people would inevitably receive a tax cut which leads to more disposable income spending, and more money in the economy results in a better economy overall.  Flat rate advocates also argue that having higher tax percentages for higher incomes is negative because it unfairly penalizes people just because they are more successful.  Why should a person have to pay more just because he or she is more prosperous that the next person?  The flat rate is the generally easier and fairer way of taxing citizens.

The cons of having a flat rate are plenty as well.  Implementing a flat rate would certainly cause the tax rates of the lower end of the spectrum to increase.  Theoretically, the citizens near the bottom of the totals are in need money the most, and the increase would hurt them even further.  For example, if the flat rate was set at 20%, a person that made a million dollars for the year would still be left with 800,000 dollars, but a person who earns the 2017 US median income, 60,336 dollars, would only be left with 48,268 dollars.  The 48,268 dollars is relatively close to the current amount the person would pay anyways, but the million dollar person would have over 200,000 dollars more to work with.  The median citizen has to make serious decisions when budgeting their money and that wouldn’t change with a flat rate, but the million dollar person, on paper, has plenty of money to work with and would only have more with a flat rate implemented.  The flat rate would benefit the rich and hinder low-income earners even more.
As for my opinion on flat rates, I think the bracket system we have now is the better way to tax citizens, and a flat rate would cause too many problems for many citizens.  If a citizen has plenty of excess income, he or she should be able to contribute much more than a citizen that barely gets by on his or her income.  The bracket system could definitely be improved in some ways.  The system may work better if it was based off of an continuously increasing rate rather than set brackets.  This would help those that are right along the bracket edges from paying a much higher percentage.  The percentage would instead be slightly higher than that of the person below.  How do you feel about tax brackets and flat tax rates?  Do you believe we should change to a flat tax rate?  I’m curious to hear your opinions on the matter!