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I think you and I fundamentally disagree on what a tax is. You seem to view it as punishment or a burden. I view it as the method for paying for things that hel

I think you and I fundamentally disagree on what a tax is. You seem to view it as punishment or a burden. I view it as the method for paying for things that help the collective good. Not a punishment but rather a duty for those with the means. If we aren't using taxes to collectively protect society (e.g. military, police, courts), help the less fortunate, etc then why collect them at all? The richer the entity (individual or business), the more means they have and the more they actually benefit from those taxes even if they have to pay them. EDIT Just to add, if you agree we need taxation to have functioning society, why wouldn't we get the money from the richest? Why wouldn't we put the burden on the richest? In terms of people inside rich organizations, it is only the already rich, owners and investors, which would feel the burden. Supply and demand will continue to give consumers high quality and low prices. Employees will still get their market-rate wages or minimum wage for low-skill jobs.

conanbatt 8y ago
> think you and I fundamentally disagree on what a tax is. You seem to view it as punishment or a burden. I view it as the method for paying for things that help the collective good. Not a punishment but rather a duty for those with the means. If we aren't using taxes to collectively protect society (e.g. military, police, courts), help the less fortunate, etc then why collect them at all? The richer the entity (individual or business), the more means they have and the more they actually benefit from those taxes even if they have to pay them. A tax IS a punishment. It is a charge not reciprocated by a service to the person that pays for it. Collective goods dont require individualized sacrifices, just individual collaborations. But okay, we can divert ideologically on that point, but nevertheless any effect of taxation is a cost on the person paying for it, and will have the same effects to him as if the person lost the taxed money into the abyss. > Just to add, if you agree we need taxation to have functioning society, why wouldn't we get the money from the richest? Why wouldn't we put the burden on the richest? In terms of people inside rich organizations, it is only the already rich, owners and investors, which would feel the burden. Supply and demand will continue to give consumers high quality and low prices. Employees will still get their market-rate wages or minimum wage for low-skill jobs. I think I've always had a curious thought about the idea of not discriminating minorities, except for the rich, you better discriminate those! If we can agree at least that taxation is the cost of government, why should the cost of government only come from a section of society? A society that achieves to make a part of it responsible for its whole will not thrive in collaboration and cohesiveness. A society where some expect to make a living at the others expense is not a free one. In economic terms, there are multiple criteria on measuring how good a tax is. There is of course how the burden affects the person itself, but also how efficient it is to levy it, how convenient it is to pay or how predictable it is. Satisfying multiple criteria will not give you much room to tax "the rich". There are normative arguments as well: just placing a tax on the rich doesnt mean you'll be able to raise that money, as the rich have the highest recourse to escape. Human beings are very hard to corner!
- rpedela 8y ago
  > taxation is a cost on the person paying for it, and will have the same effects to him as if the person lost the taxed money into the abyss. In my town, in addition to the normal local taxes, there is a special greenery fee/tax that all residents must pay. It is only $25/year. The purpose is to pay the upkeep of all the green spaces which there are many. I happily pay this because I like to walk through these green spaces. Individually there is no way that $25/year would pay for that, but collectively the town can afford to and it improves living here for all the residents. There are of course many examples where tax money is not used wisely, but there are also many examples where it is. We should get better at spending it wisely which is of course easier said than done. But to say that taxes are like throwing money into the abyss just doesn't stack up to the data.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    And while we all would prefer greater efficiency in government, an inefficient government is still universally preferable to an absent or non-functioning government. Also, if that inefficiency is in the form of salaries or domestic spending, it's only partly wasted as it adds to movement of money in the economy.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      God no. The broken window fallacy comes back from 1830, before Bastiat. If you pay someone to do nothing you waste both the money you used that could have gone to something useful and the time of the person that would have done something else, hopefully productive, instead.
      - sjwright 8y ago
        That assumes that a maximally efficient economy is also the maximally desirable. I strongly disagree. (Though if a generous UBI was already in place, I could change my mind...)
        8y ago
closeparen 8y ago
You're responding to a technocratic argument about how to allocate taxes equitably with a moralistic argument that taxes are good. From a meta-debate perspective this is both infuriating and tragically common. Details matter. Incentives matter. "Taxes are actually good" isn't a reason to stop caring about which taxation schemes produce the best outcomes or are more fair. "Punishment" carries some unnecessary connotation. How about "disincentive." People respond to incentives; good policy exploits this by taxing the things society wants less of. Failing that, it levies taxes that don't depend much on behavior, to avoid undesired distortions. The argument is not that corporations have some kind of right to their income that's being unfairly abridged. It's that taxing corporations is sloppy: the true cost of the tax falls on consumers, workers, and owners in not-very-deliberate proportions. If you want to put the burden on "the richest," great, so do I. But let's tax those actual people.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Great way to say it.
- rpedela 8y ago
  Okay but why is it sloppy? Saying the true cost is on consumers, etc is a start but it is not a full argument. How do you know where the true cost lies? And like the other commenter, you seem to think a tax is a cost/disincentive which it is but there is a positive side too. Morality or not there is a benefit to taxes which many purely economic arguments on HN ignore. In other words, the true cost may be on individual people. But so is the true benefit. So would taxing solely corporations have more cost or benefit for those people? Both for the people in the corporations and those without? I have yet to see a coherent, let alone persuasive, argument against the idea.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    > Okay but why is it sloppy? Saying the true cost is on consumers, etc is a start but it is not a full argument. How do you know where the true cost lies? These are the questions the field of economics studies. Thats what they say. > Morality or not there is a benefit to taxes which many purely economic arguments on HN ignore. Saying that there is a benefit of taxes is an economic argument. Thats why it gets responded with economic arguments. If you imply the act of paying taxes is moral, I would compare it to the donation to church, where self-sacrifice is a virtue of its own. Much like the donation to church, it should be for those that want it. After all, its not self-sacrifice if its not voluntary! > In other words, the true cost may be on individual people. But so is the true benefit The ones that pay are not the ones that receive the benefit. Under this Doctrine you could always see a robber stealing a wallet and conclude that society is not a dime poorer. After all, one side gained what the other side has lost. What a defense the criminal has! That he has not made society poorer! > So would taxing solely corporations have more cost or benefit for those people? Both for the people in the corporations and those without? I have yet to see a coherent, let alone persuasive, argument against the idea. Its very hard to tell , precisely because corporate taxes hit different people in different ways in a chaotic way. It is much easier to make a conclusion with different taxation methods, but corporate taxes are very obscure and distortive.

