The problems with these tax systems are far greater than just the wealthy exploiting income tax. There are so many hidden costs in the endless complexity of the tax and financial systems in nearly all of the modern Western governments.<p>It&#x27;s a shame people rarely protest the sytematic issues, preferring to attack people or specific groups of people (often the wealthy or left vs right) - which are positions that generate adversarial responses rather than rational counter-arguments: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lesswrong.com&#x2F;lw&#x2F;gw&#x2F;politics_is_the_mindkiller&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lesswrong.com&#x2F;lw&#x2F;gw&#x2F;politics_is_the_mindkiller&#x2F;</a><p>The surest way to minimize abuse&#x2F;loopholes while being supported by rational a-political benefits:<p>Flat tax + basic income.<p>Eliminating millions of hours of wasted time due to beaurocracy (and while treating each social class with consistent dignity). These arguments are more likely to be persuasive to politicians - both left and right. This is a lesson I believe the general public missed  after the whole Occupy movement failed to result in much political change. The problem with the obsessive focus on &quot;the 1%&quot; was that it generated an us vs them response, further entrenching positions on both sides and further distancing already strained policial&#x2F;social group relationships.<p>For example: the simplification of taxes would very likely increasing the speed at which people file taxes and therefore signficantly increasing the speed that tax revenue could be collected annually, while reducing the amount of time they spend chasing down people who fail to do taxes. &lt;- These are the types of a-political positive benefits I hope will eventually get attention one day to make the previously mentioned policies less of a pipe dream.