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A solution to the tax problem is to change methods of taxation so that far less information and monitoring is needed. While we're at it, we could also make taxa

A solution to the tax problem is to change methods of taxation so that far less information and monitoring is needed. While we're at it, we could also make taxation less regressive, more efficient, and simpler to comply with. As much as possible, we should be taxing consumption, not income, savings, and growth. Where it is necessary to tax income and growth, we should be looking specifically at the largest, wealthiest corporations and their major beneficiaries, not average individuals.

dnautics 11y ago
If you're taxing consumption you're fundamentally requiring government to ingest more information about its populace than income.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  One of the advantages of taxing land rents is that most if not all the information needed is inherently part of the process of protecting property rights. Since most intellectual and "brand" property must also be registered, I am sure the same can apply to that.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  They're fundamentally the same thing. Your spending is somebody else's income. But a consumption tax which is collected by the merchants provides the government with the least information. All they learn is that Walmart reported selling $8,500,000 worth of auto parts this quarter, not who your employer is or what specific customers bought what specific products.
CydeWeys 11y ago
> While we're at it, we could also make taxation less regressive > As much as possible, we should be taxing consumption, not income, savings, and growth. These two desires are in complete opposition to each other, because the poor by necessity spend a much larger proportion of their income than the rich. What you are proposing is impossible.
- danenania 11y ago
  It's not impossible, it just requires an intelligent weighting approach. Tax rates on yachts, private jets, estates, and luxury goods can safely be made much, much higher than taxes on groceries and other staples, for example.
  - CydeWeys 11y ago
    Those are just targeting the 0.1% though. The average $250,000/year earner isn't buying any of that except for maybe "luxury goods", however you define those. I don't see any tenable path towards implementing this kind of taxation scheme. Consumer spending is the driving force of the US economy, and higher taxes on spending would cause serious reductions in spending in favor of saving (which goes untaxed). So you'd see huge collapses in goods and services industries, with people putting off big purchases until after the inevitable collapse of the new taxation scheme. Meanwhile entire companies are dying and millions becoming unemployed. My effective total taxation rate under your proposed scheme would go from ~45% to under 10%. I save most of my income, and housing is more than half of the money I do save. I don't live in luxury housing or anything, and since you're discounting income, you thus couldn't charge me any more in taxes on my housing than my neighbors who earn significantly less (and couldn't afford to pay huge taxes on expensive housing).
  - armenarmen 11y ago
    The taxing of mobile luxury good hasn't played out well in the past, specifically on yachts. The rich just buy their boats elsewhere and domestic boat builders lose their work http://www.econlife.com/yacht-lessons/ http://www.econlife.com/yacht-lessons/
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    In California, where we have those kinds of balances (no sales tax on groceries, for example), it ends up hitting the middle class disproportionately. Since the poor spend most of their income, and the rich don't spend most of it, you are in any case taxing a higher portion of the income of poor people (with consumption taxes).
- 11y ago

dnautics 11y ago

If you're taxing consumption you're fundamentally requiring government to ingest more information about its populace than income.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
One of the advantages of taxing land rents is that most if not all the information needed is inherently part of the process of protecting property rights. Since most intellectual and "brand" property must also be registered, I am sure the same can apply to that.
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
They're fundamentally the same thing. Your spending is somebody else's income. But a consumption tax which is collected by the merchants provides the government with the least information. All they learn is that Walmart reported selling $8,500,000 worth of auto parts this quarter, not who your employer is or what specific customers bought what specific products.

CydeWeys 11y ago

> While we're at it, we could also make taxation less regressive > As much as possible, we should be taxing consumption, not income, savings, and growth. These two desires are in complete opposition to each other, because the poor by necessity spend a much larger proportion of their income than the rich. What you are proposing is impossible.

danenania 11y ago
It's not impossible, it just requires an intelligent weighting approach. Tax rates on yachts, private jets, estates, and luxury goods can safely be made much, much higher than taxes on groceries and other staples, for example.
- CydeWeys 11y ago
  Those are just targeting the 0.1% though. The average $250,000/year earner isn't buying any of that except for maybe "luxury goods", however you define those. I don't see any tenable path towards implementing this kind of taxation scheme. Consumer spending is the driving force of the US economy, and higher taxes on spending would cause serious reductions in spending in favor of saving (which goes untaxed). So you'd see huge collapses in goods and services industries, with people putting off big purchases until after the inevitable collapse of the new taxation scheme. Meanwhile entire companies are dying and millions becoming unemployed. My effective total taxation rate under your proposed scheme would go from ~45% to under 10%. I save most of my income, and housing is more than half of the money I do save. I don't live in luxury housing or anything, and since you're discounting income, you thus couldn't charge me any more in taxes on my housing than my neighbors who earn significantly less (and couldn't afford to pay huge taxes on expensive housing).
- armenarmen 11y ago
  The taxing of mobile luxury good hasn't played out well in the past, specifically on yachts. The rich just buy their boats elsewhere and domestic boat builders lose their work http://www.econlife.com/yacht-lessons/ http://www.econlife.com/yacht-lessons/
- ktRolster 11y ago
  In California, where we have those kinds of balances (no sales tax on groceries, for example), it ends up hitting the middle class disproportionately. Since the poor spend most of their income, and the rich don't spend most of it, you are in any case taxing a higher portion of the income of poor people (with consumption taxes).
11y ago