conanbatt 8y ago

> think you and I fundamentally disagree on what a tax is. You seem to view it as punishment or a burden. I view it as the method for paying for things that help the collective good. Not a punishment but rather a duty for those with the means. If we aren't using taxes to collectively protect society (e.g. military, police, courts), help the less fortunate, etc then why collect them at all? The richer the entity (individual or business), the more means they have and the more they actually benefit from those taxes even if they have to pay them. A tax IS a punishment. It is a charge not reciprocated by a service to the person that pays for it. Collective goods dont require individualized sacrifices, just individual collaborations. But okay, we can divert ideologically on that point, but nevertheless any effect of taxation is a cost on the person paying for it, and will have the same effects to him as if the person lost the taxed money into the abyss. > Just to add, if you agree we need taxation to have functioning society, why wouldn't we get the money from the richest? Why wouldn't we put the burden on the richest? In terms of people inside rich organizations, it is only the already rich, owners and investors, which would feel the burden. Supply and demand will continue to give consumers high quality and low prices. Employees will still get their market-rate wages or minimum wage for low-skill jobs. I think I've always had a curious thought about the idea of not discriminating minorities, except for the rich, you better discriminate those! If we can agree at least that taxation is the cost of government, why should the cost of government only come from a section of society? A society that achieves to make a part of it responsible for its whole will not thrive in collaboration and cohesiveness. A society where some expect to make a living at the others expense is not a free one. In economic terms, there are multiple criteria on measuring how good a tax is. There is of course how the burden affects the person itself, but also how efficient it is to levy it, how convenient it is to pay or how predictable it is. Satisfying multiple criteria will not give you much room to tax "the rich". There are normative arguments as well: just placing a tax on the rich doesnt mean you'll be able to raise that money, as the rich have the highest recourse to escape. Human beings are very hard to corner!

