4 ms·

Graduated income tax. Simplify the tax code, make the curve steeper, get rid of sales and usage taxes unless there is truly no benefit (like tobacco). (In my op

Graduated income tax. Simplify the tax code, make the curve steeper, get rid of sales and usage taxes unless there is truly no benefit (like tobacco). (In my opinion)

isostatic 8y ago
Why would you peanalise productive people through income tax? Why do you want to discourage working? Only way to rescue is to get paid less, not something we want to encourage. Why not tax land value instead, easy to reduce by making better use of the land, which is something we want to encourage. Taxing gas is still important to reclaim some of the externalities that burning it causes. Same with taxing alcohol which leads to societal problems.
- ForrestN 8y ago
  Do you have evidence that increasing taxes on people earning more than, say, $1M per year "discourages working?" I also support taxing land value, but I don't think it's a replacement for graduated income tax. I mentioned tobacco, and alcohol is obviously similar. But with gas, there are poorer people who simply cannot opt out of using gas. Maybe we should apply more tax to companies that produce or sell gas instead?
  - isostatic 8y ago
    At a $1m/year level you're just discouraging gaining money via the work process and instead gaining money elsewhere. This is already discouraged (people earning $2m/year can afford to pay an accountancy firm $50k to restructure their income via offshoring or capital gains, even if they only save 10% tax on the top million) One common wheeze is to funnel your income into a company and then take loans (including services) from it. There's an entire industry built around reducing income tax, which leads to massive tax laws to It's quite easy to reduce gas usage -- stop buying gas guzzling cars. 25mpg (that's 30mpg in the UK) is a terrible 'average fuel economy' [0], especially based on official figures. Buy a Skoda Citigo which gets a real 50mpg (us gallons) [1] We have poor people in the UK too, and they have to pay for gas, yet manage to cope with gas tax of 314 cents per (us) gallon. At an average 25mpg and 3.2 trillion miles a year in the US [2], that's 128 billion gallons. Increase your current gas tax of about 50c/gallon [3] to say $1.50 a gallon -- still under half what we pay in europe. That would raise an extra $100b a year which could be distributed evenly to all 320 million U.S. citizens, a $300/year flat payment, enough to offset the extra gas tax of 7500 miles, or for a 4 person family, 30,000 miles. This would discourage gas guzzling cars (you save a lot more by buying a car with a higher mpg) and not harm the people who "can't opt out of using gas". [0] https://phys.org/news/2016-11-average-fuel-economy-high-mpg.html https://phys.org/news/2016-11-average-fuel-economy-high-mpg.... [1] https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/topten/top-10-the-best-petrol-real-mpg-car/?image=1 https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/topten/top-10-the-best-petrol-r... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA/ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...
    - ForrestN 8y ago
      We should make these dishonest tax evasion schemes illegal or find other ways to break them. I'd be happy to support gas-guzzling car taxes, or even increasingly intense efficiency regulations for cars. But a straight tax on gasoline punishes poor people who probably can't afford to buy another car or move to somewhere more central.

Graduated income tax. Simplify the tax code, make the curve steeper, get rid of sales and usage taxes unless there is truly no benefit (like tobacco). (In my opinion)

isostatic 8y ago

Why would you peanalise productive people through income tax? Why do you want to discourage working? Only way to rescue is to get paid less, not something we want to encourage. Why not tax land value instead, easy to reduce by making better use of the land, which is something we want to encourage. Taxing gas is still important to reclaim some of the externalities that burning it causes. Same with taxing alcohol which leads to societal problems.

ForrestN 8y ago
Do you have evidence that increasing taxes on people earning more than, say, $1M per year "discourages working?" I also support taxing land value, but I don't think it's a replacement for graduated income tax. I mentioned tobacco, and alcohol is obviously similar. But with gas, there are poorer people who simply cannot opt out of using gas. Maybe we should apply more tax to companies that produce or sell gas instead?
- isostatic 8y ago
  At a $1m/year level you're just discouraging gaining money via the work process and instead gaining money elsewhere. This is already discouraged (people earning $2m/year can afford to pay an accountancy firm $50k to restructure their income via offshoring or capital gains, even if they only save 10% tax on the top million) One common wheeze is to funnel your income into a company and then take loans (including services) from it. There's an entire industry built around reducing income tax, which leads to massive tax laws to It's quite easy to reduce gas usage -- stop buying gas guzzling cars. 25mpg (that's 30mpg in the UK) is a terrible 'average fuel economy' [0], especially based on official figures. Buy a Skoda Citigo which gets a real 50mpg (us gallons) [1] We have poor people in the UK too, and they have to pay for gas, yet manage to cope with gas tax of 314 cents per (us) gallon. At an average 25mpg and 3.2 trillion miles a year in the US [2], that's 128 billion gallons. Increase your current gas tax of about 50c/gallon [3] to say $1.50 a gallon -- still under half what we pay in europe. That would raise an extra $100b a year which could be distributed evenly to all 320 million U.S. citizens, a $300/year flat payment, enough to offset the extra gas tax of 7500 miles, or for a 4 person family, 30,000 miles. This would discourage gas guzzling cars (you save a lot more by buying a car with a higher mpg) and not harm the people who "can't opt out of using gas". [0] https://phys.org/news/2016-11-average-fuel-economy-high-mpg.html https://phys.org/news/2016-11-average-fuel-economy-high-mpg.... [1] https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/topten/top-10-the-best-petrol-real-mpg-car/?image=1 https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/topten/top-10-the-best-petrol-r... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA/ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...
  - ForrestN 8y ago
    We should make these dishonest tax evasion schemes illegal or find other ways to break them. I'd be happy to support gas-guzzling car taxes, or even increasingly intense efficiency regulations for cars. But a straight tax on gasoline punishes poor people who probably can't afford to buy another car or move to somewhere more central.