3 ms·

By really applying taxation to rich?

basch 6y ago
Or a tax on natural resources, extracted from America. Instead of a few people owning the mineral rights to everything underneath the country, you make American oil, coal, natural gas, sunlight, wind, nuclear energy something the people own. It's something that already happens in part of America, and it works in Europe. Supplement it with a VAT on luxury items above a certain threshold (yachts, jewelry, property) and a sin tax against sugar and other drugs. Cap it off by replacing agriculture subsidies with the tax break + a "heath discount" on the purchase end of the transaction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... I would even advocate taking it a step further, and replacing HSA's and Social Security with individual savings accounts, a la Singapore. Approved purchases (up to a certain amount of rent, food stamps like foods, medical expenses) qualify for tax free or subsidized purchase (this is mostly psychological, giving people a "discount" vs depositing more money in their account, but it can also steer their behavior.) The government invests a certain amount in each person, and then they can contribute an additional amount from payroll. Segregate the money into two tiers, allow money in the "long term" side of the account to grow through some kind of investment, but minimize or eliminate the choice of how it is invested. Cap per year spending on everything except medical. Make it closer to a CD than SP500 investment. Everybody gets the same glide, per a single factor such as age or retirement date. Returns are guaranteed. Allow certain penalized/taxed hardship withdrawls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Provident_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Provident_Fund Plan: America First Sovereign Fund (mineral/luxury/sin tax), deposits into Forced Savings Account at USPS, which includes a tiered account that subtracts the qualifying part of a purchase from Savings Account, the rest gets charged to a Debit/Credit card on file. Allow the reverse, where Chase, WF, BoA, Citi can link their cards to your Savings Account, and automatically deduct qualifying purchases from it. Allow opt in for digital receipt tracking, or receipt scanning a la expensify, so you don't have to maintain records of purchases for disputes. If you use your bank card, you control what records are forwarded and stored in your USPS account. This does five things. It pays for the program. It gives everybody some individual responsibility to manage their account, while helping them save. It steers their purchases towards healthy. It gives everyone access to a public bank account that is tax exempt. It lets them not have to manage multiple swipes at the register. Finally, I'd advocate for a hybrid FTC/AG managed consumer protection service. Sort of a Consumer Reports / Wirecutter service on steroids that's easy for everyone to track their purchases, warranties, and to comparison shop with. A single place for product recalls, safety warnings, price comparisons, and information regarding what the best purchase to make is.
- LaEc 6y ago
  I agree with most of your ideas except energy ownership. However, as a Singaporean I have to say that Singapore has HSAs. They are called MediSave accounts and are separate from CPF although both earn interest. CPF is the retirement plan.
  - basch 6y ago
    My understanding was CPF was the overarching program, Medisave was the HSA, and CPF MS was the IRA. Medisave is part of the overall CPF program. What part of energy ownership don't you disagree with? I still wasn't advocating against private industry doing the extraction or creation. Just that if you pull something from underground, it gets taxed and benefits everybody, not just the person who bought it from the person who stole it 175 years ago.
    - LaEc 6y ago
      I think we are talking at cross-purposes, but I read your comment as suggesting a single account. No one calls our IRA the CPF MS, CPF always refers to the IRA and Medisave is totally separate even if it is partly administered by the CPF board. What is the purpose of that tax? In public finance, we don't want to unnecessarily distort incentives by picking winners and losers. Taxing natural resource extraction for no good reason chases away companies in those industries and forces them to pursue other businesses, possibly leaving only the most profitable monopolies to survive. If we want to raise revenue, why not just raise VAT, corporate tax, income tax, or property tax more generally.
      - basch 6y ago
        It's not taxing the company doing the extraction, its taxing the company that owns the mineral rights (the land.) Those may likely be the same thing, but the extraction and refinement itself is still profitable. It would be akin to the government pulling eminent domain, and saying "the oil under the country belongs to the people, not who owns the deed." This is basically what Alaska did. They said "if you plunder our natural resources, the profit gets shared with the people whos natural resources you are plundering." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
xyzzyz 6y ago
What’s your definition of “rich” for purposes of funding UBI? How much exactly do you want to tax those rich? How much money do you expect to extract? These are ideas seldom entertained by UBI proponents, because as soon as they are seriously considered, it becomes clear that there aren’t even nearly enough rich to pay everyone $1000 a month.
- mister_hn 6y ago
  mmm..someone that earns more than $150K/200K per year?
war1025 6y ago
In almost all instances, the readership of this site would count under "the rich" for the purposes of government programs.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > In almost all instances, the readership of this site would count under "the rich" for the purposes of government programs. However, there are different degrees of "rich" (which, if you want to quibble, can include things like having a yard full of chickens and plenty of time to read [1]). The taxes to pay for expanded social benefits should fall progressively across that whole range. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc

