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I didn't say it's bad, but it's quite different from a product people actually want to buy voluntarily. I think carbon emitters should be the ones paying. Othe

I didn't say it's bad, but it's quite different from a product people actually want to buy voluntarily. I think carbon emitters should be the ones paying. Otherwise you privatize the profits and socialize the cleanup expenses.

gruez 6y ago
>I think carbon emitters should be the ones paying. Otherwise you privatize the profits and socialize the cleanup expenses. . Isn't that exactly what the parent comment proposed? >Is it a bad thing to force people who use a commodity to pay for its cleanup?
perl4ever 6y ago
It sounds like you are saying it makes a difference whether a carbon tax is billed separately to you the consumer. I'm doubtful. My impression is an economist would tell you that it theoretically doesn't matter that much if you tax the consumer or the producer. It's like US payroll taxes - does it make a difference how the tax is split between employer and employee? The real question is who is forced to absorb the cost, and theoretically that isn't determined by who pays from an accounting perspective - it's a red herring. Often people insist without evidence that someone who will pay a tax can or cannot pass it through, whichever is convenient to argue against it, when the real answer is probably "it's complicated" and the entity taxed is not in control. I think this is the Wikipedia page describing the phenomenon I'm fumbling at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence "The theory of tax incidence has a number of practical results. For example, United States Social Security payroll taxes are paid half by the employee and half by the employer. However, some economists think that the worker bears almost the entire burden of the tax because the employer passes the tax on in the form of lower wages. The tax incidence is thus said to fall on the employee.[2] However, it could equally well be argued that in some cases the incidence of the tax falls on the employer. This is because both the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply effect upon whom the incidence of the tax falls" I'm thinking this also is related to the recent political arguments over who pays US tariffs.

gruez 6y ago

>I think carbon emitters should be the ones paying. Otherwise you privatize the profits and socialize the cleanup expenses. . Isn't that exactly what the parent comment proposed? >Is it a bad thing to force people who use a commodity to pay for its cleanup?

perl4ever 6y ago

It sounds like you are saying it makes a difference whether a carbon tax is billed separately to you the consumer. I'm doubtful. My impression is an economist would tell you that it theoretically doesn't matter that much if you tax the consumer or the producer. It's like US payroll taxes - does it make a difference how the tax is split between employer and employee? The real question is who is forced to absorb the cost, and theoretically that isn't determined by who pays from an accounting perspective - it's a red herring. Often people insist without evidence that someone who will pay a tax can or cannot pass it through, whichever is convenient to argue against it, when the real answer is probably "it's complicated" and the entity taxed is not in control. I think this is the Wikipedia page describing the phenomenon I'm fumbling at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence "The theory of tax incidence has a number of practical results. For example, United States Social Security payroll taxes are paid half by the employee and half by the employer. However, some economists think that the worker bears almost the entire burden of the tax because the employer passes the tax on in the form of lower wages. The tax incidence is thus said to fall on the employee.[2] However, it could equally well be argued that in some cases the incidence of the tax falls on the employer. This is because both the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply effect upon whom the incidence of the tax falls" I'm thinking this also is related to the recent political arguments over who pays US tariffs.