TAX THE FORTUNES. LET THE PEOPLE KEEP THEIR PAYCHECKS.

JUSTICE · ECONOMIC JUSTICE

Published by Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 12:20 AM ET

Tags: Income Tax · $80,000 Exemption · Tax Fairness · Household Income · Federal Revenue

Dear fellow American proletariat: The federal government has become unusually skilled at reaching into a worker’s paycheck before the worker has decided whether the refrigerator can survive another week. Meanwhile, the national debate treats every proposal to spare modest incomes as a threat to civilization, as though the republic were held together by a cashier's quarterly estimated payments.

American Proletariat proposes a 0% federal individual income-tax rate on the first $80,000. The point is not to abolish the national treasury or declare that wealthier people owe nothing on their first dollars. The point is to put an unmistakable floor beneath household resources, and then ask those with greater means to shoulder a greater share of our common obligations.

THE MANDATE

Set the federal individual income-tax rate at zero for the first $80,000 of income covered by the new threshold, while continuing progressive taxation above that amount. Our working design uses the first $80,000 of taxable income; Congress must settle whether the final threshold applies instead to gross income or adjusted gross income, how deductions interact, and whether spouses filing jointly receive a doubled threshold or another household adjustment. Those choices affect both fairness and cost, and cannot be quietly delegated to a footnote.

The proposal is a tax rule, not the separate $80,000 Switchboard employment-income guarantee. A zero tax rate does not give an unemployed person $80,000, and a wage supplement does not automatically alter tax brackets. Do not confuse a minimum earnings program, a standard deduction, a tax credit, and a 0% bracket. They are four different instruments, however attractive the number looks on a banner.

HOW A ZERO BRACKET WOULD WORK

For illustration only: under a proposed 0% bracket for the first $80,000 of taxable income, a person with $60,000 of taxable income would owe $0 in regular federal income tax before any other special tax considerations. A person with $100,000 of taxable income would have $80,000 within that zero bracket and $20,000 potentially subject to higher marginal brackets, once those proposed higher rates are determined. A person earning more than $80,000 would not retroactively lose the benefit on the first $80,000. This is how marginal brackets work; actual liabilities also depend on credits, preferential rates, additional taxes, and finalized legislation.

ROOTS & HISTORY

The Constitution was not born with the modern individual income tax. Congress used an income tax during the Civil War; the Sixteenth Amendment, ratified February 3, 1913, established congressional authority to levy income taxes without apportionment among states. The National Archives notes that, because of early exemptions and deductions, fewer than one percent of Americans paid the 1913 tax. The American argument about whom to tax—and how much—has therefore never been settled by a single eternal spreadsheet. (Source 01)

Across the twentieth century, Congress repeatedly changed exemptions, rates, deductions, and credits. A tax code is a set of political choices built into arithmetic. The proper question is not whether Congress may draw a new lower bracket: it may. The questions are who benefits, what revenue is lost, what replaces it, and whether the new system works better than the one it displaces.

TODAY · THE PROBLEM

For tax year 2026, the IRS lists standard deductions of $16,100 for a single filer, $24,150 for a head of household, and $32,200 for a married couple filing jointly. The published ordinary-income brackets begin at 10%, not zero, on taxable income after the relevant deductions and adjustments. Those are the current-law benchmarks, not AP's proposal. (Source 02)

The distinction between income and taxable income is consequential. Suppose a single worker receives $80,000 in wages and takes only the $16,100 standard deduction. Ignoring other adjustments, their taxable income would be $63,900 under the 2026 baseline. Giving that person a new $80,000 standard deduction is not the same design as adding a zero-rate bracket on top of the existing deduction; the former changes taxable income, while the latter changes the tax applied to taxable income. A legislative proposal must say which it means. (Source 02)

Nor would a 0% regular federal income-tax rate automatically eliminate payroll taxes. The IRS lists a 6.2% employee Social Security tax and 1.45% employee Medicare tax on applicable wages, with matching employer contributions under ordinary FICA rules. Other rules apply to self-employment and high incomes. AP has discussed broader payroll-tax reform elsewhere; this specific policy does not silently abolish FICA or the funding streams associated with retirement and healthcare. (Source 03)

Tax liability is also already reduced for certain households by the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. The IRS lists 2026 EITC and refundable child-credit parameters that vary with earnings, family circumstances, and eligibility. A poorly designed zero bracket could unintentionally undermine refunds if Congress rewrites credits rather than preserving them. Families receiving a refundable credit should not become worse off because a politician advertised that their new rate was zero. (Source 04)

THE LEGAL PATH

Congress would amend the Internal Revenue Code, particularly the ordinary individual tax-rate structure and associated provisions governing taxable income, filing status, credits, withholding, and estimated payments. The Sixteenth Amendment authorizes federal income taxation; it does not require Congress to tax the first dollar of taxable income. The Treasury and IRS would then implement statutory rules through updated forms, withholding tables, guidance, and administration. (Sources 01, 02)

This is not an executive-order shortcut. A president may propose the budget and direct lawful administration, but changing the general federal tax liability requires legislation. State income taxes are separate and do not disappear merely because Congress changes the federal schedule.

THE PLAN

01 · DEFINE THE $80,000 BASE

Publish a plain-English legislative definition before announcing a revenue score. Our provisional design is a zero marginal rate on the first $80,000 of federal taxable ordinary income, with an explicitly documented treatment of capital gains, pass-through income, deductions, and the alternative minimum tax. Compare this against an enlarged deduction or refundable credit. Choose based on distributional results and administrability, not the version with the nicest headline.

