Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Under the scoring rules of bowling, you get rewarded, not penalized, for being successful. If you get a spare, the scoring system rewards you by adding the pins from your next ball into the current frame, and if you get a strike you get rewarded by adding your next 2 balls into the current frame.

Under our progressive income tax system with 6 tax rates increasing from 10% to 35%, you get penalized, not rewarded, for being successful, productive and entrepreneurial, because the more you earn, the higher the tax rate you pay. The top marginal income tax rate has been as high as 91% in the 1950s and 1960s, and 70% in the 1970s (see this related CD post).

If we scored bowling the way we tax income, we would subtract, not add pins for a spare or strike, i.e. penalize successful bowling.

If we taxed income the way we score bowling, we would reward success by reducing the tax burden for the most productive workers, not increasing it.

(Recycled from a CD post last year at this time, during tax season.)

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