7 ms·

Yikes! Talk about theft of labor. A 25% sales tax means one in four consumptive dollars is taken away. Ouch.

rakoo 7y ago
Taxes go to the State, which ultimately goes back to you and to those in needs. It's not a theft, it's a shared account for the common good. Moreover it's a tax on consumption, not on production. High taxation is what makes something like Healthcare so good and eventually cheap for everyone, contrary to the disastrous situation in the US. As a French I'm more than happy to pay 20% VAT if I know it's going to benefit everyone.
- the-dude 7y ago
  VAT = Value Added Tax Sounds like a tax on production to me.
  - alias_neo 7y ago
    It's a tax on "luxuries" as I understand it. I'm just not sure yet how putting food on your table is supposed to be a luxury. The hard part is that in theory, healthier, "natural" food (e.g. fresh fruit and vegetable) should not have VAT, but it's just more expensive anyway than cheap processed food that's had "value added" by the process.
    - rakoo 7y ago
      Take the fruits and vegetables from your own garden/farm by yourself, you won't pay a cent on it. Take it from someone else who worked to make it happen and you're paying taxes on this added value. This doesn't sound too foreign to me. Healthier, more "bio" food is more expensive because efficiency is lower and the scale and choice of harvesting means don't allow it to be cultivated at the same rate, so the base price is higher. VAT is not playing any role in making it more or less expensive.
      - alias_neo 7y ago
        That's fine if you have the luxury of growing it yourself. If you live in a city like a lot of people do in the UK you don't have the luxury of owning a garden, so having somebody else grow it is a necessity. In the end, for the poorer, at least in the likes of the UK, it means they eat less healthily because they need to buy cheaper, processed and less nutritious food that keeps longer. I don't disagree with anything you're saying in textbook terms, but reality is different.
        rakoo 7y ago
        If you live in a city it's because you want to. Noone forces you to get an excruciating job for little money in the concrete jungle, it's a choice you made. Our farms and our farmers are struggling to keep up, there is a ton of space out there where you can grow your own food if you want to. In the end there will always be something that you need someone else to do and that's fine, it's because as a society we have gone the way of specialized individuals providing for the rest of the society. I do believe however that it doesn't mean you must work to be part of the society, because IMO we should shift towards a universal income. But that's another discussion.
        alias_neo 7y ago
        > If you live in a city it's because you want to. Noone forces you to get an excruciating job for little money in the concrete jungle, it's a choice you made. Respectfully, I disagree. It may be a choice somebody made at one point in time, but for the poor it's not a decision they have the luxury to fix. Some can't afford to take a day or several off of work to move, or even to look for somewhere else to live and another job, or they don't put food on the table. Even if they can, without time and money, and a good job, nobody is going to rent a home to them outside of the big city. Cities like London make it extremely difficult for these people to live, but at the same time make it possible, and even then it's in conditions most would be unhappy to live in, all because someone will give them a space in a room for cash without any credit checks or all of the red-tape that would be required anywhere more laid back; things are possible in the city purely because of volume, and rules are relaxed