Or a tax on natural resources, extracted from America. Instead of a few people owning the mineral rights to everything underneath the country, you make American oil, coal, natural gas, sunlight, wind, nuclear energy something the people own. It's something that already happens in part of America, and it works in Europe. Supplement it with a VAT on luxury items above a certain threshold (yachts, jewelry, property) and a sin tax against sugar and other drugs. Cap it off by replacing agriculture subsidies with the tax break + a "heath discount" on the purchase end of the transaction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... I would even advocate taking it a step further, and replacing HSA's and Social Security with individual savings accounts, a la Singapore. Approved purchases (up to a certain amount of rent, food stamps like foods, medical expenses) qualify for tax free or subsidized purchase (this is mostly psychological, giving people a "discount" vs depositing more money in their account, but it can also steer their behavior.) The government invests a certain amount in each person, and then they can contribute an additional amount from payroll. Segregate the money into two tiers, allow money in the "long term" side of the account to grow through some kind of investment, but minimize or eliminate the choice of how it is invested. Cap per year spending on everything except medical. Make it closer to a CD than SP500 investment. Everybody gets the same glide, per a single factor such as age or retirement date. Returns are guaranteed. Allow certain penalized/taxed hardship withdrawls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Provident_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Provident_Fund Plan: America First Sovereign Fund (mineral/luxury/sin tax), deposits into Forced Savings Account at USPS, which includes a tiered account that subtracts the qualifying part of a purchase from Savings Account, the rest gets charged to a Debit/Credit card on file. Allow the reverse, where Chase, WF, BoA, Citi can link their cards to your Savings Account, and automatically deduct qualifying purchases from it. Allow opt in for digital receipt tracking, or receipt scanning a la expensify, so you don't have to maintain records of purchases for disputes. If you use your bank card, you control what records are forwarded and stored in your USPS account. This does five things. It pays for the program. It gives everybody some individual responsibility to manage their account, while helping them save. It steers their purchases towards healthy. It gives everyone access to a public bank account that is tax exempt. It lets them not have to manage multiple swipes at the register. Finally, I'd advocate for a hybrid FTC/AG managed consumer protection service. Sort of a Consumer Reports / Wirecutter service on steroids that's easy for everyone to track their purchases, warranties, and to comparison shop with. A single place for product recalls, safety warnings, price comparisons, and information regarding what the best purchase to make is.

LaEc 6y ago
I agree with most of your ideas except energy ownership. However, as a Singaporean I have to say that Singapore has HSAs. They are called MediSave accounts and are separate from CPF although both earn interest. CPF is the retirement plan.
- basch 6y ago
  My understanding was CPF was the overarching program, Medisave was the HSA, and CPF MS was the IRA. Medisave is part of the overall CPF program. What part of energy ownership don't you disagree with? I still wasn't advocating against private industry doing the extraction or creation. Just that if you pull something from underground, it gets taxed and benefits everybody, not just the person who bought it from the person who stole it 175 years ago.
  - LaEc 6y ago
    I think we are talking at cross-purposes, but I read your comment as suggesting a single account. No one calls our IRA the CPF MS, CPF always refers to the IRA and Medisave is totally separate even if it is partly administered by the CPF board. What is the purpose of that tax? In public finance, we don't want to unnecessarily distort incentives by picking winners and losers. Taxing natural resource extraction for no good reason chases away companies in those industries and forces them to pursue other businesses, possibly leaving only the most profitable monopolies to survive. If we want to raise revenue, why not just raise VAT, corporate tax, income tax, or property tax more generally.
    - basch 6y ago
      It's not taxing the company doing the extraction, its taxing the company that owns the mineral rights (the land.) Those may likely be the same thing, but the extraction and refinement itself is still profitable. It would be akin to the government pulling eminent domain, and saying "the oil under the country belongs to the people, not who owns the deed." This is basically what Alaska did. They said "if you plunder our natural resources, the profit gets shared with the people whos natural resources you are plundering." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

xyzzyz 6y ago

What’s your definition of “rich” for purposes of funding UBI? How much exactly do you want to tax those rich? How much money do you expect to extract? These are ideas seldom entertained by UBI proponents, because as soon as they are seriously considered, it becomes clear that there aren’t even nearly enough rich to pay everyone $1000 a month.

mister_hn 6y ago
mmm..someone that earns more than $150K/200K per year?

war1025 6y ago

In almost all instances, the readership of this site would count under "the rich" for the purposes of government programs.

ardy42 6y ago
> In almost all instances, the readership of this site would count under "the rich" for the purposes of government programs. However, there are different degrees of "rich" (which, if you want to quibble, can include things like having a yard full of chickens and plenty of time to read [1]). The taxes to pay for expanded social benefits should fall progressively across that whole range. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc