I've noted with growing concern the unfortunate tendency by some to gloss over or misunderstand the tax system and it's imposition, so in my own humble way I offer this:
There's this whole complex economic theory which essentially states that the "minimum wage" and by this I mean the lowest possible wage allowed will always be insufficient to support a family. So, in a total free market economy no one cares about that and allows people to starve because after all, as Scrooge himself says it depletes the surplus population. Of course, then as Marx wrote, and on this one point Marx was mostly right, the workers would rise up and demand better conditions. You can see this in the violence of the labor movement at the beginning of the 20th century. Hence the development of welfare systems, and the ludicracy of a flat tax. Flat taxes charge the same percentage of a persons income in tax, sounds great right? Well imagine if you will that it costs10,000 dollars a year to support a family of four, a man makes 15,000 dollars a year and therefore has 5000 dollars left over. Now a corporate VP making 250,000 dollars a year, working off the base minimum necessary to support a family, has 240,000 dollars left over. So, As a percentage of disposable income, the person making 15,000 dollars a year pays more in a flat tax than the corporate VP. I understand that VPs tend to spend more and the like, and that's their perogative, but in our little fiction it's only necessary to spend 10,000 dollars a year to support themselves. Hence a progressive tax structure, it's an attempt by the Powers that Be to even out the percentage of disposable income that is payed to the government. While it may seem fair therefore to cut the rich's taxes more than the poor, after all they pay more, as a percentage of their disposable income they are actually paying less. If anyone wants to see the math on this I'd be happy to provide it, but in the interest of not boring anyone I'll leave it off for now.
Cheers