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One big difference between basic income and negative income tax is who receives them. Basic income is given to everyone, and negative income tax is only given t

by Riseed 11y ago

One big difference between basic income and negative income tax is who receives them. Basic income is given to everyone, and negative income tax is only given to those below a threshold amount -- creating two classes of people: givers and receivers, us and them. The negative income tax experiment in New Jersey showed that the negative income tax created a disincentive to work, and increased family breakups. [0] Negative income tax, by virtue of being tied to the tax system, operates on a year-based system and pays retroactively. Regardless of whether the year's overall income would qualify for negative income tax, the individual still needs to self-fund any time off. A negative income tax does nothing to help those who are temporarily out of work, or who only want a few months off to help with childcare, learn a new skill, or address an illness. [0] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/NegativeIncomeTax.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/NegativeIncomeTax.html

davidw 11y ago
Interesting! Looks like there's certainly a lot of room for experimentation.
mattkrisiloff 11y ago
It's possible the negative income tax experiments results were more complicated than thought -- especially with how the results were portrayed: http://www.widerquist.com/karl/Articles--scholarly/Failure2communicate.pdf http://www.widerquist.com/karl/Articles--scholarly/Failure2c...
- Riseed 11y ago
  Thanks! I hadn't seen that paper yet.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
Is increased family breakups necessarily a bad thing? There are plenty of people who are stuck in abusive marriages because they are financially dependent on the abuser.
- Riseed 11y ago
  Ability to leave bad relationships is one of the proposed benefits of basic income and similar ideas. The linked article hypothesized "reduced pressure on the breadwinner to remain". Too many fights over money, financial ability to leave a bad relationship, and no need to "stay together for the bills" could all be causes.
evanpw 11y ago
A negative income tax is basically equivalent to a basic income funded with a progressive income tax. No matter how you pay for it, some people are going to pay more in taxes than they get from the basic income, and some will pay less. For people who have a job, we already have a system for them to pay taxes with each paycheck (withholding). By reversing that, you could make negative income tax payments year-round rather than at tax return time.
- Riseed 11y ago
  > By reversing that, you could make negative income tax payments year-round rather than at tax return time. Withholding adjustments would help those in low-paying jobs, part time workers, etc. But how does it address temporary or long-term joblessness without requiring individuals to self-fund until refund time? > A negative income tax is basically equivalent to a basic income funded with a progressive income tax. I disagree. The funding structure is substantially similar -- some people pay more in taxes than they receive. However, by only distributing the payments to a subset of the population, there is a social stigma associated with receiving benefits. With a universal payment, there is no stigma. Consider food stamps. The funding structure is set up so some people pay more in taxes than they get from food stamps, and some pay less. But because only some people receive food stamps, there is a stigma associated with them. By contrast, consider the Alaska dividend, which is given equally to every citizen, regardless of income. There is no stigma associated with receiving or using an Alaska dividend. It isn't seen as welfare, but as a right.
  - evanpw 11y ago
    Agreed, something different would have to be done for the jobless. I only claim economic equivalence, not political or marketing equivalence. On the other hand, we already have a negative income tax for working people (the earned income tax credit) and no national basic income, so maybe the marketing advantages aren't a slam dunk.
  - marknutter 11y ago
    > However, by only distributing the payments to a subset of the population, there is a social stigma associated with receiving benefits. With a universal payment, there is no stigma. People aren't so naive that they would ignore the fact that their basic income is being immediately taken out of their pockets to pay for other people's basic incomes.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>creating two classes of people: givers and receivers, us and them. You get the same effect with basic income. Those who pay more in taxes than basic income gives and those who don't. You could effectively create a negative income tax that gives the exact same payouts as basic income. x is income, b is basic income, F(x) is tax someone has to pay at x income under the basic income scheme, G(x) is the tax scheme someone has to pay out without basic income that includes some negative taxes. If G(x) = F(x) - b, then x + b - F(x) = x - G(x). Yes, they are coded up on law a bit differently, but the outcome on everyone's pay would be the same. All that is different is the talking points. Kinda like how people are charged higher tax rates for not having children currently in the US.

by Riseed 11y ago

davidw 11y ago

Interesting! Looks like there's certainly a lot of room for experimentation.

mattkrisiloff 11y ago

It's possible the negative income tax experiments results were more complicated than thought -- especially with how the results were portrayed: http://www.widerquist.com/karl/Articles--scholarly/Failure2communicate.pdf http://www.widerquist.com/karl/Articles--scholarly/Failure2c...

Riseed 11y ago
Thanks! I hadn't seen that paper yet.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

Is increased family breakups necessarily a bad thing? There are plenty of people who are stuck in abusive marriages because they are financially dependent on the abuser.

Riseed 11y ago
Ability to leave bad relationships is one of the proposed benefits of basic income and similar ideas. The linked article hypothesized "reduced pressure on the breadwinner to remain". Too many fights over money, financial ability to leave a bad relationship, and no need to "stay together for the bills" could all be causes.

evanpw 11y ago

A negative income tax is basically equivalent to a basic income funded with a progressive income tax. No matter how you pay for it, some people are going to pay more in taxes than they get from the basic income, and some will pay less. For people who have a job, we already have a system for them to pay taxes with each paycheck (withholding). By reversing that, you could make negative income tax payments year-round rather than at tax return time.

Riseed 11y ago
> By reversing that, you could make negative income tax payments year-round rather than at tax return time. Withholding adjustments would help those in low-paying jobs, part time workers, etc. But how does it address temporary or long-term joblessness without requiring individuals to self-fund until refund time? > A negative income tax is basically equivalent to a basic income funded with a progressive income tax. I disagree. The funding structure is substantially similar -- some people pay more in taxes than they receive. However, by only distributing the payments to a subset of the population, there is a social stigma associated with receiving benefits. With a universal payment, there is no stigma. Consider food stamps. The funding structure is set up so some people pay more in taxes than they get from food stamps, and some pay less. But because only some people receive food stamps, there is a stigma associated with them. By contrast, consider the Alaska dividend, which is given equally to every citizen, regardless of income. There is no stigma associated with receiving or using an Alaska dividend. It isn't seen as welfare, but as a right.
- evanpw 11y ago
  Agreed, something different would have to be done for the jobless. I only claim economic equivalence, not political or marketing equivalence. On the other hand, we already have a negative income tax for working people (the earned income tax credit) and no national basic income, so maybe the marketing advantages aren't a slam dunk.
- marknutter 11y ago
  > However, by only distributing the payments to a subset of the population, there is a social stigma associated with receiving benefits. With a universal payment, there is no stigma. People aren't so naive that they would ignore the fact that their basic income is being immediately taken out of their pockets to pay for other people's basic incomes.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

>creating two classes of people: givers and receivers, us and them. You get the same effect with basic income. Those who pay more in taxes than basic income gives and those who don't. You could effectively create a negative income tax that gives the exact same payouts as basic income. x is income, b is basic income, F(x) is tax someone has to pay at x income under the basic income scheme, G(x) is the tax scheme someone has to pay out without basic income that includes some negative taxes. If G(x) = F(x) - b, then x + b - F(x) = x - G(x). Yes, they are coded up on law a bit differently, but the outcome on everyone's pay would be the same. All that is different is the talking points. Kinda like how people are charged higher tax rates for not having children currently in the US.