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It would be fine if that’s all we pay for, but politicians find ever increasing ways to buy votes with other people’s money. If everyone felt the burden of tax

It would be fine if that’s all we pay for, but politicians find ever increasing ways to buy votes with other people’s money. If everyone felt the burden of taxes equally via a flat tax based strictly on consumption and consumption alone, I could get behind it. Right now however it’s just robbing Peter to pay Paul. And when Paul is the beneficiary of taxes and relatively unburdened, not only are they supportive of more taxes because it’s not their problem, but they also care not about the efficiency of how wisely those tax dollars are spent because it’s Peter footing the bill.

Nursie 6y ago
If everyone felt the burden of taxes equally via a flat tax based on consumption, the poor would be taxed proportionally the highest, the middle classes would also be worse off than now, and the richest few percent would love this as their proportion of income that goes on consumption is the lowest. It’s a massively regressive idea and pretty much by definition a flat tax based on consumption would not be felt equally at all.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  "flat tax" is a red herring that happens to be very appealing to a certain cluster of political ideologies. it's not necessarily regressive though. imagine a flat consumption tax where 90% of the proceeds were allocated to services for the bottom quintile. that would actually be quite a progressive tax system! that aside, my armchair economist opinion is that consumption is not a very good place to collect taxes in the first place. you want people to buy stuff from each other, don't discourage this!
  - Nursie 6y ago
    > imagine a flat consumption tax where 90% of the proceeds were allocated to services for the bottom quintile You'd still end up with the middle paying proportionally a lot more than the wealthiest. But yeah, in general I agree, I guess maybe that certain political mindset latches onto it as it appears to be an easy/straightforward place to apply it.
    - malandrew 6y ago
      > You'd still end up with the middle paying proportionally a lot more than the wealthiest. Again, everyone ends up paying proportionally the exact same on what they personally benefit from: consumption. What isn't consumed regardless of income goes back into circulation in the economy via investment.
      - Nursie 6y ago
        > Again, everyone ends up paying proportionally the exact same on what they personally benefit from: consumption. But they don't pay in proportion to what they earn or their wealth. Compared to the current system it would leave the poor paying a much higher proportion of taxes and a higher percentage of their income as tax, both compared to now and compared to those who earn more. > What isn't consumed regardless of income goes back into circulation in the economy via investment. Great, so the wealthy , who consume proportionally less, get to invest and grow their wealth unfettered, while those on low incomes get to increase their share of the tax burden. Nice. Sounds 'fair'.
        leetcrew 6y ago
        not that I really disagree with you, but "fair" isn't an argument; it's an opinion. you're clearly arguing with someone who doesn't agree with using income/wealth as a criterion for fairness.
        Nursie 6y ago
        It was more of a dig at some of the previous attempts at mooting such taxes, the "Fair Tax" was one of them. I agree it's an alternate way to approach fairness, I just find it a bizarre one. If taxes are to stay at roughly the same gross take as they do now in, for instance, the UK, VAT would have to rise from 20% to approximately 100%, which would be utterly ruinous for the poorest, but barely noticed by others.
        malandrew 6y ago
