You still haven't proven that this is the "BEST" tax system as you stated in your original post. Additionally your calculations exclude, state, local and sales taxes that we also pay. Include these taxes as well as the average person's fixed living costs and the marginal utility of a dollar earned is more skewed then what your calculations imply. But even if I we don't include all the things you excluded from your calculation, your agrument still does not prove that a progressive tax is better then a flat or consumtion tax. Your argument hinges on the belief that no one in their right mind will forgo an extra dollar of earnings if the tax differential is 25 vs 28 cents, which by the way may sound small, but in fact is a 12% difference. Furthermore, your argument glosses over a major point, mainly how this incremential increase from one tax bracket to another effects the entire economy, unlike a flat tax which creates a parallel shift in the supply and demand curves, a progressive tax has a greater effect the further out you follow the curves. Last year US citizens spent $90 Billion dollars on tax preparation. This is wasted money, because although it employs people it does not result in wealth creation. It is a welfare check to "tax professionals". Unlike an investment in technology, which creates things that can be exported, my accountant's work cannot be resold to another country nor does it create anything. People don't realize the destructive nature of excessive taxation. I suggest that anyone who really wants to know to go pickup an economics book and actually graph the shifts in the supply and demand curves under various tax systems. -Neo