4 ms·

Income can also be chosen to a large extent. You can work more, work less, do a harder job, do an easier job. Basing taxes on income suffers from the problem yo

Income can also be chosen to a large extent. You can work more, work less, do a harder job, do an easier job. Basing taxes on income suffers from the problem you describe. A flat annual fee, as suggested by Proudhon, would be much more fair. I do not mean a "flat tax", which actually scales linearly with income, but a flat dollar amount. The federal government could replace all of its taxes, all of them (income, corporate, capital gain, etc) with a simple $500 a month per person payment. This would also make a lot of people reconsider their voting priorities. Let's see how likely they'd be to support trillion dollar wars.

conanbatt 10y ago
Subscription Taxes! Interesting idea and had never heard something like that.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  ???
jfoutz 10y ago
maybe i dropped a zero or something, but i think you're needing about double that to cover the $4T. $4T/350M workers /12 months =~ $1000, per person. if you just count 160M workers, it's more like $2000
- vacri 10y ago
  That's only 125% of a full-time $10/hour min-wage-ish job!
- murbard2 10y ago
  You're right, I used $2T for the federal budget incorrectly, it's $4T
evjim 10y ago
$500 per month sounds like the ultimate wage slavery. I prefer being exceptionally underemployed. Reducing almost all my expenses. Forced income tax seems immoral.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  This is not a new thing. It's called a head tax and it was quite a normal way to be taxed prior to the industrial revolution (which enabled the government to take the payment directly out of the paycheck before it ever reached the recipient). Also, things like property tax have the same effect -- can't get away from taxes even if you have no other expenses. Property tax can be jettisoned by selling your property, but then where are you going to live? You'd need to generate taxable income to rent someone else's property.
  - derefr 10y ago
    With a head tax, having no income and just crashing on a friend's couch (i.e. being a dependent) would put you "in the red", no? As would the more common cases of being a dependent because you're too young, or too old, or too stay-at-home-parenting to work. Or is a head tax meant to apply to "households" (in the census sense) rather than to individuals? Or, alternately, is the breadwinner of a household meant to pay the head-tax for all their dependents?
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      The purpose of something like a head tax seems to be to lower the taxes of the wealthy. I can't conceive of any other reasoning.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        I can think of other reasons. It requires no more bookkeeping or accounting beyond that which is already required by the census. It would apportion federal taxes to the states in proportion to their populations, as required in the Constitution prior to the income tax amendment. This could potentially reduce the number of taxing authorities any given individual would be exposed to. Your state might pay the federal capitation, but might raise the funds for it via other methods of taxation rather than its own head tax. It reinforces the idea of equality before the law. It encourages pursuit of additional income. You are more likely to do additional work for an extra $500 if you then get to spend all $500 of it, rather than just 75% of that. The government is encouraged to promote increased birth rates and immigration as a means of increasing its revenue. But the number one argument both for and against against head taxes, depending on who you are, is that it creates an inherent de facto limit on government spending, based on what the lower class can afford to pay. If there are people who simply cannot pay more than $500 a month, you cannot raise more than $500 x population via the capitation. So you can't spend more than that without resorting to other sources of revenue.
timwaagh 10y ago
For me it is easy to afford 500 euro a month. my taxes would go up slightly (I'm not high income, i pay 450 euro a month now and have some rebates) but i'd be ok. for my roommate, who is usually a student but now just gives a few tennis lessons and works in an ice cream store, it would mean becoming homeless. because she could no longer afford the rent i charge (which is 300 euro). And it's hard to keep a job when you're homeless. She'd be reliant on her parents or else she'd need to sell her body. I don't think it's fair to do that to a girl of 19. Although she is talented enough there is no way she will make as much as I do in a reasonable timeframe.

conanbatt 10y ago

Subscription Taxes! Interesting idea and had never heard something like that.

dredmorbius 10y ago
???

jfoutz 10y ago

maybe i dropped a zero or something, but i think you're needing about double that to cover the $4T. $4T/350M workers /12 months =~ $1000, per person. if you just count 160M workers, it's more like $2000

vacri 10y ago
That's only 125% of a full-time $10/hour min-wage-ish job!
murbard2 10y ago
You're right, I used $2T for the federal budget incorrectly, it's $4T

evjim 10y ago

$500 per month sounds like the ultimate wage slavery. I prefer being exceptionally underemployed. Reducing almost all my expenses. Forced income tax seems immoral.

cookiecaper 10y ago
This is not a new thing. It's called a head tax and it was quite a normal way to be taxed prior to the industrial revolution (which enabled the government to take the payment directly out of the paycheck before it ever reached the recipient). Also, things like property tax have the same effect -- can't get away from taxes even if you have no other expenses. Property tax can be jettisoned by selling your property, but then where are you going to live? You'd need to generate taxable income to rent someone else's property.
- derefr 10y ago
  With a head tax, having no income and just crashing on a friend's couch (i.e. being a dependent) would put you "in the red", no? As would the more common cases of being a dependent because you're too young, or too old, or too stay-at-home-parenting to work. Or is a head tax meant to apply to "households" (in the census sense) rather than to individuals? Or, alternately, is the breadwinner of a household meant to pay the head-tax for all their dependents?
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    The purpose of something like a head tax seems to be to lower the taxes of the wealthy. I can't conceive of any other reasoning.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      I can think of other reasons. It requires no more bookkeeping or accounting beyond that which is already required by the census. It would apportion federal taxes to the states in proportion to their populations, as required in the Constitution prior to the income tax amendment. This could potentially reduce the number of taxing authorities any given individual would be exposed to. Your state might pay the federal capitation, but might raise the funds for it via other methods of taxation rather than its own head tax. It reinforces the idea of equality before the law. It encourages pursuit of additional income. You are more likely to do additional work for an extra $500 if you then get to spend all $500 of it, rather than just 75% of that. The government is encouraged to promote increased birth rates and immigration as a means of increasing its revenue. But the number one argument both for and against against head taxes, depending on who you are, is that it creates an inherent de facto limit on government spending, based on what the lower class can afford to pay. If there are people who simply cannot pay more than $500 a month, you cannot raise more than $500 x population via the capitation. So you can't spend more than that without resorting to other sources of revenue.

timwaagh 10y ago

For me it is easy to afford 500 euro a month. my taxes would go up slightly (I'm not high income, i pay 450 euro a month now and have some rebates) but i'd be ok. for my roommate, who is usually a student but now just gives a few tennis lessons and works in an ice cream store, it would mean becoming homeless. because she could no longer afford the rent i charge (which is 300 euro). And it's hard to keep a job when you're homeless. She'd be reliant on her parents or else she'd need to sell her body. I don't think it's fair to do that to a girl of 19. Although she is talented enough there is no way she will make as much as I do in a reasonable timeframe.