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As tax season is upon us, my mind has been overloaded with accounting. I had one more thought regarding the notion of a flat tax. Would it make the average American's life any better?

A recently formed government advisory council investigated and reported on several proposals to streamline the tax code. Among the common themes: reducing the number of tax brackets, and eliminating some of the currently available tax credits and deductions.

The goal was to make the code simpler, but RAISE revenue. Yes, raise it. How does that work, fellow taxpayers? That means we must pay more tax. The beauty is that for most Americans a flat tax would disguise a tax increase as a tax cut.

The key to this discussion is your effective tax rate. Your effective rate is calculated by dividing your total tax (less credits) by your adjusted gross income. The resulting percentage shows what overall percentage of your income is paid in tax.

An article in January's Journal of Accountantcy displayed a graph taken from IRS data for the 2007 tax year. The graph showed effective tax rates by income group (i.e. $50,000 - 99,999). People at lower incomes had the lowest effective tax rate, and effective rates generally increased as income did.

The overall effective rate for all taxpayers was 13.4%, although the first income band with a higher effective rate started at $200,000 of AGI.

I've heard many flat tax proposals, but most would set the lowest rate at about 17-19%. For my example, let's examine a taxpayer with AGI of $100,000. We'll assume the overall effective rate applies, though the actual effective rate in this group may be lower.

Under the current regime, the average taxpayer with $100,000 AGI would owe $13,400 in income tax. Under a 17% flat tax, the taxpayer would owe $17,000 - an increase of $3,600.

To be fair, most flat tax plans would exempt a small amount of income from tax, functioning much like today's standard deduction. In order for our sample taxpayer's bill to be the same under a 17% flat tax, the government would have to exempt about $21,125 from taxation, which seems highly unlikely.

Yes, a flat tax might make filing a tax return simpler for everyone, and if it was broad-reaching enough could force me to find work elsewhere, but we have a serious budget deficit in our country that can only be closed by a combination of higher taxes and less spending.

P.S. I looked at the most recent Federal budget. We'd almost be in balance if we cut every program except Social Security and Medicare. Those two plus debt service (interest) on the national debt will use up every dollar of revenue the Treasury takes in this year.