[bobman0330]

Defining income is hard, but I don't think you can just write it off as an impossible task. Just takes some effort.

My understanding of the standard deduction was that it was just there to save people the time (and cost) of itemizing.

In any case, my main point was that people in the top bracket should have fewer deductions. Not because they're all "rich" by whatever definition, but because the utility of the behavior encouraged by a lot of deductions is less for the wealthy. (obviously, some deductions, like the charitable giving one, are MORE effective for high-income taxpayers. keep those.) For example, the mortgage interest payment deduction for people making 200,000/year. Do we really feel the need to subsidize home ownership for these people? Healthcare costs? Maybe it's a good thing that we'd like to do, but the cost is the same as or higher than the same tax subsidy to a poorer person who needs it more. At some level of wealth, the cost is going to outweight the benefit.