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This is a red herring that keeps being brought up with respect to UBI way too often. "Carbon taxes unquestionably fall hardest on the poor, as do consumption t

This is a red herring that keeps being brought up with respect to UBI way too often. "Carbon taxes unquestionably fall hardest on the poor, as do consumption taxes generally." Yes, but rich people consume and release carbon at a much higher rate than poor people. As a result, rich people would pay into consumption taxes/carbon taxes much more than they would get back in a flat cash payment funded by such means.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago
Absolutely wrong. Example: Jeff Bezos, worth $150B, or the same worth of approx. 1M Americans, does not consume nor release carbon 1M times more than an average American. Proportionally to his wealth, he's much less affected by a carbon tax. For the same reason, someone below the average wealth and/or income is heavily affected by a carbon tax.
- garmaine 6y ago
  That’s not what’s being argued. Rather, the poor are going to pay less in carbon taxes than they receive in UBI. This is simply a matter of how power laws and averages work.
- namdnay 6y ago
  And he will get the same UBI as any other american, so proportionally to his wealth he's much less affected by the UBI stimulus
- diffeomorphism 6y ago
  Also absolutely wrong. The fact that it stops scaling at millionaires would only be worthwhile discussing if a large share of the population were billionaires. "This tax works great for 99% of the population, but there are some billionaires that should be taxed higher" is more of an endorsement than a counterargument.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- LordDragonfang 6y ago
  Amazons's carbon footprint, 2018: 44.40 million metric tons [1] Average American carbon footprint: 16 tons [2] Now, I'm sure there's some inaccuracy here, and it's a bit of a stretch to say Bezos is personally responsible for all of Amazon's emissions, but he's pretty clearly in the same order of magnitude as having a million times the carbon emissions of the average American. [1] https://d39w7f4ix9f5s9.cloudfront.net/26/7f/e1693ffc45db88d839a4734b46e7/amazon-2018-carbon-footprint.pdf https://d39w7f4ix9f5s9.cloudfront.net/26/7f/e1693ffc45db88d8... [2] https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/#:~:text=The%20average%20carbon%20footprint%20for,is%20closer%20to%204%20tons https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon....
  - ghostwriter 6y ago
    Amazon literally serves those average americans, why the carbon footprint is on Amazon's account? It would hardly produce any footprint if there were no people ordering stuff.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      Amazon serves Amazon's board and shareholders. Also, many Americans are priced out of Amazon entirely, as it is cheaper to shop elsewhere.
heavyset_go 6y ago
When a poor person has to pay a regressive tax, that is money that would otherwise go towards necessary housing, food, healthcare, child care, transportation, etc. Poverty means going with out some or all of those things regularly. Whether or not rich people pay a higher tax percentage of a regressive tax doesn't change those circumstances.
- ehnto 6y ago
  Carbon taxes should be applied to carbon intensive industries not individuals. Sure, the cost gets passed down, but you can only charge consumers so much. If it turns out that industry can't get costs down enough such that they make profit and consumers can afford it, then that is kind of the point of the tax. They need to "spend" less carbon or die out to businesses that can.
- kilotaras 6y ago
  Net change for person = (average tax paid) - (tax paid by person) If that poor person tax burden is lower than average (even if it's higher percentage of income) redistributive properties of "fee and dividend" scheme would actually lead to increased income. Let's look at some of some sectors and who would spend more on it. Energy: the richer you are the more you spend on heating and cooling (just due to bigger homes), some extra appliances, etc. Food: the most greenhouse intensive type of food is probably meat[1]. The more price sensitive you are the more you will switch to alternatives: either poultry (25% as bad as beef) or more plants. Transport: unclear: older cars may have worse fuel efficiency, but I would expect more travel with more money [1] https://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html https://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html
  - boomlinde 6y ago
    FWIW I think the argument isn't that the net change isn't beneficial for the poor, but that the tax is effectively regressive in proportion to income in that e.g. Jeff Bezos could fly a private jet to and from work every day and still pay less for carbon in proportion to his income than someone poor driving to and from work every day. So while it is a tax that benefits the poor, the poor are also paying a higher portion of their income to support it while the Jeff Bezoses of the world remain largely unaffected, can use this disparity to further widen the wealth gap and—for any carbon tax rate that the poorest half of the population could at all afford—continue eating their beef and heating their houses for an infinitesimally small portion of their income. Meanwhile, the Jeff Bezoses of the world probably have the best means available to lower their carbon emissions. Their wealth could be used to provide public transportation and green energy developments, so I believe that there are more efficient ways to reduce carbon emissions than consumption proportional carbon taxation. Progressively factor income and profit into it instead, and lower other income and profit based taxes to simultaneously reward successful businesses/people with small carbon footprints and make those that benefit the most from poor people driving to and from work pay for it.
Paul-ish 6y ago
So why not a revenue neutral carbon tax rather than UBI + carbon tax?
d10r 6y ago
> "Carbon taxes unquestionably fall hardest on the poor, as do consumption taxes generally." I would question that very much and guess that overall the opposite is true. I don't however have any data, except national aggregates showing that there's a correlation between GDP and carbon emissions (even before accounting for the fact that arguably quite a lot of the emissions of less wealthy nations come from production of stuff for more wealthy nations). Do you have data?