        This. In my opinion, fairness requires having skin in the game. Lots of people have a say in how money is spent via votes but are not feeling the burden of contributing to that pot. Contributing proportionally would give them skin in the game and they would all of a sudden discover the importance of demanding fiscal responsibility from those that are governing. The progressive taxation approach doesn't even leave those at the bottom better off. The market still uses price discovery to figure out prices. All the progressive taxation approach does is eliminate a cost and lower the price of labor to be equal to what labor is demanding. If labor had to also pay their fair share of taxes, they'd demand the amount they need plus the amount they need to pay in taxes. An alternative that achieves fairness is to have no income tax and instead only have payroll taxes. This way no individual is bilked because they were successful. I still prefer a flat sales tax because you shouldn't tax what you want to see more of in society, the labor to make society work, but only having a payroll tax would at least solve the fairness issue. The only problem with the payroll tax approach is that the skin in the game expectation has one drawback. Those that are in most demand in the jobs marketplace is at the least risk of advocating for a higher payroll tax across the board. Raising the payroll taxes could make some roles no longer profitable and companies could cut those roles to achieve a better ROI.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > you want people to buy stuff from each other, don't discourage this! Yes, you do, but the goal of politicians is to convince the populace that their proposed larger collective reinvestments will be more valuable to taxpayers than the taxpayer's individual conspicuous consumption. You want both consumption by individuals and investment by (1) companies, (2) the government and (3) individuals. Investment in the future always comes from foregoing consumption in the present. When you tax private investment to make a public investment, you're not getting more investment, you're actually getting less investment since the amount you collect to reinvest is diminished by the cost of the bureaucracy used to collect that tax money and divert those tax dollars to other investments. It wasteful massively wasteful to tax investments to make investments.
- malandrew 6y ago
  > the poor would be taxed proportionally the highest No, they would be taxed proportionally the same. You're starting from the assumption that income is what should be taxed. Income comes from productive activity (labor or investments) and is what you want more of, not less. > and the richest few percent would love this as their proportion of income that goes on consumption is the lowest. And what is happening with the rest of the money? It's being reinvested, which is something you want in society. At the end of the day, the money is only ever used/enjoyed personally by rich (and poor alike) when they consume.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    > No, they would be taxed proportionally the same. No, they wouldn't. The poorer you are, the more of your money goes towards consumption of the necessities of life and therefore the higher proportion of your available funds goes to tax under such a system. > You're starting from the assumption that income is what should be taxed. No, I'm starting from the definition of progressive taxation and telling you, accurately, that your scheme is a recipe for regressive taxation as it disproportionately affects the worse off. Even the ludicrous "Fair Tax" proposals made 15-20 years ago made concessions to this, in proposing that the least well off would be refunded all or some of their taxes.
i_haz_rabies 6y ago
The whole point of taxes is to normalize quality of life in society.
- disposekinetics 6y ago
  I disagree on a very low level with this statement. The purpose of taxes is to fund the government budget.
  - mdpopescu 6y ago
    Yep. The purpose of taxes is building up the treasury, so that the people in power can keep being in power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
BartekG 6y ago
Politicians wouldn't be buying votes if voters weren't selling them. The fish rots from the head and the head is "the people".

