Taxes

Overhead is measured against economies of scale. That's kind of the entire POINT of noting economies of scale.

Medicare, for instance, has a much lower overhead than private insurance. Sure, there's bureaucracy, but a whole lot less than five super-corporations that have to pay out profits.

Higher taxes = less shit you have to actually pay for. Now, that's assuming there's not too much cronism going on, so we need to figure out how to get tax dollars where they're supposed to go to, but let's face it: the majority of the budget is Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, and Social Security, and my understanding is that those things really aren't pork. We don't have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem. Blah blah blah my talking points blah blah blah!

To go with the above...

[[stupidpoliticalrant]]

The problem with a Fair Tax, as I see it, is simple: It only taxes people for spending. Therefore, it encourages people not to spend on luxuries. You might say, "Well hey, they're losing the same amount of money they would lose if they were taxed on income," but the problem is, people don't think that way. When they see that everything suddenly costs more, their natural response is to buy less, and that sucks for business.

We already have consumption taxes, but they're fairly small. A "fair tax" would have to constitute a significant increase (The Americans for Fair Taxation website says 23%).

If I am wrong, please, correct me. However, I don't see how a fair tax would work that way.

[[/stupidpoliticalrant]]

edited 10th Mar '11 4:02:18 PM by Scardoll

Spending Taxes are typically biased against poor people, because poor people spend a disproportionately high amount of their income. However, that being said, you can make it as regressive or as progressive as you want-food might be untaxed, whereas travel and luxury goods might be highly taxed.

But anyway, it's the big corporations that are dodging taxes to begin with-in a spending tax, they're "spending" money on labor. So it'd either be an income tax, or you're specifically exempting them from taxes all over again.

IN ANY EVENT, this is essentially a Reverse IJBM thread, so I'd expect an op to come along and either move it to OTC or to nuke it, since you know full well lots of people hatez them some taxes...

edited 10th Mar '11 4:35:22 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

But I sincerely like taxes! They pay for libraries and museums!

edited 11th Mar '11 10:07:52 AM by AlirozTheConfused

The FairTax plan attempts to be more progressive via a per-household rebate proportional to the expected spending on necessitates.

So, if in some hypothetical location it cost $2000/month to support a family of four, then each family of four would receive a monthly check equivalent to the sales tax on $2000 spending.

Idea being to sidestep complexifying questions like which foods count as necessities and which as luxuries, and instead just untax spending under a specific level.

Effects on demand are debatable, yes.

(This conversation has drifted into natural and civil conversation; I see no action needed at this point in time)

I like getting my tax rebates...

But seriously, I think the problem most people have with taxes is that a lot of the money goes towards things that they don't support. I wouldn't mind paying taxes if I knew that the money I paid would be used for something useful. But the government spends money on some stupid stuff.

I don't have any issues with the concept, and I honestly think it's a good idea. It's just that once the money is out of your hands, you have no say what it gets used for. If I knew all my tax money was going towards improving the public school system or fixing roads or something, I wouldn't mind so much. It's issues with the execution, not the idea itself.

Hmm, this is actually kind of a mixed bag for me(or at least, something which I would need clarification). On paper, it makes sense that the "wealthy pay more taxes", but it can't be that clear cut.

You should come to Brazil someday. You'll never look at taxes in a positive way ever again.

I don't like paying taxes; I dislike any deduction from my meager E-2 pay.