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Child tax deductions don’t even come close to canceling out the lost revenue of a potential future taxpayer over their lifetime. Especially given today’s near z
by dcolkitt 5y ago
Child tax deductions don’t even come close to canceling out the lost revenue of a potential future taxpayer over their lifetime. Especially given today’s near zero interest rate environment.
Look at it this way, properly incentivizing children would mean that the average couple with two kids would pay zero net taxes over their life. With zero rates a non taxpayer who reproduces at replacement has the same equivalent fiscal value as a childless full taxpayer.
- bee_rider 5y agoHelping to support people who have children is a pretty popular policy I think. People like public schools, right? Let's just do that, but more. Punishing people for not having kids is obviously ridiculous.
- sokoloff 5y agoBut I (happening to have two kids) consume government services now in addition to creating the linked supply and demand for government services that my kids represent. It doesn’t seem like “promising my kids will pick up the tab at replacement rate” is enough to be stable.
- dcolkitt 5y agoHmm... That's a fair point. The wrinkle is not all government services scale linearly with users. For example, if there were twice as many Americans we probably wouldn't need twice the defense budget.