Nursie 6y ago

If everyone felt the burden of taxes equally via a flat tax based on consumption, the poor would be taxed proportionally the highest, the middle classes would also be worse off than now, and the richest few percent would love this as their proportion of income that goes on consumption is the lowest. It’s a massively regressive idea and pretty much by definition a flat tax based on consumption would not be felt equally at all.

leetcrew 6y ago
"flat tax" is a red herring that happens to be very appealing to a certain cluster of political ideologies. it's not necessarily regressive though. imagine a flat consumption tax where 90% of the proceeds were allocated to services for the bottom quintile. that would actually be quite a progressive tax system! that aside, my armchair economist opinion is that consumption is not a very good place to collect taxes in the first place. you want people to buy stuff from each other, don't discourage this!
- Nursie 6y ago
  > imagine a flat consumption tax where 90% of the proceeds were allocated to services for the bottom quintile You'd still end up with the middle paying proportionally a lot more than the wealthiest. But yeah, in general I agree, I guess maybe that certain political mindset latches onto it as it appears to be an easy/straightforward place to apply it.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > You'd still end up with the middle paying proportionally a lot more than the wealthiest. Again, everyone ends up paying proportionally the exact same on what they personally benefit from: consumption. What isn't consumed regardless of income goes back into circulation in the economy via investment.
    - Nursie 6y ago
      > Again, everyone ends up paying proportionally the exact same on what they personally benefit from: consumption. But they don't pay in proportion to what they earn or their wealth. Compared to the current system it would leave the poor paying a much higher proportion of taxes and a higher percentage of their income as tax, both compared to now and compared to those who earn more. > What isn't consumed regardless of income goes back into circulation in the economy via investment. Great, so the wealthy , who consume proportionally less, get to invest and grow their wealth unfettered, while those on low incomes get to increase their share of the tax burden. Nice. Sounds 'fair'.
      - leetcrew 6y ago
        not that I really disagree with you, but "fair" isn't an argument; it's an opinion. you're clearly arguing with someone who doesn't agree with using income/wealth as a criterion for fairness.
        Nursie 6y ago
        It was more of a dig at some of the previous attempts at mooting such taxes, the "Fair Tax" was one of them. I agree it's an alternate way to approach fairness, I just find it a bizarre one. If taxes are to stay at roughly the same gross take as they do now in, for instance, the UK, VAT would have to rise from 20% to approximately 100%, which would be utterly ruinous for the poorest, but barely noticed by others.
        malandrew 6y ago
        This. In my opinion, fairness requires having skin in the game. Lots of people have a say in how money is spent via votes but are not feeling the burden of contributing to that pot. Contributing proportionally would give them skin in the game and they would all of a sudden discover the importance of demanding fiscal responsibility from those that are governing. The progressive taxation approach doesn't even leave those at the bottom better off. The market still uses price discovery to figure out prices. All the progressive taxation approach does is eliminate a cost and lower the price of labor to be equal to what labor is demanding. If labor had to also pay their fair share of taxes, they'd demand the amount they need plus the amount they need to pay in taxes. An alternative that achieves fairness is to have no income tax and instead only have payroll taxes. This way no individual is bilked because they were successful. I still prefer a flat sales tax because you shouldn't tax what you want to see more of in society, the labor to make society work, but only having a payroll tax would at least solve the fairness issue. The only problem with the payroll tax approach is that the skin in the game expectation has one drawback. Those that are in most demand in the jobs marketplace is at the least risk of advocating for a higher payroll tax across the board. Raising the payroll taxes could make some roles no longer profitable and companies could cut those roles to achieve a better ROI.
- malandrew 6y ago
  > you want people to buy stuff from each other, don't discourage this! Yes, you do, but the goal of politicians is to convince the populace that their proposed larger collective reinvestments will be more valuable to taxpayers than the taxpayer's individual conspicuous consumption. You want both consumption by individuals and investment by (1) companies, (2) the government and (3) individuals. Investment in the future always comes from foregoing consumption in the present. When you tax private investment to make a public investment, you're not getting more investment, you're actually getting less investment since the amount you collect to reinvest is diminished by the cost of the bureaucracy used to collect that tax money and divert those tax dollars to other investments. It wasteful massively wasteful to tax investments to make investments.
malandrew 6y ago
> the poor would be taxed proportionally the highest No, they would be taxed proportionally the same. You're starting from the assumption that income is what should be taxed. Income comes from productive activity (labor or investments) and is what you want more of, not less. > and the richest few percent would love this as their proportion of income that goes on consumption is the lowest. And what is happening with the rest of the money? It's being reinvested, which is something you want in society. At the end of the day, the money is only ever used/enjoyed personally by rich (and poor alike) when they consume.
- Nursie 6y ago
  > No, they would be taxed proportionally the same. No, they wouldn't. The poorer you are, the more of your money goes towards consumption of the necessities of life and therefore the higher proportion of your available funds goes to tax under such a system. > You're starting from the assumption that income is what should be taxed. No, I'm starting from the definition of progressive taxation and telling you, accurately, that your scheme is a recipe for regressive taxation as it disproportionately affects the worse off. Even the ludicrous "Fair Tax" proposals made 15-20 years ago made concessions to this, in proposing that the least well off would be refunded all or some of their taxes.

i_haz_rabies 6y ago

The whole point of taxes is to normalize quality of life in society.

disposekinetics 6y ago
I disagree on a very low level with this statement. The purpose of taxes is to fund the government budget.
- mdpopescu 6y ago
  Yep. The purpose of taxes is building up the treasury, so that the people in power can keep being in power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

BartekG 6y ago

Politicians wouldn't be buying votes if voters weren't selling them. The fish rots from the head and the head is "the people".