02 · PROTECT FAMILIES AND REFUNDABLE CREDITS

Specify married-filing-jointly, head-of-household, and separate-return thresholds. Evaluate whether $160,000 for joint filers is appropriate or whether another equivalence rule better reflects household circumstances. Preserve the value of refundable credits and prevent a marriage penalty or benefit cliff. This requires a household-level distributional model, not anecdotal guesses about what a family ought to look like.

03 · BUILD FAIR WITHHOLDING

After enactment, the IRS should issue updated withholding tables and electronic payroll guidance so ordinary employees see the benefit during the year rather than waiting for a refund. Require clear notice that state taxes and Social Security and Medicare contributions are separate. Provide an easy correction process for overwithholding, estimated-tax errors, and atypical income.

04 · TAX HIGH INCOMES WITHOUT INVENTING REVENUE

AP's broader Economic Justice platform proposes more progressive taxation at the top, including a separate 92% marginal tax proposal for income over $5 million. That proposal must receive its own legal, behavioral, enforcement, and revenue analysis. It cannot be assumed to pay automatically for the $80,000 zero bracket, and the same additional revenue cannot be pledged twice to healthcare, housing, public employment, and every other good thing on the menu.

THE TEN-YEAR LEDGER

The fiscal scale is substantial. The Congressional Budget Office reported approximately $2.7 trillion in federal individual income-tax receipts for fiscal year 2025. That entire amount is not the cost of AP's proposal; it is context showing why even a partial reshaping of the income-tax base warrants serious modeling. Revenue loss depends on the finalized definition, filing-status thresholds, income distribution, existing deductions, refundable credits, behavioral responses, and interactions with other tax reforms. (Source 05)

YEAR ONE · ESTIMATE PENDING. Prepare a baseline calculation using the latest IRS Statistics of Income microdata or an authoritative microsimulation model. Estimate forgone regular income-tax receipts separately from changes to credits, withholding, administrative costs, tax compliance, and any newly legislated offset. Disaggregate results by income percentile, family type, age, geographic region, and source of income.

YEARS TWO THROUGH TEN · ESTIMATE PENDING. Produce year-by-year nominal and inflation-adjusted receipts, economic feedback scenarios, threshold-indexing assumptions, distributional effects, net interest where financing changes borrowing, and cumulative ten-year fiscal impact. Report the enacted-law baseline and each proposed amendment separately so there is no double-counting of lost revenue or speculative offsets.

Revenue recovery from closing loopholes or improving enforcement cannot simply be assumed. The IRS projected a $696 billion gross tax gap for tax year 2022, but that is a measure of unpaid liability across taxes—not a pot of cash available to finance a new rate schedule. A credible plan must estimate the recoverable amount, collection costs, legal authority, and timeline. (Source 06)

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

A broad zero bracket gives some benefit to high-income taxpayers too, because their first dollars inside the bracket are also untaxed. That is a predictable feature of marginal rates, not a scandal discovered after passage. To make the policy more targeted, Congress could use a phased credit or income-based limitation; those alternatives add complexity and may create steep phaseouts. The distributional choice should be deliberate.

A large revenue reduction without credible offsets could increase deficits or constrain services that low-income people rely on. Some workers owe little regular income tax already, so they would receive less direct benefit than a middle-income filer unless refundable credits or other support are preserved. Tax-avoidance incentives could shift when the ordinary-income schedule changes, especially for business owners and high earners. None of those risks defeats the objective. They do defeat the fantasy that the objective pays for itself merely by being compassionate.

MEASURING SUCCESS

Publish effective federal income-tax rates by income group; household disposable income after federal taxes; refund and credit retention; changes in tax compliance and filing costs; withholding accuracy; poverty and hardship indicators; and actual receipts against the ten-year forecast. Audit the outcomes for single filers, families with children, seniors, disabled taxpayers, and self-employed people. Revise implementation when the evidence demands it.

THE POINT

Government should have enough money to function, and it should raise that money fairly. The first principle does not require us to collect federal income tax from every paycheck. The second does not permit us to promise away trillions without naming the bill and the people who will pay it.

We propose a zero federal income-tax rate on the first $80,000 because ordinary Americans ought to have more room to live before Washington arrives with an invoice. We will defend the ambition, choose the definitions in public, and publish the arithmetic—because the last thing the country needs is another revolution run by someone who cannot distinguish a tax bracket from a tax return.

E pluribus unum, bitches.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · National Archives — 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Federal Income Tax (1913). https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/16th-amendment

02 · Internal Revenue Service — Revenue Procedure 2025-32, 2026 tax brackets and standard deductions; Internal Revenue Bulletin 2025-45. https://www.irs.gov/irb/2025-45_IRB

03 · Internal Revenue Service — Topic No. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates (2026). https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc751

04 · Internal Revenue Service — 2026 earned income and child tax-credit parameters; Internal Revenue Bulletin 2025-45. https://www.irs.gov/irb/2025-45_IRB

05 · Congressional Budget Office — The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036; individual income-tax receipts in FY 2025. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105

06 · Internal Revenue Service — The Tax Gap, tax year 2022 projections. https://www.irs.gov/statistics/irs-the-tax-gap

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WE ARE ONE.  ·  E PLURIBUS UNUM.