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This is probably where my ignorance of socio-economics will shine, so please bear with me. In all the articles I've come across regarding universal basic income

This is probably where my ignorance of socio-economics will shine, so please bear with me. In all the articles I've come across regarding universal basic income, I've never seen the idea of a flat tax rate mentioned (e.g. everybody, everything, 20%). It seems to me that it could work for the same reasons UBI is supposed to, i.e. reduce overheads among other things, while in this case also potentially reducing the risk for abuse and manipulation. In my view, a universal flat tax rate would go hand-in-hand with a universal basic income. Since the essential aim of UBI is to ensure people can at least meet their basic needs to achieve a certain degree of freedom, it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to imagine meeting those needs at the societal level as well (which is already done to a large extent in a lot of countries anyway), i.e. free public healthcare, improved and completely free public education, even free electricity, water, internet and so on. The knock-on effect obviously being that the UBI wouldn't need to be as high should some or all of the basic needs be covered by default as public services. Taking this a bit further, I'd like to see companies be incentivized to have their employees participate in Education in general. For instance, employees could spend 4 hours/week of their working time to go explain what they do to kids or run training sessions for adults trying to change career paths. The employer could be rewarded through some sort of tax break or something similar. Teachers would of course still exist, but the "burden" of Education would no longer be theirs only. I think this would have a number of benefitial effects: - it would subsidize the cost of Education to some extent - it would help level and adjust the job market more rapidly - it would help participating employees have a better understanding of their own job - it would expose people undergoing education to more professionals as opposed to almost only academics But most of all, I believe it would make people realize that Education is everybody's responsibility and that it is a continuous and evolving process for people of any age or background. There's obviously a lot more to be said about any of my points above, but I'd be interested to hear what people here think. I understand that YCombinator would not have the ability to set tax rates and such, this is more of a thought exercise.

Yen 10y ago
If I understand your proposal correctly, you propose to * set the income tax to a flat 20% * provide no (or very little) universal basic income * Increase freely available benefits Addressing the tax issue specifically - you propose the benefits are: * Reduce overheads * Reduce risk for abuse and manipulation I don't think a flat tax rate will achieve the things you want it to. A progressive tax rate doesn't add any administrative overhead at all, it's just a different way of deciding how much tax you pay once you've correctly totaled your income. Right now, I see 3 general categories for 'abuse and manipulation' in taxes - fraudulently misrepresenting your income, fraudulently misrepresenting deductions you may qualify for, or legally structuring income and behavior to pay much less taxes than otherwise expected (i.e., finding 'loopholes'). Your primary way of combating those abuses would be to simplify the deductions people can take. To a lesser extent, you can also simplify or refactor the different definitions of income. A flat 20% tax rate means decreased government revenue overall, lower taxes for the rich, and higher taxes for the middle-class and poor. Most people would consider that to be a failure on every point.
- grownseed 10y ago
  Thank you for your comment, you bring up some very valid points. I think I might not have expressed myself clearly enough on some of mine so I apologize for that. set the income tax to a flat 20% The 20% I mentioned was a completely random figure, my guess is that it should be much higher, but this would obviously need to be researched properly. This also wouldn't solely be for incomes, but rather for all financial transactions, which I believe (though I may be misguided) would reduce potential loopholes that rely on declaring income in various ways (including not as income). I think this idea is more or less in line with your idea to "simplify or refactor the different definitions of income". Additionally, with a flat tax rate, I imagine it would be much easier to subtract taxes at the source (e.g. as is done in the UK for incomes) which in turn would reduce administrative work and therefore overheads. provide no (or very little) universal basic income I am definitely in favour of a substantial universal basic income (within reason, of course). I simply believe that it would work better alongside a strong support network (i.e. education, healthcare, etc.). A flat 20% tax rate means decreased government revenue overall, lower taxes for the rich, and higher taxes for the middle-class and poor. Regarding "lower taxes for the rich", I'm not sure how true that is (again, if we agree that 20% is a made-up figure for now). The rich benefit from ways of skirting these things that poor and middle-class people do not have. This reminds me of an article by Warren Buffet in the NYT on how the rich get special treatment (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-...). As for poor and middle-class people, I think it's important to look at the bigger picture. The initial tax spending would be, as you note, possibly higher, however relatively speaking this is money they would no longer need to spend on basic necessities, which for society as a whole seems more beneficial and a greater equalizer.

Yen 10y ago

If I understand your proposal correctly, you propose to * set the income tax to a flat 20% * provide no (or very little) universal basic income * Increase freely available benefits Addressing the tax issue specifically - you propose the benefits are: * Reduce overheads * Reduce risk for abuse and manipulation I don't think a flat tax rate will achieve the things you want it to. A progressive tax rate doesn't add any administrative overhead at all, it's just a different way of deciding how much tax you pay once you've correctly totaled your income. Right now, I see 3 general categories for 'abuse and manipulation' in taxes - fraudulently misrepresenting your income, fraudulently misrepresenting deductions you may qualify for, or legally structuring income and behavior to pay much less taxes than otherwise expected (i.e., finding 'loopholes'). Your primary way of combating those abuses would be to simplify the deductions people can take. To a lesser extent, you can also simplify or refactor the different definitions of income. A flat 20% tax rate means decreased government revenue overall, lower taxes for the rich, and higher taxes for the middle-class and poor. Most people would consider that to be a failure on every point.

grownseed 10y ago
Thank you for your comment, you bring up some very valid points. I think I might not have expressed myself clearly enough on some of mine so I apologize for that. set the income tax to a flat 20% The 20% I mentioned was a completely random figure, my guess is that it should be much higher, but this would obviously need to be researched properly. This also wouldn't solely be for incomes, but rather for all financial transactions, which I believe (though I may be misguided) would reduce potential loopholes that rely on declaring income in various ways (including not as income). I think this idea is more or less in line with your idea to "simplify or refactor the different definitions of income". Additionally, with a flat tax rate, I imagine it would be much easier to subtract taxes at the source (e.g. as is done in the UK for incomes) which in turn would reduce administrative work and therefore overheads. provide no (or very little) universal basic income I am definitely in favour of a substantial universal basic income (within reason, of course). I simply believe that it would work better alongside a strong support network (i.e. education, healthcare, etc.). A flat 20% tax rate means decreased government revenue overall, lower taxes for the rich, and higher taxes for the middle-class and poor. Regarding "lower taxes for the rich", I'm not sure how true that is (again, if we agree that 20% is a made-up figure for now). The rich benefit from ways of skirting these things that poor and middle-class people do not have. This reminds me of an article by Warren Buffet in the NYT on how the rich get special treatment (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-...). As for poor and middle-class people, I think it's important to look at the bigger picture. The initial tax spending would be, as you note, possibly higher, however relatively speaking this is money they would no longer need to spend on basic necessities, which for society as a whole seems more beneficial and a greater equalizer.