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in order for inflation to be a tax, the tax brackets have to remain static so that your inflation wages grow without giving you any new purchasing power. Your t
by chii 2y ago
in order for inflation to be a tax, the tax brackets have to remain static so that your inflation wages grow without giving you any new purchasing power. Your taxes, however, gets bumped up to the new marginal rate, and thus the gov't raises more taxes silently.
Inflation by itself cannot help raise more taxes, because the spending by gov'ts will equivalently increase due to inflation.
- logicchains 2y agoInflation is a tax because capital gains taxes aren't inflation adjusted. The higher inflation, the higher your nominal capital gains are, and you get taxed on nominal gains, not real gains.
- somenameforme 2y agoGovernment spending itself drives inflation. When the government wants to raise money it sells treasuries that are largely purchased by organizations whose money was not in regular circulation. The most obvious example of this is the Federal Reserve who is (or was - they planned to reduce treasury holdings and I have not checked the latest numbers) the largest "private" holder of US treasuries. The government then takes this money and sends it into circulation, which increases inflation leading to a reduction in spending power of people. It's the same outcome as a tax increase (government has more, people have less), without the negative PR typically associated with raising taxes, particularly this sort of tax which tends to hurt low earners the most as their discretionary income is a far smaller percent of their total income than for high earners, and they also tend to have far less invested in inflation resistant vessels.