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"Gates' idea of a consumption tax would heavily penalize these people, who have been enslaved into a consumer lifestyle by the wealthy who exercise control over
by jeffdavis 12y ago
"Gates' idea of a consumption tax would heavily penalize these people, who have been enslaved into a consumer lifestyle by the wealthy who exercise control over their lives."
That came out of the blue... can you expand on that? [Note also that Gates said a progressive consumption tax.]
I like a progressive consumption tax because (I currently believe, anyway) that it's harder to avoid than an income tax. Income can happen anywhere in the world, but if you are living here then you are consuming here. You can keep trying to defer income through clever accounting, but that seems harder to do with consumption (if you have a yacht today, you pay taxes today).
It also takes away most arguments about class warfare. A wealthy person can't just call themselves a "job creator" and oppose taxes while floating around on a yacht and running a business into the ground. If they do, it will be obvious the taxes are for their yacht, and not their job-creating ability.
- reirob 12y ago"if you are living here then you are consuming here" - it strikes me that, the more you are poor the more you are bound to consume local. The richer you are the more choice you have where to consume (or where to invest, at some point of wealth this could also be considered as consumption). Therefore I tend to think that a consumption tax will penalize the poor.
- jeffdavis 12y agoCan you give an example of living in the US and consuming mostly somewhere else? Are you just talking about luxurious vacations to Europe?
- reirob 12y agoI can't give you the requested example as I am living in Europe ;-) But what I mean seems to be more of a general rule. The richer you are the better choices you have to spend money on products that appeal to you, because your consumption/investment horizon widens. Vacations to other countries are indeed part of it. But it might be as well goods produced on the other side of the planet that you can buy, because you might have heard about them through your acquaintances. Whereas poor will not have the idea to look for alternatives.