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> If you want tax dollars to support a cause, then vote for it. This is literally what people have voted for by having tax deductions for certain "good" things

by avar 8y ago

> If you want tax dollars to support a cause, then vote for it. This is literally what people have voted for by having tax deductions for certain "good" things, like giving to charity, using some of your land for bees or whatever. Just because it's agreed that something should be done in the aggregate, doesn't mean that it needs to be centrally managed by some state agency. You decide X is wanted, and then leave the implementation to distributed decision making.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
I think it's easier to hold fewer larger entities accountable, assuming we mandate transparency, than many small ones. Increasing complexity always benefits the seller (politicians and their influencers). Ideally, all tax receipts would go into one pot, and then all expenditures would come out of it, so it's simple to account for. We have a system that enables "donations" to religious tribes in exchange for political support or politicians looting current taxpayers in exchange for future votes by kicking retiree benefit costs 30 years into the future (this is literally happening now). All of these undesirable outcomes for society are only happening because the complexity creates plausible deniability and difficulty in accounting. If people want to donate, let them donate, but it needs not having anything to do with taxes. We can save resources on enforcing tax laws, preparing tax filings, and obviously remove all this under the table stuff. Just like how electronic payments reduce tax fraud, only difference is we need total transparency.
- avar 8y ago
  Whether something is a worthwhile expenditure is a separate from the discussion about the implementation detail of it being supported directly through state funding, or indirectly via tax deductions. E.g. in many EU countries religious organizations are directly funded through taxes. So in some way it comes down to the same thing, both systems have their ups & downs. Doing it via tax deductions is often cheaper, because in many cases you can get people to match state dollars at some ratio, and since they get to choose what they fund within some framework they often get some benefit for themselves as well. E.g. in this case Morgan Freeman gets to walk around on his private land covered in bees which'll be partially state funded. The government didn't need to buy land somewhere just for this purpose. Instead they find someone who's willing to do this not just for the tax benefit, but also because they for whatever reason don't mind a lot of bees on their land. So Freeman gets a tax write-off, less money is spent overall for the same amount of bees in the ecosystem, it's a win-win.
- noblethrasher 8y ago
  In a healthy economic structure, most of the power would be in the middle class (i.e. the distribution of economic power is a bell curve). If we had that instead of the current power law distribution, then tax incentives would work simply because they would directly reflect with will of the people: The fat part of the curve -- representing the average -- would be able to out-vote and out-spend everyone else. Trying to control the behavior of giants that are smarter and stronger is probably hopeless, so our focus should be on getting the economy back to normal (pardon the pun).

by avar 8y ago

lotsofpulp 8y ago

I think it's easier to hold fewer larger entities accountable, assuming we mandate transparency, than many small ones. Increasing complexity always benefits the seller (politicians and their influencers). Ideally, all tax receipts would go into one pot, and then all expenditures would come out of it, so it's simple to account for. We have a system that enables "donations" to religious tribes in exchange for political support or politicians looting current taxpayers in exchange for future votes by kicking retiree benefit costs 30 years into the future (this is literally happening now). All of these undesirable outcomes for society are only happening because the complexity creates plausible deniability and difficulty in accounting. If people want to donate, let them donate, but it needs not having anything to do with taxes. We can save resources on enforcing tax laws, preparing tax filings, and obviously remove all this under the table stuff. Just like how electronic payments reduce tax fraud, only difference is we need total transparency.

avar 8y ago
Whether something is a worthwhile expenditure is a separate from the discussion about the implementation detail of it being supported directly through state funding, or indirectly via tax deductions. E.g. in many EU countries religious organizations are directly funded through taxes. So in some way it comes down to the same thing, both systems have their ups & downs. Doing it via tax deductions is often cheaper, because in many cases you can get people to match state dollars at some ratio, and since they get to choose what they fund within some framework they often get some benefit for themselves as well. E.g. in this case Morgan Freeman gets to walk around on his private land covered in bees which'll be partially state funded. The government didn't need to buy land somewhere just for this purpose. Instead they find someone who's willing to do this not just for the tax benefit, but also because they for whatever reason don't mind a lot of bees on their land. So Freeman gets a tax write-off, less money is spent overall for the same amount of bees in the ecosystem, it's a win-win.
noblethrasher 8y ago
In a healthy economic structure, most of the power would be in the middle class (i.e. the distribution of economic power is a bell curve). If we had that instead of the current power law distribution, then tax incentives would work simply because they would directly reflect with will of the people: The fat part of the curve -- representing the average -- would be able to out-vote and out-spend everyone else. Trying to control the behavior of giants that are smarter and stronger is probably hopeless, so our focus should be on getting the economy back to normal (pardon the pun).