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In software engineering, there is something called separation of concerns, and you should look at taxes in the same way. It is not the concern of VAT, tobacco

by taffer 7y ago

In software engineering, there is something called separation of concerns, and you should look at taxes in the same way. It is not the concern of VAT, tobacco tax, fuel tax, alcohol tax or salt tax to do redistribution. Instead, we must consider the redistribution of the tax system in general. Taxing all flights, or even better emissions in general, and redistributing taxes for social programmes, gives exactly the distribution effect you want without having to complicate income and property tax regulations.

coldtea 7y ago
>Taxing all flights, or even better emissions in general, and redistributing taxes for social programmes, gives exactly the distribution effect you want without having to complicate income and property tax regulations. I'm not sure I get the counter-argument. A flat tax on the flights themselves, that's not connected to the persons wealth/income doesn't have the distribution effect I want at all. I want to distribute discouragement, i.e. everybody to be equally discouraged from taking a flight regardless of their income level. A 500% tax on a flight's price from $300 to $1500 makes it extremely difficult for a working/middle class person to fly, but it's negligible peanuts for someone making $1M/year or has 10M in the bank. And of course we can still redistribute those taxes for social programmes (and there would be more of them too! $500 in taxes when Joe Average flies, and $50000 when Marc Cuban flies, for example, or e.g. $1M each time they fly their private jet (proportional to pollution per person)). Of course, for the environment, it's enough that we discourage the small guys (who are more numerous) from flying. But for social justice, it's better to make it more painful for every person to fly, regardless of their income level. A rich person should have an equally large penalty, and what's equal is not the same nominal amount, but the same ratio. (Even so, it would still be more painful for the working/middle class people -- since more of their income goes towards necessities, where a rich person can just use assets he has lying around, but at least it's better than a flat flight tax). And it's not something unprecedented: I've read that some countries fine people with expensive cars more for speeding than average cars, which makes sense too.
- taffer 7y ago
  My argument was that we should separate the distribution aspects of the tax system from the revenue-generating aspects. > I want to distribute discouragement, i.e. everybody to be equally discouraged from taking a flight regardless of their income level. You could say the same thing about any other tax, such as tobacco tax. Why do we not levy the tobacco tax in proportion to income? > But for social justice, it's better to make it more painful for every person to fly, regardless of their income level. A rich person should have an equally large penalty, and what's equal is not the same nominal amount, but the same ratio. In relation to income levels, almost everything is cheaper when you are rich, and the way we deal with it is to redistribute income to level the playing field for everything, not just flights.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- movingkj 7y ago
  This makes no sense at all. A rich person flying doesn't do more damage than a poor person flying. And income and wealth aren't randomly assigned, people make choices about their career, saving and spending as a fundamental aspect of living in a free society. Your proposal is just an incredibly naive implementation of complete socialism. It's the same effect as saying janitors and surgeons get paid identically like every 12 year old dreaming up communism comes up with, only in your scenario the surgeon still gets 10x the salary on paper but then also has to pay 10x to buy the same thing. We need to make externalities like global warming and pollution be priced into things instead of passed onto society at large. We don't need to eat the rich to accomplish that.

by taffer 7y ago

coldtea 7y ago

>Taxing all flights, or even better emissions in general, and redistributing taxes for social programmes, gives exactly the distribution effect you want without having to complicate income and property tax regulations. I'm not sure I get the counter-argument. A flat tax on the flights themselves, that's not connected to the persons wealth/income doesn't have the distribution effect I want at all. I want to distribute discouragement, i.e. everybody to be equally discouraged from taking a flight regardless of their income level. A 500% tax on a flight's price from $300 to $1500 makes it extremely difficult for a working/middle class person to fly, but it's negligible peanuts for someone making $1M/year or has 10M in the bank. And of course we can still redistribute those taxes for social programmes (and there would be more of them too! $500 in taxes when Joe Average flies, and $50000 when Marc Cuban flies, for example, or e.g. $1M each time they fly their private jet (proportional to pollution per person)). Of course, for the environment, it's enough that we discourage the small guys (who are more numerous) from flying. But for social justice, it's better to make it more painful for every person to fly, regardless of their income level. A rich person should have an equally large penalty, and what's equal is not the same nominal amount, but the same ratio. (Even so, it would still be more painful for the working/middle class people -- since more of their income goes towards necessities, where a rich person can just use assets he has lying around, but at least it's better than a flat flight tax). And it's not something unprecedented: I've read that some countries fine people with expensive cars more for speeding than average cars, which makes sense too.

taffer 7y ago
My argument was that we should separate the distribution aspects of the tax system from the revenue-generating aspects. > I want to distribute discouragement, i.e. everybody to be equally discouraged from taking a flight regardless of their income level. You could say the same thing about any other tax, such as tobacco tax. Why do we not levy the tobacco tax in proportion to income? > But for social justice, it's better to make it more painful for every person to fly, regardless of their income level. A rich person should have an equally large penalty, and what's equal is not the same nominal amount, but the same ratio. In relation to income levels, almost everything is cheaper when you are rich, and the way we deal with it is to redistribute income to level the playing field for everything, not just flights.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
movingkj 7y ago
This makes no sense at all. A rich person flying doesn't do more damage than a poor person flying. And income and wealth aren't randomly assigned, people make choices about their career, saving and spending as a fundamental aspect of living in a free society. Your proposal is just an incredibly naive implementation of complete socialism. It's the same effect as saying janitors and surgeons get paid identically like every 12 year old dreaming up communism comes up with, only in your scenario the surgeon still gets 10x the salary on paper but then also has to pay 10x to buy the same thing. We need to make externalities like global warming and pollution be priced into things instead of passed onto society at large. We don't need to eat the rich to accomplish that.