progressive taxation

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a tax system in which the effective tax rate increases as the taxable amount rises, so that higher earners or wealthier individuals pay a larger proportion of their income or wealth in tax than those with lower incomes or assets; progressive taxation is justified on grounds of declining marginal utility of income (additional money matters less to the wealthy), ability to pay, and the reduction of inequality; income tax systems in most developed countries are progressive, with marginal rates that increase through a series of brackets; opposed by those who argue that high marginal rates reduce incentives to work and invest, and who prefer flat or proportional tax structures; the degree of progressivity in a tax system is a central axis of distributional politics