Timeline for Why isn’t the tax system continuous rather than bracketed?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
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| Jun 30, 2019 at 17:30 | comment | added | Eric Buess | Great comment! I updated the question with some clarification. Brackets require calculating the area under the curve. If we instead use a continuous curve that is non-marginal and always either stays the same or moves up my thought was to calculate the base amount owed before deductions we could just find the earnings amount on the continuous curve, multiply it by the tax rate depicted for that earnings amount and be done. | |
| Jun 26, 2019 at 15:29 | comment | added | Barmar | @sleske It's been suggested, but the tax preparation industry has successfully lobbied against it. | |
| Jun 26, 2019 at 8:41 | comment | added | sleske | @Barmar: Thanks, didn't know that. Seems weird to let individuals calculate their taxes - the tax office can do it more easily, as they have the software already (they need it anyway). Anyway, different countries, different approaches. | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 16:34 | comment | added | Barmar | @sleske Of course considerations are different if the government calculates your takes for you. The US system is based on taxpayers doing the calculations themselves. The instructions here are something simple like "If your taxable income is higher than X, subtract X, multiply by Y%, add that to Z, that's your tax" | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 9:53 | comment | added | sleske | @Barmar: I'm not sure. I think normally only the tax office used these lists - you just declared your stuff, and the tax office ran the numbers. I believe a shorter table was published for interested taxpayers. | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 0:10 | comment | added | Barmar | @sleske That's a 1600-page document. Did every taxpayer really get a copy of it so they could calculate their taxes? | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 7:32 | comment | added | sleske | I'm not sure this is the reason. At least in Germany, the official way to calculate taxes was a huge table with all the income amounts (in steps of 10 or so), with the tax listed next to it. Something like this table , though that one is not official. So the maths behind the taxes don't really matter, people can just look up tax amounts. | |
| Jun 23, 2019 at 19:06 | history | answered | Mark | CC BY-SA 4.0 |