Does any jurisdiction have a regressive tax?

The US does at least on the federal level. If you look at per capita tax percentages for the very rich in the US, they are paying a far lower rate than most middle-income and upper-income Americans.

A couple of years ago, Warren Buffet noted that he paid less taxes than his housekeeper, because of US tax laws, despite him being hugely wealthy.

Tolls are another example of a regressive tax. When Richy Rich pays $5 to cross the bridge to his venture capital firm, it’s an infinitesimally small percentage of his income, whereas when his janitor crosses the same bridge, that $5 toll represents a substantial amount of time he has to work, just to recoup the cost to commute to work.

Although strictly speaking, @gorillapaws , the toll is a ‘fee for service’ and not a tax at all.

That’s a definition that the republican party has been pushing since Reagan days. “Fees for service” are not considered taxation because they aren’t based on income, and the payer is getting something in return (i.e. the ability to cross the bridge).

@elbanditoroso True, though the alternative would have been to fund the bridge construction/maintenance/upkeep out of the general tax fund, in which case it would theoretically be funded more progressively generated revenue, the janitor would be paying a much smaller percent of his income to the bridge.

@gorillapaws agreed, although that wasn’t your example.

Where I live, there are HOV lanes that have toll lanes – PeachPass lanes (all over Atlanta) and a couple of toll roads down by the Georgia coast near Savannah. Otherwise, all roads in the state are free.

But like you said, the state highway department and the county roads departments get their allocations from (either) US funds (federal income tax), or state income tax, or in a couple of cases, county assessments.

Free roads aren’t free.

Tax systems in the U.S. fall into three categories: regressive, proportional, or progressive. Regressive and progressive taxes impact high- and low-income earners differently but proportional taxes don’t. Property taxes are an example of a regressive tax. The U.S. federal income tax is progressive. Occupational taxes are a type of proportional tax.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-are-differences-between-regressive-proportional-and-progressive-taxes.asp

All of these examples I am seeing are sort of missing a point. A Regressive tax is one that taxes lower income people at a higher rate than high income people. The US does not do that. The tax rate for the wealthy is far higher than for the low income. The 2024 tax rates schedule shows this quite nicely. Let’s take the Single bottom end of the highest tax bracket and calculate it out. The tax burden comes out to be about 30% of the earners income. Now take the second to the lowest income bracket, taking again the low end of that bracket. When you calculate it out you get 10%. The tax rates are lower for the lower income person. Yes, you can argue all day long that it is easier for a wealthy person to survive after paying taxes. So what? They are paying far more into the income tax and generally are receiving far less benefits of that tax money.

@seawulf575 Steve Job’s salary at Apple was $1. He made his wealth from stock gains. Furthermore, the ultra rich can borrow against those stock gains without having to even pay the capital gains (a much lower rate than income tax) on that money (since it hasn’t been realized). You’re also ignoring payroll taxes which are a substantial percent of most American’s tax burden, but are capped for the wealthy and therefore represent a proportionally tiny percent of their overall tax burden. Total all of these things up and you have billionaires paying a tiny percent of what they have coming in the door to the government while the guy mopping the floors is paying a much higher percent to the government.

@gorillapaws Yes, there are a lot of ways to game the system…no doubt about that. But the question wasn’t if there were ways to game the system, but rather if there is any jurisdiction that has a regressive tax. In the US, the poor are taxed at a lower rate than the rich. Plain and simply, it isn’t regressive.

My personal feeling is that we should completely simplify the tax code. Put everyone on a 10% rate on gross income with no deductions at all. No separate rate for married people, no deductions for children, no writing off the interest on your home loan, nothing. Dividend income is taxed at the same rate. Corporations are the same…gross income is taxed at 10% before all the games played with deductions. The only thing I would change as any kind of deduction is that if you sell stock, you only get taxed on the profit you made. The reason I’m looking at that is because you already got taxed on the money you used to buy the stocks.