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Can someone enlighten me on where would the money come from? Spain annual revenue from taxes seems to be $320B a. If they spent all of it on UBI, it would trans

Can someone enlighten me on where would the money come from? Spain annual revenue from taxes seems to be $320B a. If they spent all of it on UBI, it would translate to just $500 a month a person.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kolinko 7y ago
Average net monthly salary in spain is €1200. €500, assuming access to a house and free healthcare would allow for an extremely frugal life - also, keep in mind that many people would still work, so there would be money on top of that. But, like you said - €500 would reduce their budget to zero. I imagine UBI would be less for underaged - say €150/month (which is what government pays for every child in Poland btw). This reduced the budget requirements by, say 20% - so, they’d need around 260B. Then, with UBI, you can dismantle parts of the retirement system. I couldn’t find the proper figures for Spain, but in Poland it is a half of the government spending or something like this. If Spain is similar, then they’d save €100-200B on this p/a. That’s still 100-200B short, but you can generate extra savings by getting rid of unemployment benefits and some other social safety nets. Also, Spain’s budget is €400B, not €320B from what I found (https://www.statista.com/statistics/275333/government-revenue-and-spending-in-spain/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/275333/government-revenu...). I’m not sure it’s feasible, but it’s not totally crazy either.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  If average monthly salary is €1200, that would mean the Spanish Government would need to tax close to 41% of your income to give everyone a €500 distribution. Considering that not everyone works -- the percentage is probably closer to 55%+. But let's be optimistic... Even if you plan on only taking income from the top 0.1%, that's not going to get you very far. You'd have to take 100% of that just to come up with 10% of the total UBI distributions. That means, you're pretty much back at square one. Everyone gets 36%+ their income taken in taxes, and then they roughly get it right back, with an extra €25 or so added on (best case, more realistically, you'd probably come out €50 behind). I don't see how the average person benefits from this? I only see how this benefits people who don't work, and incentivizes more people to not work. You can't say that you can pay for this with existing taxes. If you use all your existing tax revenue for UBI, how are you going to fund everything the government actually does?
mytailorisrich 7y ago
IMO, this can only be a temporary, emergency measure to counter the economic cost of the pandemic. As you point out UBI is otherwise completely unaffordable on an ongoing basis.
syrrim 7y ago
"Universal Basic Income" is a very confusing title. Obviously they would have to increase tax revenue. Fortunately, they have a good place to draw it from, since their citizenry just received a large windfall! In reality, most people would be no richer from a UBI, and many people would be poorer. Since it would replace already existing benefits systems, many of the poorest people would be no better off either. You might instead call it "Universal Baseline Income", since it guarantees that everyone has at least a certain amount of income. Obviously those that already have more than enough won't get anything extra.

Can someone enlighten me on where would the money come from? Spain annual revenue from taxes seems to be $320B a. If they spent all of it on UBI, it would translate to just $500 a month a person.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kolinko 7y ago

Average net monthly salary in spain is €1200. €500, assuming access to a house and free healthcare would allow for an extremely frugal life - also, keep in mind that many people would still work, so there would be money on top of that. But, like you said - €500 would reduce their budget to zero. I imagine UBI would be less for underaged - say €150/month (which is what government pays for every child in Poland btw). This reduced the budget requirements by, say 20% - so, they’d need around 260B. Then, with UBI, you can dismantle parts of the retirement system. I couldn’t find the proper figures for Spain, but in Poland it is a half of the government spending or something like this. If Spain is similar, then they’d save €100-200B on this p/a. That’s still 100-200B short, but you can generate extra savings by getting rid of unemployment benefits and some other social safety nets. Also, Spain’s budget is €400B, not €320B from what I found (https://www.statista.com/statistics/275333/government-revenue-and-spending-in-spain/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/275333/government-revenu...). I’m not sure it’s feasible, but it’s not totally crazy either.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
If average monthly salary is €1200, that would mean the Spanish Government would need to tax close to 41% of your income to give everyone a €500 distribution. Considering that not everyone works -- the percentage is probably closer to 55%+. But let's be optimistic... Even if you plan on only taking income from the top 0.1%, that's not going to get you very far. You'd have to take 100% of that just to come up with 10% of the total UBI distributions. That means, you're pretty much back at square one. Everyone gets 36%+ their income taken in taxes, and then they roughly get it right back, with an extra €25 or so added on (best case, more realistically, you'd probably come out €50 behind). I don't see how the average person benefits from this? I only see how this benefits people who don't work, and incentivizes more people to not work. You can't say that you can pay for this with existing taxes. If you use all your existing tax revenue for UBI, how are you going to fund everything the government actually does?

mytailorisrich 7y ago

IMO, this can only be a temporary, emergency measure to counter the economic cost of the pandemic. As you point out UBI is otherwise completely unaffordable on an ongoing basis.

syrrim 7y ago

"Universal Basic Income" is a very confusing title. Obviously they would have to increase tax revenue. Fortunately, they have a good place to draw it from, since their citizenry just received a large windfall! In reality, most people would be no richer from a UBI, and many people would be poorer. Since it would replace already existing benefits systems, many of the poorest people would be no better off either. You might instead call it "Universal Baseline Income", since it guarantees that everyone has at least a certain amount of income. Obviously those that already have more than enough won't get anything extra.