to keep the pace. Getting out of being poor in a country with an economy like ours is difficult. Having space to grow food is no good if nobody will let you use it, or if you work such long hours you don't have the time to do it, what about having the energy to do it? poorer people tend to work more physically demanding jobs. I've seen your textbook system work, in less developed countries where people have the luxury of time and space because their cost of living isn't an overbearing demand and specialisation is lower. You can't argue we're specialised, then at the same time say everyone should grow their own food, that's the farmer's job. I'm not sure what the solution is, but finding a way as a society to take some of the strain off of people who are struggling just to feed themselves is a good start.
  - rakoo 7y ago
    It's a tax on all the added value that intermediaries have provided, but it's you the consumer who pays it. That's why I'm saying it's a tax on consumption.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Of course it is theft since it is taking away from you the outcome of your labor with the usage of force. If you go by that logic then you might as well abolish private property for the common good.
  - lultimouomo 7y ago
    It's nice that it only takes a line to definitively prove that taxation equals communism!
    - ekianjo 7y ago
      No, I criticized the argument that it is for the common good, since it can be used easily by any regime to crush individuals at their will. You can resort to all sorts of ugly behavior for the pretense of common good.
      - rakoo 7y ago
        But then we're not talking about functioning societies. What's the point of bringing "what if" extreme data points into the discussion ?
  - hjanssen 7y ago
    By your logic every tax is theft, which is obviously ridiculous.
    - ekianjo 7y ago
      So what is tax if it is not theft? Genuine question to see what is your definition of theft and how taxes do not fit such definition. If you have no say in paying for something, how is it not theft?
      - hjanssen 7y ago
        _My_ definition of theft is completely irrelevant. Theft is inherently defined by law and thus by the state. It would be very interesting if anyone can show me any law that defines the collection of taxes as theft - because it'd be stupid.
ekianjo 7y ago
Thats the cost of welfare states... and even with such high taxes are still insufficient as most of such countries are in the red.
- FDSGSG 7y ago
  > even with such high taxes are still insufficient as most of such countries are in the red This seems self-contradictory, how are the taxes insufficient if only most of such countries are in the red?
alt_f4 7y ago
And that's after significantly higher rates of income tax and social contributions too. I know Europeans say they like their free healthcare and social services, but the cost seems to be about 20% extra tax on the average income. That seems unreasonably high to me, even compared to the US system.
- Svip 7y ago
  The advantage of a welfare state to me, personally, is predictability. If I were to get into an accident, break some bones and not be able to work for a few months, I would not be charge a large hospital bill. Nor would I lose my salary. You can argue it's sort of an insurance scheme that everyone is forced to be part of. But compared to private health insurances, it's actually very cheap, because _everyone_ is chipping in. So even with much higher tax rates, people of a certain means (say middle class), have a comparable higher disposable income, because our expenses are predictable. (Note that there still exist unforeseen expenses, but they never reach the levels of some hospital bills in the US seen reported.)

