Reply #31: 13.6% of my gross goes to the feds. An even 17% if you add in the state income tax

[krispos42]

Another 7.26% of my check goes away for my private medical & dental coverage.


So if we had a decent government program, that 7.26% could go to the gov't plan instead and I wouldn't even notice. And you could even go another couple of percentage points higher if the copays were lower.



However, I think that simply having a flat tax on ALL gross income... individual, corporate, earned, unearned, capital gains, etc. would be the best way to do it.


Individuals has 8.7 trillion worth of taxable gross income in 2007. A 5% flat tax would raise 435 billion towards healthcare just from individuals alone. ExxonMobile had gross revenues of well over 400 billion last year... a 5% tax on that would raise 20 billion right there. We paid 400 billion in interest on the national debt last year... that's another 20 billion.


So put in a flat tax on all gross income, whatever it has to be. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7%... whatever. I'm currently paying over 8.5% of my gross for health insurance between FICA and my private insurers. Companies would no longer have to buy health insurance or the people to adminster it, so the savings would be substantial to them.