The Smooth Tax

Every existing federal and state tax is eliminated — federal income tax, state income tax, corporate tax, payroll tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, estate tax, FICA, excise tax — all of it. Gone. Replaced by a single federal curve applied to one number. The sole exception: states retain a federally capped property tax as their independent revenue source for local services (see State Government section).

The name is literal. The current tax code is jagged — bracket cliffs, phase-outs, AMT triggers, deduction thresholds, marriage penalties. Every jagged edge is a place to hide a loophole or trap a taxpayer. The Smooth Tax is one continuous curve with no edges at all: mathematically smooth, and smooth to live under. The entire formula fits on an index card.

Total Annual Economic Gain

Every dollar that enters your life in a calendar year counts. No exceptions:

• Wages and salary
• Capital gains — realized AND unrealized (stock goes up, that's gain whether you sold or not)
• Loan proceeds taken against assets (borrow $100M against your portfolio, that's $100M in economic gain)
• Trust distributions
• Gifts and inheritance received
• Any other increase in economic position

What does NOT reduce your number:

• Charitable donations (generosity is a personal choice, not a tax strategy)
• Business losses (losses don't offset gains — the curve applies to all positive movements)
• Depreciation, deductions, credits, shelters, or offsets of any kind

There are zero deductions. Zero loopholes. Zero ways to restructure around it.

The Formula

One smooth curve from $0 to a dynamic ceiling. No brackets. No cliffs. No breakpoints.

Marginal rate at dollar x:

rate(x) = 99 × (log₁₀(x) / log₁₀(ceiling))^k

Total tax = the integral of this rate across every dollar earned:

Tax(G) = ∫₁ᴳ rate(x) dx

The rate is applied marginally — meaning each individual dollar is taxed at the rate the curve assigns to that specific dollar. Your first dollar is taxed at nearly 0%. Your billionth dollar is taxed at a much higher rate. Every additional dollar earned always results in more take-home. It is mathematically impossible to lose money by earning more.

Parameters:

• k = progressive ramp. Year 1: k=1.5. Increases by 0.1 annually. Locks permanently at k=2.0 in Year 6. Every American pays less in taxes than they do today from Year 1, and it gets better every year for six years. Verified against real W-2 data.
• Ceiling = dynamic — pegged to the 99.99th percentile of actual economic gain, recalculated and published annually. As extreme wealth gets compressed over time, the ceiling drops and the curve rescales proportionally. The system is self-tightening.

What This Means for Real People

At k=1.5 (Year 1), every American pays less than they do now. As k increases to 2.0 over six years, taxes drop further. All numbers below are computed from the actual integral — not estimates.

• $50K worker: pays $12,192 at k=1.5, dropping to $7,680 at k=2.0 (currently pays ~$14,000+ in combined taxes) — tax cut from day one, getting bigger every year
• $75K skilled trade: pays $19,425 at k=1.5, dropping to $12,481 at k=2.0 (currently pays ~$23,000+) — immediate cut
• $100K professional: pays $26,996 at k=1.5, dropping to $17,582 at k=2.0 (currently pays ~$33,000+) — significant cut that grows every year
• $137K real-world example: pays $38,702 at k=1.5, dropping to $25,573 at k=2.0 (verified against actual W-2 withholding of $39,972) — saves $1,271 in Year 1, saves $14,399 by Year 6
• $1M earner: pays $362,917 at k=1.5, dropping to $260,500 at k=2.0 — significant cut at every level
• $1B gain: pays $692M at k=1.5 (69.2%) — massive increase from current ~3-9% effective rate
• $76B gain (Musk-level): pays $71.2B at k=1.5 (93.2%) — the curve extracts almost everything at this scale

The curve compresses extreme wealth while giving working and middle class Americans the largest tax cut in history. No sales tax on purchases. No payroll tax on wages. Property tax remains but is capped. Every dollar has more purchasing power.

Zero Corporate Tax

American businesses pay zero. Nothing. This makes the United States the most attractive place on earth to operate a company. Starting a business requires registering a name and address. No quarterly filings, no estimated payments, no payroll tax, no corporate returns. A welder coming out of the apprenticeship pipeline can start a contracting business the same afternoon he gets his certification.

The owners of businesses are taxed on their personal economic gain through the same curve as everyone else. Corporate profits flow through to individuals and get captured there.

Anti-Gaming Provisions

Every strategy the wealthy use to avoid taxes has a specific countermeasure:

Splitting wealth across family members: Gifts count as economic gain for the recipient AND don't reduce the giver's number. Trusts are attributed back to the person who funded them.

Buy-borrow-die: Loans taken against assets count as economic gain. Unrealized appreciation counts as economic gain. The two loopholes that currently let billionaires pay zero are both closed.

Charitable donation scam: Donations don't reduce your number. The entire charitable-industrial complex — foundations as tax shelters, art donation fraud, "philanthropy" that's really wealth management — is eliminated overnight. The state provides healthcare, education, and elder care universally. Private charity that billionaires used to fund selectively is replaced by public services for everyone.

Depreciation games: No deductions exist. There's nothing to depreciate against.

Insurance and annuity wrappers: Growth inside any financial instrument counts as economic gain. No shelters.

Cryptocurrency: Any on-ramp or off-ramp touching the US financial system reports automatically. Unreported holdings discovered through enforcement carry criminal penalties.

Hard assets and art: Assets above $100K require independent valuation annually. Valuation fraud carries criminal penalties — prison time, not fines.

Enforcement

• Mandatory asset disclosure with criminal penalties for underreporting. Prison, not fines.
• Criminal liability for enablers. Wealth managers, accountants, and attorneys who facilitate wealth hiding face prosecution alongside their clients.
• Simplified valuation. Public assets at market price. Real estate at assessed value. Private businesses by formula based on revenue and assets.