As someone that is self-employed, and gets to pay that otherwise invisible bit I mentioned earlier myself... do I know about it? yes (I did as a hiring manager back in the day, too); do I think about it? yes... but there's an extra "implied" tax here because my time doing tax prep related work is also a cost in addition to the taxes.

So I now get to spend hours that I could otherwise be productive with, or spend on leisure activities, on the problem of understanding what is being taken from me. As I said, I agree with you that people should be conscious of what is taken from them. People should make conscious informed decisions in many, many areas of their life. But to take that half their earnings and then insist that they spend hours of their own time (true even if they hire tax preparation services) just to be sure they don't lose more than they're legally required to is kinda rubbing salt in the wound isn't it? Of course you could hire accountants to deal with those issues, but now you're just changing that cost in time to cost in money.

I don't see how requiring tax filings changes anything here though. Filing taxes isn't where you pay taxes; that already happens silently and automatically whenever you get paid. Hell, the fact that it's so common for people to celebrate large refunds implies to me that, if anything, for most people tax filing is seen as something lucrative rather than a cost center.

To put it another way, I'm not sure how much tax filing achieves your stated goal that wouldn't be achieved by an annual letter sent to taxpayers, accompanied by their refund.

"if anything, for most people tax filing is seen as something lucrative rather than a cost center."

Be careful with this line of reasoning... you might give someone the idea that there should be 100% withholding of earnings and that filing tax returns should be more an application for the privilege receive some of the money you've earned. Then it would look more like it was the government paying all your wages!

...with socialism being all the rage these days, I wouldn't be so surprised to see this sort of thing endorsed....

There's a wide gulf between "think consciously about it" and "fill out a ton of forms that are nearly useless because the IRS knows that information already, and now has to employ people to record hundreds of millions of handwritten scribblings of what they already know".

Who exactly pays an average income tax rate of 50% in the United States? You'd have to be making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, at which point you don't get it as a check, you get it as a wire transfer from your investment bank, because with the exception of certain athletes, nobody makes that much money in salary.

If you're only looking at federal income taxes, sure. But now add in state income taxes, local taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, special fees and assessments, and other mandatory charges and that bar starts to move down the great chain of being rather rapidly. I assure you, I'm not making hundreds of millions of dollars and I'm pretty sure that I'm in that 50% range of dollars consumed by government takings per dollar earned.

Good! And I want it to be even higher. Specifically, I want to make federal income tax considerably steeper.

I want to tax income above 100x the federal minimum wage (per hour minimum wage * 2000 or about $3M at $15 an hour) at 90%.

I also want an absolute end to all tax credits and deductions besides the standard deduction. Say no to charitable deductions. No to first time home buyer credit. No to everything. Cut it all out. Yes, no credit or deductions for saving money toward your child's college or toward your retirement. Get rid of it all. That is my platform.

Edit: I think it is incredibly Lazy to try to effect change in public behavior through taxes.

A 90% federal bracket, combined with 10+% State tax (ex: 12.3% top bracket in CA), combined with no deduction for State and local taxes (because only standard deduction right?), would mean you’d literally lose money by making more money.

Don't forget an extra 3.8% Medicare tax.

“Why you’d quit?”

“I couldn’t afford not to!”

» “I couldn’t afford not to!”

States will adjust their income tax brackets if we make taxes at the federal level reasonable. Perhaps, reasonable people will prevail and it well end state and local income taxes (and increase property taxes to a reasonable level instead).

Our income taxes are already progressive. Wealth gets a free pass: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/to-reduce-inequal...

What we really need are land taxes and progressive consumption taxes.

I disagree with you on this. While I support higher land taxes, the reason is to prevent land and homes from sitting vacant. I'm not trying to reduce inequality. I'm just trying to fund essential services.

As for taxing wealth, I think the best bet is a Paris Hilton tax of 90% for inheritance exceeding a certain value (I propose 100x yearly minimum wage or $3M at $15/hour). So if you inherit more than $3M over your life time, all additional inheritance will be subject to 90% inheritance tax.

> property taxes, sales and use taxes, special fees and assessments

These are not "income taxes".