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I tend to agree, and definitely on the surface of it. But what about for example incentives to cut down on carbon emissions, how would you achieve those? Or sto

• panick21_ 5y ago
  > I believe that there needs to be some "punishment" taxes, to regulate things that might otherwise go out of hand (which is important in order for capitalism to function well). First of all I don't think that actually is true. Second, even assuming this is true. Using the tax system is about the worst possible way of achieving these things. Making the tax system complex to micromanage all possible situations on a federal level is just not a smart way of achieving almost anything. For really big picture issues, I would make revenue neutral taxes. So if you really want a carbon tax, it would be revenue neutral. Meaning all the money made from the carbon tax would be used to reduce the taxes for everybody (or alternative use it to raise the minimum income line so poorer people have to pay less. If you just want to give a general reward or punishment for doing the right or wrong thing, those should be individual acts of congress or from bureaucracies based on their executive power, and not somewhere in 6000 page of tax code. > Also I don't think you have to be "really hardcore" to support progressive taxation. It just makes sense. As long as it's not "overly progressive". Well its % based so its already progressive as in you pay far more if you are richer. So if you want to also pay higher % if you are richer. > Edit: A too simple of a system makes it too easy to game the system. I wish there was a clear way out of it. Its the opposite. A simple system makes it incredibly hard to game the system.
  • spurgu 5y ago
    > Well its % based so its already progressive as in you pay far more if you are richer. So if you want to also pay higher % if you are richer. This is just flat out wrong. With a flat tax you don't pay a higher % if you are richer, you pay a higher amount. It stings just as much to lose 10% if you make 1k/month as when you make 100k/month. Whereas with the latter you're left with 90k, arguably much more than needed for a comfortable life, so you could easily pay 30% without a noticeable change in your life quality (or future business endeavors). Of course if you have a shitty government then subjectively any tax is gonna go to waste and this is a pointless discussion. We're talking about an imaginary society here where we're making things better through a simpler system and the government can actually get things done fairly efficiently. I simply believe the answers lie somewhere in the middle. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Redistributing the taxes sounds like a good idea whenever we're talking "punishment taxes", but... you also need to consider who has to take care of and pay for the mess created (if someone pollutes a river). So from that perspective the opposite makes sense, that the "punishment taxes" goes to the state, to fix things. Ultimately I think it's a question of size of society/government. A small enough society is self-organizing. The larger it becomes the more structure/regulation it needs to not break apart, and at some point it becomes inefficient. We just need to watch out for increasing complexity, and make active efforts to reduce it (that's something few world governments are doing right now).
    • panick21_ 5y ago
      > With a flat tax you don't pay a higher % if you are richer, you pay a higher amount. That's literally what I wrote. The Flat tax is not fixed. Its incremental up to a a limit. So you only pay the full amount once you reach a certain level. Below that you pay increasingly less. And as I suggested, if you want higher % you can make that slightly slanted as well.
      • spurgu 5y ago
        Ok maybe we're getting stuck on definitions here. When I think "progressive taxation" I'm thinking something like: < 10k 0% 10-30k 20% 30-60k 40% 60k+ 60% Whereas "flat tax" is just a set percentage, for example 20% (like what Estonia has), regardless of how much you make.