Definition
Progressive income tax, as espoused in ‘plank’ 2 of Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, is a graduated tax where the rate increases as the income of the tax payer gets higher. Flat tax is where all tax payers pay the same rate of their income to the state, (eg. 15%). Regressive taxation is where the rate decreases as the income of the payer increases. In all three situations high earners pay more actual tax than low earners, but when progressive tax is utilised what manifests is more effort and resources spent on creating (and combating) tax avoidance schemes.