4 ms·

The future is to have enclaves of high income remote workers who pay a flat fee for the government services they use instead of an arbitrary % based on where th

by DC1350 6y ago

The future is to have enclaves of high income remote workers who pay a flat fee for the government services they use instead of an arbitrary % based on where they live. This is a good development. Income tax is not well justified anymore since earned income and physical location have no relationship for the workers who pay the majority of tax burden.

sjg007 6y ago
Flat fees and flat taxes are regressive and don’t work.
- DC1350 6y ago
  This is a prediction about what I think will happen, not what’s morally correct. People almost always make decisions based on their personal best interest, so a community with a “regressive” tax structure would be really attractive to remote high earners. Most people who work remotely now would pay much less tax if the burden was shared equally, so why wouldn’t they move to a community like that?
  - sjg007 6y ago
    You can move to a state with no income tax. But they tend to make it up in other ways. Having a lot of businesses in your community actually decreases your taxes because they can be charged more.
    - warkdarrior 6y ago
      Bingo! No income tax means governing bodies will make up revenue by taxing commerce/sales and property.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        I'm actually curious about the effects of this. Sales and property taxes are nearly always implemented in a regressive manner. Do areas with no income tax but higher sales/property taxes end up having more poor people who are disproportionately hurt by this (as compared to places with income taxes and lower sales/property taxes)? I don't recall ever seeing any research done on this.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kelnos 6y ago
> Income tax is not well justified anymore since earned income and physical location have no relationship for the workers who pay the majority of tax burden. Fair, but flat taxes, as well as most consumption taxes, are regressive. An income tax (or a wealth tax) is one of the few things that keeps an individual's contribution proportionate to their means, and can help out people at the very low end. Alternatively I guess you could jack up property/land-use taxes (after eliminating income taxes altogether). Those are usually based on assessed value, which ties your tax to a (subjective, but mostly reasonable) measure of what you use. Ideally this would be a progressive tax, with very low (or 0%) rates for the first $X of value, similar to how income taxes in the US work now.

by DC1350 6y ago

sjg007 6y ago

Flat fees and flat taxes are regressive and don’t work.

DC1350 6y ago
This is a prediction about what I think will happen, not what’s morally correct. People almost always make decisions based on their personal best interest, so a community with a “regressive” tax structure would be really attractive to remote high earners. Most people who work remotely now would pay much less tax if the burden was shared equally, so why wouldn’t they move to a community like that?
- sjg007 6y ago
  You can move to a state with no income tax. But they tend to make it up in other ways. Having a lot of businesses in your community actually decreases your taxes because they can be charged more.
  - warkdarrior 6y ago
    Bingo! No income tax means governing bodies will make up revenue by taxing commerce/sales and property.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      I'm actually curious about the effects of this. Sales and property taxes are nearly always implemented in a regressive manner. Do areas with no income tax but higher sales/property taxes end up having more poor people who are disproportionately hurt by this (as compared to places with income taxes and lower sales/property taxes)? I don't recall ever seeing any research done on this.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kelnos 6y ago

> Income tax is not well justified anymore since earned income and physical location have no relationship for the workers who pay the majority of tax burden. Fair, but flat taxes, as well as most consumption taxes, are regressive. An income tax (or a wealth tax) is one of the few things that keeps an individual's contribution proportionate to their means, and can help out people at the very low end. Alternatively I guess you could jack up property/land-use taxes (after eliminating income taxes altogether). Those are usually based on assessed value, which ties your tax to a (subjective, but mostly reasonable) measure of what you use. Ideally this would be a progressive tax, with very low (or 0%) rates for the first $X of value, similar to how income taxes in the US work now.