When the taxes are set taking into consideration the income of persons, they can be classify as proportional, progressive or regressive.
When a tax schedule is progressive, rich people pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes, compared to people who have lower income. An example of this situation is a tax scheme where people who earn more than 500 thousand dollars a year pay a tax rate of 30%, while people who earn less than 500 thousand dollars a year pay a tax rate of 15% . This type of tax scheme reduce inequalities in a society by relatively increasing poor's income in terms of rich's income.
When a taxe schedule is regressive, the situation is the opposite: rich people pay a lower proportion of their income in taxes, compared to people with lower income. Floowing the example above, if the rich people pay 10% of their income in taxes, and people with lower income pay 40% of their income in taxes, the tax system is regressive: it increases inequality into society by relatively increasing income of richier persons in terms of income of poorer people.
If tax schedule is proportional, the tax system scheme affects equally both richier people, and poorer people(this happens, for example, when everyone pays 10% of their income in taxes, no matter the income).
