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> What's the point of surveilling the movements of average citizens' money? The most important is taxation. People pay their babysitters or gardeners under the

> What's the point of surveilling the movements of average citizens' money? The most important is taxation. People pay their babysitters or gardeners under the table, or transact with friends and family without reporting income, and this is a huge amount of lost tax revenue. Another reason are policy options. For one, there are certain decidedly "non-terrorist" goods and services that the government might not want you to purchase. Heck, in the era of ZIRP, many economists were seriously talking about negative interest rates. You can't do that if a person has the option of taking out cash and hiding it under the mattress.

tomrod 1y ago
Once again, Georgism/land value tax is the superior tax policy. Simpler enforcement.
- mothballed 1y ago
  Tariffs also make sense, since all that stuff is going through and declared to customs anyway, although it might be an economically inferior mechanism. Either way the income tax is one of the most dystopian ways to collect tax as it pretty much relies on mass surveillance of domestic activities to be implemented fairly or effectively.
  - tomrod 1y ago
    Neoclassical economics recognizes, under the standard macro model, that labor taxation is second best. The first-best is capital taxation, once and for all time, but due to time inconsistency (nothing prevents a government from taxing again in the future) it fails to be useful outside of theory. There is some squishiness once you consider overlapping generations model, arguably more realistic than infinitely lived agents (which I always felt represent companies or familial dynasties more than real people). Land value taxation is different because there is no meaningful growth or loss of the capital stock.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      I'm talking about from a practical perspective including respecting domestic privacy, not theoretical bests. It is difficult to determine the value of a particular piece of land, particularly if it hasn't been sold for a long time and won't anytime soon. International trade can much easier be priced, and there is no (additional) privacy concern because it all has to be declared anyway.
      - tomrod 1y ago
        Tariffs, unless hyperfocused, are dumb.
        mothballed 1y ago
        Indeed, but funding the level of government the constitution authorizes, which shouldn't cost more than a couple percent of GDP, their dumb-ness isn't enough to greatly distort the market and meanwhile there is very little additional overhead or intrusion vs other methods of taxation.
        tomrod 1y ago
        Consumption taxes are very distortive.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > Neoclassical economics recognizes, under the standard macro model, that labor taxation is second best. The first-best is capital taxation, once and for all time Tariffs (or, more generically, consumption taxes) are effectively both. If something is sold, the money is going to some combination of labor and capital, and then the tax is paid either way. Tariffs in particular also create a preference for domestic production, which increases domestic labor demand at the cost of lower economic efficiency and higher prices, which is the primary thing that makes them dumb if you're not a fan of taking that trade off. In theory the primary disadvantage to consumption taxes is that unless you want to track all of everyone's consumption, it's hard to apply a progressive rate structure. But in practice there is a way to do that -- provide a universal tax credit in a fixed amount. Then everyone pays a uniform marginal rate, lower income people receive e.g. a $10,000 credit and pay $5000 in taxes (which also obviates the need for $5000 in social assistance programs), and middle and upper income people get the same $10,000 credit but pay more in tax.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  Man I wanted to write about georgism (see my comment on the parent's post where I talk about land parasites) I am such a big georgist. Seriously, I might genuinely cry seeing how georgism isn't being implemented. it is one of the most superior policy systems but the parasites own so much that we don't even discuss about it I was talking to my friend about georgism when he asked me if I was a capitalist/communist.. Basically in the end he just said, that he doesn't know about economics... so he doesn't know and they wanted to change the topic I feel like this might be a major hurdle where people think that economics is some huge mumbo jumbo when I feel like georgism and (index funds?) are two things that almost everyone should know given how simple they are.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Georgism is land communism. The 'community' or whoever is collecting the taxes (LVT) owns all land and rents it out. Ideal LVT puts the market value of all land at $0 after tax liabilities, so even if you could 'own' land under Georgism it would largely be economically meaningless. It's straight up marxism hidden as a capitalist market measure. Vacant land portion of property taxes are essentially georgism-light where the land capital is mostly under a capitalist model but with a % owned by the community (or more likely, a government that commonly works against community interests) and rented out in the form of property tax (in georgism the % is 100).
    - tomrod 1y ago
