4 ms·

Modern taxes are idiotic, and built for loopholes. Just do a flat x% tax on every dollar of revenue. That's it. Forget income, loss, expenses, tariffs, etc etc.

by voz_ 5y ago

Modern taxes are idiotic, and built for loopholes. Just do a flat x% tax on every dollar of revenue. That's it. Forget income, loss, expenses, tariffs, etc etc. Make $1? Pay x cents. Done.

murderfs 5y ago
Sure, if you want literally everything to be vertically integrated. Either your tax is meaninglessly small, or everything that exists today in a supply chain (e.g. iron ore -> iron pellets -> steel billets -> steel wire -> nails) would have to get conglomerated into a single entity to compete against other companies doing the same.
- voz_ 5y ago
  Just trust bust for that.
  - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
    You don't understand the problem. If you have 4% tax and it takes 10 steps to manufacture the product, you will be paying 48% effective tax. If it takes 2 steps, you are paying 8% effective tax. That's why VAT is a thing, and one of the numerous reasons why a flat tax on everything is a bad idea.
- jsnell 5y ago
  The Value Added Tax (which is the way sales taxes are structured in most of Europe) only taxes the sale to the final (non-business) consumer. The length of the supply chain doesn't matter, the aggregate tax burden will only depend on the price of the final product.
  - murderfs 5y ago
    Yes, but that's not what the original poster proposed! "Just do a flat x% tax on every dollar of revenue. That's it. Forget income, loss, expenses, tariffs, etc etc." The way that VAT is implemented is that every intermediate pays VAT, but gets a credit for the VAT that they paid.
nick0garvey 5y ago
Taxes influence behavior. Specialized taxes help incentivize certain behaviors (buying green vehicles) and discourage others (smoking). Obviously things can go wrong, like they did here, but it's not worth discarding the very useful tool of specialized taxes due to cases like this.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  If you want to bring up luxury taxes and sin taxes, why aren't we categorizing non-primary housing as a luxury and/or a sin and taxing them accordingly?
  - greenonions 5y ago
    Why wouldn't we tax single family homes, when multifamily housing is a much more efficient use of space?
    - BizarroLand 5y ago
      We do, but raising the taxes on primary homes would disproportionately affect the middle and lower class, whereas targeting second homes / vacation homes / rental homes and multifamily homes that are used solely for rent generation would target the people who are profiting off of the homelessness epidemic. Ideally the tax on non-primary homes would be so onerous that people would sell their extra homes to people who do not have homes and that would cause home ownership to increase, taking pressure off of the rental market and driving down prices. Apartments are supposed to be affordable homes for young adults starting their lives out, not permanent living situations for anyone not financially established as solidly in the middle class or above. You could easily add waivers for section 8 and military rentals to ensure that all sections of the population would be accounted for, and the tax wouldn't affect apartments and condos, just single homes and duplexes/triplexes/quadplexes that are either being held empty as value stores or used for rental income generators by their owners. I would also say that once homelessness drops to lower than 1 in 10,000 (a little more than half of it's current number) you could waive 80% of the tax with the caveat that should homelessness increase above that number the full tax would come back immediately. That would provide a strong incentive for property management companies to keep rents low enough for poor people to afford them.
ulber 5y ago
If you're advocating for a single tax, let it at least be LVT [1]. But seriously, the point of this Finnish tax is to internalize externalities of vehicles that contribute excessively to global warming. Even if there's some loopholes it's still shaping consumer behavior by making you jump through them... and if the jump is too easy, they can just continue making the loopholes smaller. Thinking this tax is for meeting the government's budget is missing the point. It would serve its purpose just as well if you were required to burn the money instead of giving it to the government. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
- rosndo 5y ago
  > But seriously, the point of this Finnish tax is to internalize externalities of vehicles that contribute excessively to global warming Hardly. The taxes are based on the value of the vehicle, not emissions.
jollybean 5y ago
Adam Smith himself, the 'Inventor of Capitalism', was the guy to point out that a flat tax would be inefficient and result probably in one guy owning all the stuff. Also, the issue is just as much 'how the taxes are used' then anything else.

