Flat-tax advocates are right to call for a radically simpler code, but they're focusing on the wrong problem.'

One example is the tax overhaul that President Reagan signed into law in 1986, which eliminated enough tax breaks to allow brackets to be consolidated and the top rate lowered significantly. Lawmakers can achieve the legitimate economic goals of the flat tax without abandoning graduated rates. The biggest downside is that by sharply reducing the rates collected from the highest earners, it would force the lower and middle classes to cover more of the cost of government than under the current system of graduated rates. But there are other ways to obtain the economic benefits promised by a flat tax without asking the middle class to shoulder more of the tax burden now borne by those at the top.

The change would give Americans more incentive to save and invest, and less incentive to cheat.

'Three major Republican presidential candidates want to replace all or part of the byzantine federal tax code with a 'flat tax' that collects a fixed percentage of one's income, with no brackets and few exemptions.

Flat tax pros and cons