      Georgism explicitly rejects Marx's class-based analysis and Marx's narrative of zero-sum class conflict. What symptoms Marx attributes to class conflict, George attributes to rent-seeking, something which both Georgists and capitalists agree is a corruption of capitalism, rather than an inherent element. Whereas Marxists conflate economic rent and return on capital - an economically unjustifiable leap in logic. Marxism explicitly rejects classical liberal principles such as the rule of law, limited government, free markets, and individual rights, Georgism not only functions within those principles, but requires them. Marxism is incompatible with individual rights due to its hostile position on private property and its insistence that all means of production be collective property. The most fundamental means of production of them all is an individual's labor. Without which, no amount of land would produce a farm, a mine, a house, or a city. And then we wonder why Marxist regimes consistently run slave labor camps. Henry George argues that society only has the right to lay claim to economic goods produced by society, rather than an individual. Marxism recognizes no such distinction. Georgism is fully defensible using classical economics and has been repeatedly endorsed by both classical and modern economists. Marxism is at best heterodox economics and at worst, pseudoscience. Georgism could be implemented tomorrow if sufficient political will existed. Marxism requires a violent overthrow of the state. Henry George himself rejected Marxism, famously predicting that if it was ever tried, the inevitable result would be a dictatorship. Unlike Marx's predictions, that prediction of George's has a 100% validation rate. And he made that prediction while Marx was still alive. Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz have observed that a public levy on land value (Georgism/LVT) does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes. Suffices to say, you are not sharing a grounded opinion on Georgism.
AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> People pay their babysitters or gardeners under the table, or transact with friends and family without reporting income, and this is a huge amount of lost tax revenue. Is it though? The entire bottom 50% of the population paid something like 3% of total federal income tax, by intentional design of the tax system. Babysitters don't owe any significant amount of taxes whether they report it or not and under some circumstances (e.g. EITC) their effective rate can even be negative. Forcing them to report the income can't seriously be the justification for all of this mass surveillance. > Heck, in the era of ZIRP, many economists were seriously talking about negative interest rates. You can't do that if a person has the option of taking out cash and hiding it under the mattress. That doesn't have anything to do with physical cash. You could do the same thing by borrowing at a negative rate and investing the money in any security/asset/commodity. Which is why negative interest rates are crazy and never really happened.
alexey-salmin 1y ago
> People pay their babysitters or gardeners under the table, or transact with friends and family without reporting income, and this is a huge amount of lost tax revenue. This money was already taxed when the individual who pays the babysitter received it. It's questionable whether the society as a whole benefits from taxing babysitters. > Heck, in the era of ZIRP, many economists were seriously talking about negative interest rates. You can't do that if a person has the option of taking out cash and hiding it under the mattress. I'm not sure you'll gain much support for bespoke policies like that. Just reading this passage made me feel an urge to hide some cash under the mattress.
- danaris 1y ago
  > This money was already taxed when the individual who pays the babysitter received it. And the money the retail clerk gets paid was already taxed when the customers spent it at the store. No, wait, it was already taxed when they got paid it! No, wait, it was already taxed when the customers of their employers spent it! No, wait—— ...This whole idea of "money getting taxed multiple times" being a bad thing is absurd. Of course any given dollar going through the economy is going to get taxed many times. It's not about the dollars; it's about the transactions. And, ultimately, it's about funding the government so it can actually provide services, from sanitation all the way up to the military. (Note that this is not an attempt to say that "the more taxation, the better"; that's obviously absurd, too. There are different levels of taxation that make sense for different people, different countries, different transactions, and different economic circumstances. There is no one simple magic rule you can follow that will always make things better when it comes to taxation, any more than there is with anything else economic or political.)
  - ifyoubuildit 1y ago
    You get less of what you disincentivize. Putting artificial friction on every single transaction is not free, and it's fucking obnoxious. Meanwhile, the government you fund takes that money and uses it to surveil you, and commits crimes across the world in your name. And this giant machine that's supposed to stop the bad guys tells you there's nothing to see here when some big scandal comes up right in front of your face. Yes, I think money being taxed multiple times is too much.
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
Yes lets tax these small transactions so that we can go back and give the tax cuts to the billionaire class. I think that capitalism has strayed away from its original goal. We have basically parasites in the current ecosystem leeching off of either land rent or being billionaires imo. But no it feels like we don't discuss it, we will all be ever so radicalized about something that happened on twitter etc. that we are forgetting the issue of classes.

