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The question becomes: how do you provide those minimums in a scalable and affordable way? Taxes of course, but who do you tax? Not the people making the minimum

by Haul4ss 12y ago

The question becomes: how do you provide those minimums in a scalable and affordable way? Taxes of course, but who do you tax? Not the people making the minimum.

Chinjut 12y ago
There you go, you've almost got it. You're doing great, just complete that thought...
- Chinjut 12y ago
  Alright, I phrased this snarkily, but let me expand on it: Who do you tax? As you said, the tax contributions funding this cannot come from those making the minimum; accordingly, they must come from those making more than the minimum. Just as, currently, those who make a lot of money owe taxes while those who make very little money do not owe taxes. If we wished to accomplish the basic income purely through income taxation, all we would need is some function f mapping pre-tax to post-tax income such that over the whole population, income and f(income) have the same average [for convenience, I am separating out for now all other income taxation we may wish to engage in; consider it to be applied before or after this tax], while f is everywhere increasing (so there is always an incentive to work) and f(0) is the basic income we seek. We likely would also want our taxation to be progressive (as in the current system); this amounts to asking for the differential of f to be decreasing. Within these constraints, there are a multitude of choices we can make. (Yes, this is simply a form of redistribution. And why not, to the extent we can afford it? As already argued, this particular form of redistribution could unleash a host of societal benefits.)
  - Haul4ss 12y ago
    Admittedly I have not run the numbers, but I suspect the amount of tax revenue you would have to raise is in excess of what is practical to glean from income taxes alone. People who earn money want to keep their money. In the U.S. we have a deep-rooted sense of mistrust about government. We're inconsistent about where/how we place that trust, and it can manifest itself in strange ways, but there it is. A Department of Minimal Living Standards would probably be a disaster. That's not to say we can't make improvements to our existing social safety nets. Just that here, given the population and the culture, a government-provided guaranteed wage is not likely to succeed.
- Chinjut 12y ago
  Ah, and just to be explicit, I apologize for having taken that snarky tone earlier. It was completely uncalled for.
  - Haul4ss 12y ago
    No worries. I knew what you were getting at. ;)

by Haul4ss 12y ago

The question becomes: how do you provide those minimums in a scalable and affordable way? Taxes of course, but who do you tax? Not the people making the minimum.

Chinjut 12y ago

There you go, you've almost got it. You're doing great, just complete that thought...

Chinjut 12y ago
Alright, I phrased this snarkily, but let me expand on it: Who do you tax? As you said, the tax contributions funding this cannot come from those making the minimum; accordingly, they must come from those making more than the minimum. Just as, currently, those who make a lot of money owe taxes while those who make very little money do not owe taxes. If we wished to accomplish the basic income purely through income taxation, all we would need is some function f mapping pre-tax to post-tax income such that over the whole population, income and f(income) have the same average [for convenience, I am separating out for now all other income taxation we may wish to engage in; consider it to be applied before or after this tax], while f is everywhere increasing (so there is always an incentive to work) and f(0) is the basic income we seek. We likely would also want our taxation to be progressive (as in the current system); this amounts to asking for the differential of f to be decreasing. Within these constraints, there are a multitude of choices we can make. (Yes, this is simply a form of redistribution. And why not, to the extent we can afford it? As already argued, this particular form of redistribution could unleash a host of societal benefits.)
- Haul4ss 12y ago
  Admittedly I have not run the numbers, but I suspect the amount of tax revenue you would have to raise is in excess of what is practical to glean from income taxes alone. People who earn money want to keep their money. In the U.S. we have a deep-rooted sense of mistrust about government. We're inconsistent about where/how we place that trust, and it can manifest itself in strange ways, but there it is. A Department of Minimal Living Standards would probably be a disaster. That's not to say we can't make improvements to our existing social safety nets. Just that here, given the population and the culture, a government-provided guaranteed wage is not likely to succeed.
Chinjut 12y ago
Ah, and just to be explicit, I apologize for having taken that snarky tone earlier. It was completely uncalled for.
- Haul4ss 12y ago
  No worries. I knew what you were getting at. ;)