Wow... from the looks of this thread it must be really awesome to earn less than 50K per year and pay NO federal income taxes! Sure, you still pay state income taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes and the like - and you have no money for investments, retirement or disposable income.... but hey, I'm sure plenty of billionaires go to sleep each night dreaming of the utopian possibility that tomorrow they may find a way to actually spend 9 figures of savings so that next year they can pay 17% less to the federal government. It's a wonder the Koch family doesn't just give all their money to a family of rural 'liberals' from Appalachia so they can get stuck paying 17% taxes on those billions of dollars instead next year!
There are only two reasonable solutions:
1) A flat tax with a universal 'cost of living exclusion'
2) A graduated VAT where necessities like food are not taxed and items with a larger shared cost like private jets, gas guzzling cars and the like are tagged with an additional surcharge.
Take your pick.