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The real thing UBI must be paired with is a Land Value Tax. This helps prevent landlords from extracting the wealth, since their land-based monopoly won't give

The real thing UBI must be paired with is a Land Value Tax. This helps prevent landlords from extracting the wealth, since their land-based monopoly won't give them profits; it gets recycled back into state programs (like UBI).

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Most places do have property taxes. Many of them are significant. Some of the UBI proposals are extremely expensive. It’s not as simple as extracting wealth from a tiny fraction of wealthy people. The only way to make UBI work will require increasing taxes all the way down to middle class tax brackets. A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes)
- zanecodes 6y ago
  I believe they mean Land Value Tax [0] in the Geoism/Georgism [1] sense, not in the traditional property tax sense; the main difference being that a land value tax does not take into account improvements to the property (e.g. buildings, parks, or any other development). Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    Modern property taxes are a superset of pure Land Value Tax schemes. In most jurisdictions, land and improvements are appraised separately and can be taxed at separate rates. Moving to a pure Georgism-style LVT would simply remove the taxation on the improvements. > Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event. UBI isn't really targeted at someone like you. If you were laid off, you'd collect regular unemployment benefits. Many UBI proposals do away with unemployment benefits and replace them with UBI. If UBI was instituted at poverty level (about $1000/month) it would actually be less than the unemployment benefits in many locations. However, that increased tax rate would also reduce your personal savings rate, meaning you'd have a reduced opportunity to build a personal savings buffer. If you're an engineer making engineer wages, you're definitely not coming out ahead under a UBI scheme. You are the source of the UBI money, not the recipient. UBI isn't really meant to cover for things like people voluntarily quitting their jobs. It's meant to stop people from starving and going homeless in the event that they're unable to work. UBI is vastly more expensive than many people estimate. To simply pay poverty-level UBI to the 330 million people in the United States, we'd need to spend $4.2 Trillion annually. That's about equivalent to the entire 2020 federal budget. In other words, just to keep UBI at poverty levels, we'd have to double the federal taxation across the board. Paying 200% of poverty levels would require tripling taxation. We're not going to get there by simple Land Value Taxes.
- xvedejas 6y ago
  LVT isn't sufficient to fund UBI, it's necessary to make sure UBI doesn't have additional distortionary effects. Property taxes are really not a good comparison for LVT, since they tax property improvements too much and the land itself too little. Calibration is important.
- account42 6y ago
  > A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes) Is that a problem?

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Most places do have property taxes. Many of them are significant. Some of the UBI proposals are extremely expensive. It’s not as simple as extracting wealth from a tiny fraction of wealthy people. The only way to make UBI work will require increasing taxes all the way down to middle class tax brackets. A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes)

zanecodes 6y ago
I believe they mean Land Value Tax [0] in the Geoism/Georgism [1] sense, not in the traditional property tax sense; the main difference being that a land value tax does not take into account improvements to the property (e.g. buildings, parks, or any other development). Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Modern property taxes are a superset of pure Land Value Tax schemes. In most jurisdictions, land and improvements are appraised separately and can be taxed at separate rates. Moving to a pure Georgism-style LVT would simply remove the taxation on the improvements. > Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event. UBI isn't really targeted at someone like you. If you were laid off, you'd collect regular unemployment benefits. Many UBI proposals do away with unemployment benefits and replace them with UBI. If UBI was instituted at poverty level (about $1000/month) it would actually be less than the unemployment benefits in many locations. However, that increased tax rate would also reduce your personal savings rate, meaning you'd have a reduced opportunity to build a personal savings buffer. If you're an engineer making engineer wages, you're definitely not coming out ahead under a UBI scheme. You are the source of the UBI money, not the recipient. UBI isn't really meant to cover for things like people voluntarily quitting their jobs. It's meant to stop people from starving and going homeless in the event that they're unable to work. UBI is vastly more expensive than many people estimate. To simply pay poverty-level UBI to the 330 million people in the United States, we'd need to spend $4.2 Trillion annually. That's about equivalent to the entire 2020 federal budget. In other words, just to keep UBI at poverty levels, we'd have to double the federal taxation across the board. Paying 200% of poverty levels would require tripling taxation. We're not going to get there by simple Land Value Taxes.
xvedejas 6y ago
LVT isn't sufficient to fund UBI, it's necessary to make sure UBI doesn't have additional distortionary effects. Property taxes are really not a good comparison for LVT, since they tax property improvements too much and the land itself too little. Calibration is important.
account42 6y ago
> A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes) Is that a problem?