rpedela 8y ago
> taxation is a cost on the person paying for it, and will have the same effects to him as if the person lost the taxed money into the abyss. In my town, in addition to the normal local taxes, there is a special greenery fee/tax that all residents must pay. It is only $25/year. The purpose is to pay the upkeep of all the green spaces which there are many. I happily pay this because I like to walk through these green spaces. Individually there is no way that $25/year would pay for that, but collectively the town can afford to and it improves living here for all the residents. There are of course many examples where tax money is not used wisely, but there are also many examples where it is. We should get better at spending it wisely which is of course easier said than done. But to say that taxes are like throwing money into the abyss just doesn't stack up to the data.
- sjwright 8y ago
  And while we all would prefer greater efficiency in government, an inefficient government is still universally preferable to an absent or non-functioning government. Also, if that inefficiency is in the form of salaries or domestic spending, it's only partly wasted as it adds to movement of money in the economy.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    God no. The broken window fallacy comes back from 1830, before Bastiat. If you pay someone to do nothing you waste both the money you used that could have gone to something useful and the time of the person that would have done something else, hopefully productive, instead.
    - sjwright 8y ago
      That assumes that a maximally efficient economy is also the maximally desirable. I strongly disagree. (Though if a generous UBI was already in place, I could change my mind...)
      - 8y ago

closeparen 8y ago

You're responding to a technocratic argument about how to allocate taxes equitably with a moralistic argument that taxes are good. From a meta-debate perspective this is both infuriating and tragically common. Details matter. Incentives matter. "Taxes are actually good" isn't a reason to stop caring about which taxation schemes produce the best outcomes or are more fair. "Punishment" carries some unnecessary connotation. How about "disincentive." People respond to incentives; good policy exploits this by taxing the things society wants less of. Failing that, it levies taxes that don't depend much on behavior, to avoid undesired distortions. The argument is not that corporations have some kind of right to their income that's being unfairly abridged. It's that taxing corporations is sloppy: the true cost of the tax falls on consumers, workers, and owners in not-very-deliberate proportions. If you want to put the burden on "the richest," great, so do I. But let's tax those actual people.

conanbatt 8y ago
Great way to say it.
rpedela 8y ago
Okay but why is it sloppy? Saying the true cost is on consumers, etc is a start but it is not a full argument. How do you know where the true cost lies? And like the other commenter, you seem to think a tax is a cost/disincentive which it is but there is a positive side too. Morality or not there is a benefit to taxes which many purely economic arguments on HN ignore. In other words, the true cost may be on individual people. But so is the true benefit. So would taxing solely corporations have more cost or benefit for those people? Both for the people in the corporations and those without? I have yet to see a coherent, let alone persuasive, argument against the idea.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  > Okay but why is it sloppy? Saying the true cost is on consumers, etc is a start but it is not a full argument. How do you know where the true cost lies? These are the questions the field of economics studies. Thats what they say. > Morality or not there is a benefit to taxes which many purely economic arguments on HN ignore. Saying that there is a benefit of taxes is an economic argument. Thats why it gets responded with economic arguments. If you imply the act of paying taxes is moral, I would compare it to the donation to church, where self-sacrifice is a virtue of its own. Much like the donation to church, it should be for those that want it. After all, its not self-sacrifice if its not voluntary! > In other words, the true cost may be on individual people. But so is the true benefit The ones that pay are not the ones that receive the benefit. Under this Doctrine you could always see a robber stealing a wallet and conclude that society is not a dime poorer. After all, one side gained what the other side has lost. What a defense the criminal has! That he has not made society poorer! > So would taxing solely corporations have more cost or benefit for those people? Both for the people in the corporations and those without? I have yet to see a coherent, let alone persuasive, argument against the idea. Its very hard to tell , precisely because corporate taxes hit different people in different ways in a chaotic way. It is much easier to make a conclusion with different taxation methods, but corporate taxes are very obscure and distortive.