4 ms·

The author makes a reasonable argument against using an income tax to pay for UBI, but Andrew Yang’s platform was to establish a Value-Added Tax, not an income

The author makes a reasonable argument against using an income tax to pay for UBI, but Andrew Yang’s platform was to establish a Value-Added Tax, not an income tax. I don’t think that the same negative substitution incentive occurs with a VAT: purchases become more expensive, but individuals are taxed in proportion to how much they purchase rather than how much income they make, so saving/investing is incentivized. I’m not an expert and I’m interested in seeing how I might be wrong, but that’s my initial thoughts on his argument.

tsjq 6y ago
Proportional to the income, poor people suffer more in this VAT, GST, etc regimes.
- senkora 6y ago
  That’s true, but they also benefit more from UBI. If you are taxed less than $12k of VAT and are given $12k of basic income, then you still come out ahead.