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In countries where VAT tax exist, the whole chain of value pay a fraction of the added value they produce. It works with a differential between the VAT you boug

• vnorilo 7y ago
  Carbon tax is a great idea, and I would support a proposal such as yours. However, I am afraid it is not a question of implementation, but of dealing with vested interests.
  • eru 7y ago
    Yes. Unfortunately it's much easier to get supported for green boondoggles that cost the government a lot of money for little gain; than for a money-spinning carbon tax.
  • mlrtime 7y ago
    Cabon and other "sin" taxes are a great way to influence change. However we should be lowering income and property taxes at the same time to help with these vested interests.
    • cyborgx7 7y ago
      > However we should be lowering income and property taxes at the same time to help with these vested interests. What makes you think they need to allow a carbon tax for that? They seem to be doing fairly well at lowering those how they want to without any concessions?
    • frandroid 7y ago
      That's what BC did. Its ideologically conservative government at the time introduced a carbon tax going into general revenues, and lowered general taxes, so that the carbon tax is revenue-neutral.
    • ttul 7y ago
      An alarm bell goes off any time someone suggests lowering PROPERTY taxes... ugh. Property taxes should be way higher in most parts of the world to disincentivized speculation.
      • JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Yeah my local town removed property tax for new development. In fact, they instituted a TIF (tax incentive fund?) which means the developer gets the property taxes free and clear for new buildings. The city is going broke, but the council is dominated by developer-sponsored shills so its hard to fix.
      • papreclip 7y ago
        lower the taxes for primary residence only, then
    • labawi 7y ago
      As has been said. Evenly distribute tax to the people, basic income style. They will be better off, problem solved.
  • Gsnds 7y ago
    Yes, More Taxes, truly the magical elixir of the modern era
    • scotty79 7y ago
      Do you have a better idea how to convey the information about true cost of action to the market? You can't let it assume the cost is 0 like it did for last 200 years.
      • misun78 7y ago
        As others have suggested, a corresponding decrease in income and corporate tax such that you get a revenue neutral framework with no additional wasteful government spending would be supported by many, including those on the right. This may also have an additional effect on neutralizing any downwards economic impact from the carbon taxation.
• dgellow 7y ago
  A Carbon Added Tax? Is that different from the carbon tax that is already applied in lot of places? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax The wikipedia article says this: > A carbon tax is also an indirect tax—a tax on a transaction—as opposed to a direct tax, which taxes income. A carbon tax is called a price instrument, since it sets a price for carbon dioxide emissions.[22] In economic theory, pollution is considered a negative externality, a negative effect on a third party not directly involved in a transaction, and is a type of market failure. That sounds close to what you describe.
• wczekalski 7y ago
  Such proposals are suggested over and over at the climate related summits. Most recently on COP25. Here’s a bit more about it: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/12/01/at-cop25-policymakers-will-try-to-lay-plans-for-a-global-carbon-market https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/12/01/at-cop25...
• usrusr 7y ago
  A far more streamlined implementation would be to simply apply a fee at resource extraction time on everything combustible taken out of the ground. It would do a little collateral taxation on carbon that ends up as unburnt plastics, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (if you want maximum accuracy, pay some back for non-degradable carbon upon reaching a landfill, the only form of sequestering that is used at scale) Unfortunately I can't imagine how diplomacy could achieve something like that, given the extremely uneven distribution of resource extraction industries. Despite that it wouldn't even hurt the big oil nations, considering that they would not have a lot of difficulties passing on the cost to their buyers (assuming full global enforcement). The biggest logical opponents would not be oil/gas states like Saudi Arabia or Russia but those whose only domestic geological energy sources is carbon-inefficient coal. (Edit: cleared up some illegible grammar and editing clutter)
  • radicalbyte 7y ago
    ..and forest fires, deforestation, land use, methane from rubbish dumps, methane from permafrost and a thousand other things. Still adding a large carbon tax directly at the source gives us pretty much the best bang-for-the-buck. It would have to be combined with deforestation taxes too otherwise you'll see countries like Brazil go into overdrive to export "green fuel".
    • usrusr 7y ago
      Methane is a powerful short term GHG, but long term only the CO2 left by decayed methane is relevant. Forest fires etc are completely temporary, contemporary trees are not geologically sequestered.
  • scotty79 7y ago
    > Unfortunately I can't imagine how diplomacy could achieve something like that, given the extremely uneven distribution of resource extraction industries. You can still tax resource extraction industries in your country and importers of energy resources (if country of origin has lower carbon tax than your country). This is already done for income tax. You are taxed on your foreign income but you can deduce the tax you already paid to foreign country. This could impact your exports but with the money from carbon tax you could lessen the tax burden on manufacturers of your exports or even finance them directly.
• antonioni 7y ago
  What is the collected tax spent on, and who spends it? The "lets everyone pay" solution usually ends up with misappropriation, corruption, theft. Carbon tax will not solve climate change, it'll only be another money grab.
  • radicalbyte 7y ago
    The general idea is that the tax income will be shared between all adult citizens of the country in the form of a cheque from the government. It's a very progressive tax and will be extremely effective. Which is why the neo-Republicans have fought against it (despite it originally being an old-Republicans idea).
    • Gsnds 7y ago
      >It's a very progressive tax and will be extremely effective. anything the government gets their greasy hands on instantly becomes the most inefficient and cost overrun thing on the face of the earth. Hasn't their track record proven it by far and large?
      • scotty79 7y ago
        Just the government? Private sector is way better at overrunning services that everybody needs with unnecessary cost and deforming them to extract even more money. Like US healthcare, US prison system, US bail bonds ... basically any US public service that is not run by the government (but financed with some sort of involuntary payment from people). We need combustibles to become more expensive (because markets don't act well if the true cost is hidden) and government is actually the only entity that can do that, that has a chance of not bleeding us dry and creating bloodsucking monstrosity in the process.
      • shawnz 7y ago
        And yet we are mostly living extremely comfortable lives taking advantage of some of the most effective infrastructure anywhere in the world.
      • 7y ago
• 0xfaded 7y ago
  VAT is a total administrative PITA, I would hate to see any additional systems modeled on it. I founded a start-up in Europe, and most of my accounting costs are recovering VAT on business expenses. There's an argument that VAT is an efficient tax because businesses basically have to self administer it, but my take is that the cost is hidden because the burden is pushed onto business.
  • amatix 7y ago
    Depends on the VAT system. In New Zealand you can almost count the VAT (GST) exceptions on one hand (most land/property, bank charges, and goods/services that are exported), everything else supplied domestically has one flat rate of 15%. Compare this to the UK, where there's massive sets of exclusions and several different rates in force. Takeaway vs dine-in food, digital vs physical books, ... a total mess.
  • ttul 7y ago
    Canadian VAT is super simple. A flat 5% on most things.