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

Absolutely wrong. Example: Jeff Bezos, worth $150B, or the same worth of approx. 1M Americans, does not consume nor release carbon 1M times more than an average American. Proportionally to his wealth, he's much less affected by a carbon tax. For the same reason, someone below the average wealth and/or income is heavily affected by a carbon tax.

garmaine 6y ago
That’s not what’s being argued. Rather, the poor are going to pay less in carbon taxes than they receive in UBI. This is simply a matter of how power laws and averages work.
namdnay 6y ago
And he will get the same UBI as any other american, so proportionally to his wealth he's much less affected by the UBI stimulus
diffeomorphism 6y ago
Also absolutely wrong. The fact that it stops scaling at millionaires would only be worthwhile discussing if a large share of the population were billionaires. "This tax works great for 99% of the population, but there are some billionaires that should be taxed higher" is more of an endorsement than a counterargument.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
LordDragonfang 6y ago
Amazons's carbon footprint, 2018: 44.40 million metric tons [1] Average American carbon footprint: 16 tons [2] Now, I'm sure there's some inaccuracy here, and it's a bit of a stretch to say Bezos is personally responsible for all of Amazon's emissions, but he's pretty clearly in the same order of magnitude as having a million times the carbon emissions of the average American. [1] https://d39w7f4ix9f5s9.cloudfront.net/26/7f/e1693ffc45db88d839a4734b46e7/amazon-2018-carbon-footprint.pdf https://d39w7f4ix9f5s9.cloudfront.net/26/7f/e1693ffc45db88d8... [2] https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/#:~:text=The%20average%20carbon%20footprint%20for,is%20closer%20to%204%20tons https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon....
- ghostwriter 6y ago
  Amazon literally serves those average americans, why the carbon footprint is on Amazon's account? It would hardly produce any footprint if there were no people ordering stuff.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    Amazon serves Amazon's board and shareholders. Also, many Americans are priced out of Amazon entirely, as it is cheaper to shop elsewhere.

heavyset_go 6y ago

When a poor person has to pay a regressive tax, that is money that would otherwise go towards necessary housing, food, healthcare, child care, transportation, etc. Poverty means going with out some or all of those things regularly. Whether or not rich people pay a higher tax percentage of a regressive tax doesn't change those circumstances.

ehnto 6y ago
Carbon taxes should be applied to carbon intensive industries not individuals. Sure, the cost gets passed down, but you can only charge consumers so much. If it turns out that industry can't get costs down enough such that they make profit and consumers can afford it, then that is kind of the point of the tax. They need to "spend" less carbon or die out to businesses that can.
kilotaras 6y ago
Net change for person = (average tax paid) - (tax paid by person) If that poor person tax burden is lower than average (even if it's higher percentage of income) redistributive properties of "fee and dividend" scheme would actually lead to increased income. Let's look at some of some sectors and who would spend more on it. Energy: the richer you are the more you spend on heating and cooling (just due to bigger homes), some extra appliances, etc. Food: the most greenhouse intensive type of food is probably meat[1]. The more price sensitive you are the more you will switch to alternatives: either poultry (25% as bad as beef) or more plants. Transport: unclear: older cars may have worse fuel efficiency, but I would expect more travel with more money [1] https://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html https://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html
- boomlinde 6y ago
  FWIW I think the argument isn't that the net change isn't beneficial for the poor, but that the tax is effectively regressive in proportion to income in that e.g. Jeff Bezos could fly a private jet to and from work every day and still pay less for carbon in proportion to his income than someone poor driving to and from work every day. So while it is a tax that benefits the poor, the poor are also paying a higher portion of their income to support it while the Jeff Bezoses of the world remain largely unaffected, can use this disparity to further widen the wealth gap and—for any carbon tax rate that the poorest half of the population could at all afford—continue eating their beef and heating their houses for an infinitesimally small portion of their income. Meanwhile, the Jeff Bezoses of the world probably have the best means available to lower their carbon emissions. Their wealth could be used to provide public transportation and green energy developments, so I believe that there are more efficient ways to reduce carbon emissions than consumption proportional carbon taxation. Progressively factor income and profit into it instead, and lower other income and profit based taxes to simultaneously reward successful businesses/people with small carbon footprints and make those that benefit the most from poor people driving to and from work pay for it.

Paul-ish 6y ago

So why not a revenue neutral carbon tax rather than UBI + carbon tax?

d10r 6y ago

> "Carbon taxes unquestionably fall hardest on the poor, as do consumption taxes generally." I would question that very much and guess that overall the opposite is true. I don't however have any data, except national aggregates showing that there's a correlation between GDP and carbon emissions (even before accounting for the fact that arguably quite a lot of the emissions of less wealthy nations come from production of stuff for more wealthy nations). Do you have data?