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The only "fair" tax type is VAT for humans. Buying a SUV -> You pay 10,000 USD in taxes. Buying bread -> You pay 0.01 USD in taxes. We could get rid off incom

The only "fair" tax type is VAT for humans. Buying a SUV -> You pay 10,000 USD in taxes. Buying bread -> You pay 0.01 USD in taxes. We could get rid off income tax at all and just increase the VAT to ~20 - 50% depending on the type of the product. This way it is almost impossible to cheat. Solving taxation for corporations still an issue though.

bufordsharkley 11y ago
For what it's worth, it's hard to see a Land Value Tax as being unfair, it's extremely hard to hide your taxable assets, and it works well for people as well as corporations.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  Land-value taxation has much better incentives. Income taxes provide an incentive to be "poor", while land-value taxes provide an incentive to not use valuable space.
- smsm42 11y ago
  Land Value tax can be extremely cruel if you happen to be poor living in a neighborhood that suddenly became popular. You are basically forced to sell your home (also not in the best of positions - you need to sell fast and can't wait out for the peak price) and move out because you can not afford to live next to some rich person. While income tax and VAT are proportional to what you earn and consume, and can vary easily with income/consumption level, changing housing is much harder, and can put people in very bad situations through no fault of their own.
  - bufordsharkley 11y ago
    I would say that this argument seems to imply that no neighborhood should ever grow (for its existing residents would be priced out.) This, however, is a fallacy-- the higher valuation of the land implies a larger return on the land, consistent with increasing the amount of people who can live there. (i.e. replacing a small house with an apartment building.) This allows more people of modest means to live in this neighboorhood, instead of less. Compare to the Palo Alto model, where land never appreciates in taxable value-- people are able to stay in their home, but only those who were lucky enough to buy at the right time. The overall capacity of the city does not grow, and people are priced away from buying into the city.
vidarh 11y ago
VAT is crazily regressive because those who make the least spend far larger proportions of their income buying stuff for it. Most countries with VAT end up with complicated rules for exemptions for basic goods as a result, to try to balance it better.
- StreamBright 11y ago
  It is not complicated to me: - food, books, medicine, ... -> lower VAT - cars, luxury items -> higher VAT
  - spacemanmatt 11y ago
    This is a dramatic over-simplification that ignores what is actually a cascade of exemptions that leads toward a similar tax-law morass that we already have.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    Now, define "luxury items", while considering e.g. that in the UK there's VAT on things like tampons (though at the reduced 5% rate), while e.g. imported luxury meat is zero-rated because its food. It's an incredibly complicated tax to apply, because the rules tend to grow to deal with more and more corner cases. For example: Are jaffa cakes cakes or biscuits? It took a lengthy court case to determine that they are in fact cakes for the purpose of UK VAT [1] [2]. The reason for this case was that cakes are exempt from VAT as food no matter what, while biscuits are zero-rated in the UK only if they are not covered in chocolate. In the latter case they are considered confectionery, which is standard rated. Here's more on the complexities of this classification [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Categorisation_as_cake_or_biscuit_for_VAT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Categorisation_as_... [2] http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6260.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6260.htm [3] http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6200.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6200.htm
    - StreamBright 11y ago
      I agree with you, when it comes to applying law to real life it is usually lengthy and pricey process. We should just use a better legal system where these things are not up in the air. You can complicate life with broken legislation, just to keep lawyers busy. You could also just ask: do we need a lawyer to determine that jaffa cakes are cakes or biscuits, or we can pick one and go with it. On the other note on VAT categories: how about collecting data and letting machine learning decide what is a luxury item? We have excellent clustering algorithms that can find clusters in data human has no chance to find. Lets apply that to purchasing habits and figure out what sort of clusters we have out there, and lets decide how much VAT you pay based on that.
deepnet 11y ago
Inflation is a fair tax, it taxes money.
- irixusr 11y ago
  Actually it's a tax to being far from the central bank. The further you are the longer the price signal from the printed money will take to reach you. Inflation is cancer.
  - deepnet 11y ago
    The problem is how the printed money is distributed. Central banks convert it into debt with interest, this is bad. Paying it as wages or a national dividend would get it to the leaves where it benefits people, then communities, then society and then banks. I argue inflation is not bad just how the printed money is distributed.
    - irixusr 11y ago
      +1 because you're right about the importance of distribution. My family are inflation "refugees". It's bad in of itself. I agree that the distribution of the money is the worse part of the printing press. Giving money to soup kitchens is not as bad giving it to upgrade your military equipment. But, lets not kid ourselves. The central bank is a very powerful instrument of control. The powerful are hardly going to relinquish it!
erkkie 11y ago
I agree in theory, but in practice, it's impossible unless the entire world agrees on the same VAT rules, otherwise shopping across country barriers is bound to happen.