Taxes go to the State, which ultimately goes back to you and to those in needs. It's not a theft, it's a shared account for the common good. Moreover it's a tax on consumption, not on production. High taxation is what makes something like Healthcare so good and eventually cheap for everyone, contrary to the disastrous situation in the US. As a French I'm more than happy to pay 20% VAT if I know it's going to benefit everyone.

the-dude 7y ago
VAT = Value Added Tax Sounds like a tax on production to me.
- alias_neo 7y ago
  It's a tax on "luxuries" as I understand it. I'm just not sure yet how putting food on your table is supposed to be a luxury. The hard part is that in theory, healthier, "natural" food (e.g. fresh fruit and vegetable) should not have VAT, but it's just more expensive anyway than cheap processed food that's had "value added" by the process.
  - rakoo 7y ago
    Take the fruits and vegetables from your own garden/farm by yourself, you won't pay a cent on it. Take it from someone else who worked to make it happen and you're paying taxes on this added value. This doesn't sound too foreign to me. Healthier, more "bio" food is more expensive because efficiency is lower and the scale and choice of harvesting means don't allow it to be cultivated at the same rate, so the base price is higher. VAT is not playing any role in making it more or less expensive.
    - alias_neo 7y ago
      That's fine if you have the luxury of growing it yourself. If you live in a city like a lot of people do in the UK you don't have the luxury of owning a garden, so having somebody else grow it is a necessity. In the end, for the poorer, at least in the likes of the UK, it means they eat less healthily because they need to buy cheaper, processed and less nutritious food that keeps longer. I don't disagree with anything you're saying in textbook terms, but reality is different.
      - rakoo 7y ago
        If you live in a city it's because you want to. Noone forces you to get an excruciating job for little money in the concrete jungle, it's a choice you made. Our farms and our farmers are struggling to keep up, there is a ton of space out there where you can grow your own food if you want to. In the end there will always be something that you need someone else to do and that's fine, it's because as a society we have gone the way of specialized individuals providing for the rest of the society. I do believe however that it doesn't mean you must work to be part of the society, because IMO we should shift towards a universal income. But that's another discussion.
        alias_neo 7y ago
        > If you live in a city it's because you want to. Noone forces you to get an excruciating job for little money in the concrete jungle, it's a choice you made. Respectfully, I disagree. It may be a choice somebody made at one point in time, but for the poor it's not a decision they have the luxury to fix. Some can't afford to take a day or several off of work to move, or even to look for somewhere else to live and another job, or they don't put food on the table. Even if they can, without time and money, and a good job, nobody is going to rent a home to them outside of the big city. Cities like London make it extremely difficult for these people to live, but at the same time make it possible, and even then it's in conditions most would be unhappy to live in, all because someone will give them a space in a room for cash without any credit checks or all of the red-tape that would be required anywhere more laid back; things are possible in the city purely because of volume, and rules are relaxed to keep the pace. Getting out of being poor in a country with an economy like ours is difficult. Having space to grow food is no good if nobody will let you use it, or if you work such long hours you don't have the time to do it, what about having the energy to do it? poorer people tend to work more physically demanding jobs. I've seen your textbook system work, in less developed countries where people have the luxury of time and space because their cost of living isn't an overbearing demand and specialisation is lower. You can't argue we're specialised, then at the same time say everyone should grow their own food, that's the farmer's job. I'm not sure what the solution is, but finding a way as a society to take some of the strain off of people who are struggling just to feed themselves is a good start.
- rakoo 7y ago
  It's a tax on all the added value that intermediaries have provided, but it's you the consumer who pays it. That's why I'm saying it's a tax on consumption.
ekianjo 7y ago
Of course it is theft since it is taking away from you the outcome of your labor with the usage of force. If you go by that logic then you might as well abolish private property for the common good.
- lultimouomo 7y ago
  It's nice that it only takes a line to definitively prove that taxation equals communism!
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    No, I criticized the argument that it is for the common good, since it can be used easily by any regime to crush individuals at their will. You can resort to all sorts of ugly behavior for the pretense of common good.
    - rakoo 7y ago
      But then we're not talking about functioning societies. What's the point of bringing "what if" extreme data points into the discussion ?
- hjanssen 7y ago
  By your logic every tax is theft, which is obviously ridiculous.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    So what is tax if it is not theft? Genuine question to see what is your definition of theft and how taxes do not fit such definition. If you have no say in paying for something, how is it not theft?
    - hjanssen 7y ago
      _My_ definition of theft is completely irrelevant. Theft is inherently defined by law and thus by the state. It would be very interesting if anyone can show me any law that defines the collection of taxes as theft - because it'd be stupid.

ekianjo 7y ago

Thats the cost of welfare states... and even with such high taxes are still insufficient as most of such countries are in the red.

FDSGSG 7y ago
> even with such high taxes are still insufficient as most of such countries are in the red This seems self-contradictory, how are the taxes insufficient if only most of such countries are in the red?

alt_f4 7y ago

And that's after significantly higher rates of income tax and social contributions too. I know Europeans say they like their free healthcare and social services, but the cost seems to be about 20% extra tax on the average income. That seems unreasonably high to me, even compared to the US system.

Svip 7y ago
The advantage of a welfare state to me, personally, is predictability. If I were to get into an accident, break some bones and not be able to work for a few months, I would not be charge a large hospital bill. Nor would I lose my salary. You can argue it's sort of an insurance scheme that everyone is forced to be part of. But compared to private health insurances, it's actually very cheap, because _everyone_ is chipping in. So even with much higher tax rates, people of a certain means (say middle class), have a comparable higher disposable income, because our expenses are predictable. (Note that there still exist unforeseen expenses, but they never reach the levels of some hospital bills in the US seen reported.)