tomrod 1y ago

Once again, Georgism/land value tax is the superior tax policy. Simpler enforcement.

mothballed 1y ago
Tariffs also make sense, since all that stuff is going through and declared to customs anyway, although it might be an economically inferior mechanism. Either way the income tax is one of the most dystopian ways to collect tax as it pretty much relies on mass surveillance of domestic activities to be implemented fairly or effectively.
- tomrod 1y ago
  Neoclassical economics recognizes, under the standard macro model, that labor taxation is second best. The first-best is capital taxation, once and for all time, but due to time inconsistency (nothing prevents a government from taxing again in the future) it fails to be useful outside of theory. There is some squishiness once you consider overlapping generations model, arguably more realistic than infinitely lived agents (which I always felt represent companies or familial dynasties more than real people). Land value taxation is different because there is no meaningful growth or loss of the capital stock.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    I'm talking about from a practical perspective including respecting domestic privacy, not theoretical bests. It is difficult to determine the value of a particular piece of land, particularly if it hasn't been sold for a long time and won't anytime soon. International trade can much easier be priced, and there is no (additional) privacy concern because it all has to be declared anyway.
    - tomrod 1y ago
      Tariffs, unless hyperfocused, are dumb.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        Indeed, but funding the level of government the constitution authorizes, which shouldn't cost more than a couple percent of GDP, their dumb-ness isn't enough to greatly distort the market and meanwhile there is very little additional overhead or intrusion vs other methods of taxation.
        tomrod 1y ago
        Consumption taxes are very distortive.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > Neoclassical economics recognizes, under the standard macro model, that labor taxation is second best. The first-best is capital taxation, once and for all time Tariffs (or, more generically, consumption taxes) are effectively both. If something is sold, the money is going to some combination of labor and capital, and then the tax is paid either way. Tariffs in particular also create a preference for domestic production, which increases domestic labor demand at the cost of lower economic efficiency and higher prices, which is the primary thing that makes them dumb if you're not a fan of taking that trade off. In theory the primary disadvantage to consumption taxes is that unless you want to track all of everyone's consumption, it's hard to apply a progressive rate structure. But in practice there is a way to do that -- provide a universal tax credit in a fixed amount. Then everyone pays a uniform marginal rate, lower income people receive e.g. a $10,000 credit and pay $5000 in taxes (which also obviates the need for $5000 in social assistance programs), and middle and upper income people get the same $10,000 credit but pay more in tax.
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
Man I wanted to write about georgism (see my comment on the parent's post where I talk about land parasites) I am such a big georgist. Seriously, I might genuinely cry seeing how georgism isn't being implemented. it is one of the most superior policy systems but the parasites own so much that we don't even discuss about it I was talking to my friend about georgism when he asked me if I was a capitalist/communist.. Basically in the end he just said, that he doesn't know about economics... so he doesn't know and they wanted to change the topic I feel like this might be a major hurdle where people think that economics is some huge mumbo jumbo when I feel like georgism and (index funds?) are two things that almost everyone should know given how simple they are.
- mothballed 1y ago
  Georgism is land communism. The 'community' or whoever is collecting the taxes (LVT) owns all land and rents it out. Ideal LVT puts the market value of all land at $0 after tax liabilities, so even if you could 'own' land under Georgism it would largely be economically meaningless. It's straight up marxism hidden as a capitalist market measure. Vacant land portion of property taxes are essentially georgism-light where the land capital is mostly under a capitalist model but with a % owned by the community (or more likely, a government that commonly works against community interests) and rented out in the form of property tax (in georgism the % is 100).
  - tomrod 1y ago
    Georgism explicitly rejects Marx's class-based analysis and Marx's narrative of zero-sum class conflict. What symptoms Marx attributes to class conflict, George attributes to rent-seeking, something which both Georgists and capitalists agree is a corruption of capitalism, rather than an inherent element. Whereas Marxists conflate economic rent and return on capital - an economically unjustifiable leap in logic. Marxism explicitly rejects classical liberal principles such as the rule of law, limited government, free markets, and individual rights, Georgism not only functions within those principles, but requires them. Marxism is incompatible with individual rights due to its hostile position on private property and its insistence that all means of production be collective property. The most fundamental means of production of them all is an individual's labor. Without which, no amount of land would produce a farm, a mine, a house, or a city. And then we wonder why Marxist regimes consistently run slave labor camps. Henry George argues that society only has the right to lay claim to economic goods produced by society, rather than an individual. Marxism recognizes no such distinction. Georgism is fully defensible using classical economics and has been repeatedly endorsed by both classical and modern economists. Marxism is at best heterodox economics and at worst, pseudoscience. Georgism could be implemented tomorrow if sufficient political will existed. Marxism requires a violent overthrow of the state. Henry George himself rejected Marxism, famously predicting that if it was ever tried, the inevitable result would be a dictatorship. Unlike Marx's predictions, that prediction of George's has a 100% validation rate. And he made that prediction while Marx was still alive. Economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz have observed that a public levy on land value (Georgism/LVT) does not cause economic inefficiency, unlike other taxes. Suffices to say, you are not sharing a grounded opinion on Georgism.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago

> People pay their babysitters or gardeners under the table, or transact with friends and family without reporting income, and this is a huge amount of lost tax revenue. Is it though? The entire bottom 50% of the population paid something like 3% of total federal income tax, by intentional design of the tax system. Babysitters don't owe any significant amount of taxes whether they report it or not and under some circumstances (e.g. EITC) their effective rate can even be negative. Forcing them to report the income can't seriously be the justification for all of this mass surveillance. > Heck, in the era of ZIRP, many economists were seriously talking about negative interest rates. You can't do that if a person has the option of taking out cash and hiding it under the mattress. That doesn't have anything to do with physical cash. You could do the same thing by borrowing at a negative rate and investing the money in any security/asset/commodity. Which is why negative interest rates are crazy and never really happened.

alexey-salmin 1y ago

> People pay their babysitters or gardeners under the table, or transact with friends and family without reporting income, and this is a huge amount of lost tax revenue. This money was already taxed when the individual who pays the babysitter received it. It's questionable whether the society as a whole benefits from taxing babysitters. > Heck, in the era of ZIRP, many economists were seriously talking about negative interest rates. You can't do that if a person has the option of taking out cash and hiding it under the mattress. I'm not sure you'll gain much support for bespoke policies like that. Just reading this passage made me feel an urge to hide some cash under the mattress.

danaris 1y ago
> This money was already taxed when the individual who pays the babysitter received it. And the money the retail clerk gets paid was already taxed when the customers spent it at the store. No, wait, it was already taxed when they got paid it! No, wait, it was already taxed when the customers of their employers spent it! No, wait—— ...This whole idea of "money getting taxed multiple times" being a bad thing is absurd. Of course any given dollar going through the economy is going to get taxed many times. It's not about the dollars; it's about the transactions. And, ultimately, it's about funding the government so it can actually provide services, from sanitation all the way up to the military. (Note that this is not an attempt to say that "the more taxation, the better"; that's obviously absurd, too. There are different levels of taxation that make sense for different people, different countries, different transactions, and different economic circumstances. There is no one simple magic rule you can follow that will always make things better when it comes to taxation, any more than there is with anything else economic or political.)
- ifyoubuildit 1y ago
  You get less of what you disincentivize. Putting artificial friction on every single transaction is not free, and it's fucking obnoxious. Meanwhile, the government you fund takes that money and uses it to surveil you, and commits crimes across the world in your name. And this giant machine that's supposed to stop the bad guys tells you there's nothing to see here when some big scandal comes up right in front of your face. Yes, I think money being taxed multiple times is too much.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

Yes lets tax these small transactions so that we can go back and give the tax cuts to the billionaire class. I think that capitalism has strayed away from its original goal. We have basically parasites in the current ecosystem leeching off of either land rent or being billionaires imo. But no it feels like we don't discuss it, we will all be ever so radicalized about something that happened on twitter etc. that we are forgetting the issue of classes.