bufordsharkley 11y ago

For what it's worth, it's hard to see a Land Value Tax as being unfair, it's extremely hard to hide your taxable assets, and it works well for people as well as corporations.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago
Land-value taxation has much better incentives. Income taxes provide an incentive to be "poor", while land-value taxes provide an incentive to not use valuable space.
smsm42 11y ago
Land Value tax can be extremely cruel if you happen to be poor living in a neighborhood that suddenly became popular. You are basically forced to sell your home (also not in the best of positions - you need to sell fast and can't wait out for the peak price) and move out because you can not afford to live next to some rich person. While income tax and VAT are proportional to what you earn and consume, and can vary easily with income/consumption level, changing housing is much harder, and can put people in very bad situations through no fault of their own.
- bufordsharkley 11y ago
  I would say that this argument seems to imply that no neighborhood should ever grow (for its existing residents would be priced out.) This, however, is a fallacy-- the higher valuation of the land implies a larger return on the land, consistent with increasing the amount of people who can live there. (i.e. replacing a small house with an apartment building.) This allows more people of modest means to live in this neighboorhood, instead of less. Compare to the Palo Alto model, where land never appreciates in taxable value-- people are able to stay in their home, but only those who were lucky enough to buy at the right time. The overall capacity of the city does not grow, and people are priced away from buying into the city.

vidarh 11y ago

VAT is crazily regressive because those who make the least spend far larger proportions of their income buying stuff for it. Most countries with VAT end up with complicated rules for exemptions for basic goods as a result, to try to balance it better.

StreamBright 11y ago
It is not complicated to me: - food, books, medicine, ... -> lower VAT - cars, luxury items -> higher VAT
- spacemanmatt 11y ago
  This is a dramatic over-simplification that ignores what is actually a cascade of exemptions that leads toward a similar tax-law morass that we already have.
- vidarh 11y ago
  Now, define "luxury items", while considering e.g. that in the UK there's VAT on things like tampons (though at the reduced 5% rate), while e.g. imported luxury meat is zero-rated because its food. It's an incredibly complicated tax to apply, because the rules tend to grow to deal with more and more corner cases. For example: Are jaffa cakes cakes or biscuits? It took a lengthy court case to determine that they are in fact cakes for the purpose of UK VAT [1] [2]. The reason for this case was that cakes are exempt from VAT as food no matter what, while biscuits are zero-rated in the UK only if they are not covered in chocolate. In the latter case they are considered confectionery, which is standard rated. Here's more on the complexities of this classification [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Categorisation_as_cake_or_biscuit_for_VAT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Categorisation_as_... [2] http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6260.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6260.htm [3] http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6200.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vfoodmanual/VFOOD6200.htm
  - StreamBright 11y ago
    I agree with you, when it comes to applying law to real life it is usually lengthy and pricey process. We should just use a better legal system where these things are not up in the air. You can complicate life with broken legislation, just to keep lawyers busy. You could also just ask: do we need a lawyer to determine that jaffa cakes are cakes or biscuits, or we can pick one and go with it. On the other note on VAT categories: how about collecting data and letting machine learning decide what is a luxury item? We have excellent clustering algorithms that can find clusters in data human has no chance to find. Lets apply that to purchasing habits and figure out what sort of clusters we have out there, and lets decide how much VAT you pay based on that.

deepnet 11y ago

Inflation is a fair tax, it taxes money.

irixusr 11y ago
Actually it's a tax to being far from the central bank. The further you are the longer the price signal from the printed money will take to reach you. Inflation is cancer.
- deepnet 11y ago
  The problem is how the printed money is distributed. Central banks convert it into debt with interest, this is bad. Paying it as wages or a national dividend would get it to the leaves where it benefits people, then communities, then society and then banks. I argue inflation is not bad just how the printed money is distributed.
  - irixusr 11y ago
    +1 because you're right about the importance of distribution. My family are inflation "refugees". It's bad in of itself. I agree that the distribution of the money is the worse part of the printing press. Giving money to soup kitchens is not as bad giving it to upgrade your military equipment. But, lets not kid ourselves. The central bank is a very powerful instrument of control. The powerful are hardly going to relinquish it!

erkkie 11y ago

I agree in theory, but in practice, it's impossible unless the entire world agrees on the same VAT rules, otherwise shopping across country barriers is bound to happen.