by voz_ 5y ago

Modern taxes are idiotic, and built for loopholes. Just do a flat x% tax on every dollar of revenue. That's it. Forget income, loss, expenses, tariffs, etc etc. Make $1? Pay x cents. Done.

murderfs 5y ago

Sure, if you want literally everything to be vertically integrated. Either your tax is meaninglessly small, or everything that exists today in a supply chain (e.g. iron ore -> iron pellets -> steel billets -> steel wire -> nails) would have to get conglomerated into a single entity to compete against other companies doing the same.

voz_ 5y ago
Just trust bust for that.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
  You don't understand the problem. If you have 4% tax and it takes 10 steps to manufacture the product, you will be paying 48% effective tax. If it takes 2 steps, you are paying 8% effective tax. That's why VAT is a thing, and one of the numerous reasons why a flat tax on everything is a bad idea.
jsnell 5y ago
The Value Added Tax (which is the way sales taxes are structured in most of Europe) only taxes the sale to the final (non-business) consumer. The length of the supply chain doesn't matter, the aggregate tax burden will only depend on the price of the final product.
- murderfs 5y ago
  Yes, but that's not what the original poster proposed! "Just do a flat x% tax on every dollar of revenue. That's it. Forget income, loss, expenses, tariffs, etc etc." The way that VAT is implemented is that every intermediate pays VAT, but gets a credit for the VAT that they paid.

nick0garvey 5y ago

Taxes influence behavior. Specialized taxes help incentivize certain behaviors (buying green vehicles) and discourage others (smoking). Obviously things can go wrong, like they did here, but it's not worth discarding the very useful tool of specialized taxes due to cases like this.

BizarroLand 5y ago
If you want to bring up luxury taxes and sin taxes, why aren't we categorizing non-primary housing as a luxury and/or a sin and taxing them accordingly?
- greenonions 5y ago
  Why wouldn't we tax single family homes, when multifamily housing is a much more efficient use of space?
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    We do, but raising the taxes on primary homes would disproportionately affect the middle and lower class, whereas targeting second homes / vacation homes / rental homes and multifamily homes that are used solely for rent generation would target the people who are profiting off of the homelessness epidemic. Ideally the tax on non-primary homes would be so onerous that people would sell their extra homes to people who do not have homes and that would cause home ownership to increase, taking pressure off of the rental market and driving down prices. Apartments are supposed to be affordable homes for young adults starting their lives out, not permanent living situations for anyone not financially established as solidly in the middle class or above. You could easily add waivers for section 8 and military rentals to ensure that all sections of the population would be accounted for, and the tax wouldn't affect apartments and condos, just single homes and duplexes/triplexes/quadplexes that are either being held empty as value stores or used for rental income generators by their owners. I would also say that once homelessness drops to lower than 1 in 10,000 (a little more than half of it's current number) you could waive 80% of the tax with the caveat that should homelessness increase above that number the full tax would come back immediately. That would provide a strong incentive for property management companies to keep rents low enough for poor people to afford them.

ulber 5y ago

If you're advocating for a single tax, let it at least be LVT [1]. But seriously, the point of this Finnish tax is to internalize externalities of vehicles that contribute excessively to global warming. Even if there's some loopholes it's still shaping consumer behavior by making you jump through them... and if the jump is too easy, they can just continue making the loopholes smaller. Thinking this tax is for meeting the government's budget is missing the point. It would serve its purpose just as well if you were required to burn the money instead of giving it to the government. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

rosndo 5y ago
> But seriously, the point of this Finnish tax is to internalize externalities of vehicles that contribute excessively to global warming Hardly. The taxes are based on the value of the vehicle, not emissions.

jollybean 5y ago

Adam Smith himself, the 'Inventor of Capitalism', was the guy to point out that a flat tax would be inefficient and result probably in one guy owning all the stuff. Also, the issue is just as much 'how the taxes are used' then anything else.