Taxation -- what's best?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

What form of taxation do you think best and why?

-- For the purpose of clarifying discussion, please use the following guidelines as a set of "operational definitions.


A Direct Tax on Wealth

Any person with assets above “X” level would be taxed, using either a flat percentage, a graduated percentage, or a complete tax absorption of the assets above that threshold.

A Direct Tax on Consumption

All persons are taxed on the goods and services they purchase. This can be done in a strict fashion, or combined with non-taxable items (often foodstuffs), or all persons can be compensated to a set level, effectively leaving the first “X” level of spending untaxed.

A Flat Tax on Income

All persons’ incomes are taxed at the percentage rate. Optionally, this can be combined with a “no tax below this income level” threshold.

A Graduated Tax on Income

All persons’ incomes are taxed, but the percentages vary from 0 up to X level, with the higher incomes being taxed at a higher percentage rate.

A Direct Tax on Real Property

All real estate is taxed at a flat percentage rate, according to the market value of the real estate.

Fee for Services

No taxes are levied at all. Individuals and Communities must pay for any services rendered on their behalf with costs assessed equally to all who receive such services.

[Mithrandir]

Voted graduated income tax (go commies! ) and consumers tax.

[doc_bean]

Flat income tax + tax on consumption + tax on wealth

[Lemur]

Fee for Services

No taxes are levied at all. Individuals and Communities must pay for any services rendered on their behalf with costs assessed equally to all who receive such services.

Has this ever been tried at a nation-state level? Just curious ...

[macsen rufus]

Land Value Tax (not the same as property value tax) for reasons way too complex to answer in a single post...

Land Value Tax campaign website

plus resource taxation and do away with income and employment taxes (tax bad stuff, not good stuff!)

[Scurvy]

Graduated Income tax

[Sjakihata]

Everybody should own a small, but equal, amount of all the means of production. This having perfect equity in terms of wealth.

[yesdachi]

I vote for A Direct Tax Consumption, Direct Tax on Property and A Graduated Income Tax. I think a blend makes for a healthier system.

[Lemur]

Everybody should own a small, but equal, amount of all the means of production. This having perfect equity in terms of wealth.

Dude, that is so Das Kapital.

[yesdachi]

Everybody should own a small, but equal, amount of all the means of production. This having perfect equity in terms of wealth.

Who wants perfect equality in terms of wealth?

[Don Corleone]

Well I think a flat-rate income tax with the first 40K exempted and a national sales tax makes the most sense, raises the most amount of money and is the most fair. So Democrats will probably hate it.

Just kidding. Though you do have to wonder how much power the accounting lobby wields with some of the crazy tax policies and rules we have in effect:

Hmm, honey, it says here that if we purchase one farm implement on the 3rd Tuesday of any odd numbered month, install a "Kyoto now and forever" flag in the front yard and declare your mother to be habitually promiscuous, we won't have to pay any taxes at all this year

[Crazed Rabbit]

Everybody should own a small, but equal, amount of all the means of production. This having perfect equity in terms of wealth.

Great! Now we just need to replace all the human's brains with ant brains or some sort of hive mind thing...

Anways, I voted flat income tax, on the lower end (10-20%) with not having to pay taxes on income below a certain threshold.

Crazed Rabbit

[Lemur]

Though you do have to wonder how much power the accounting lobby wields with some of the crazy tax policies and rules we have in effect:

Actually, I have to tell you that I-don't-wanna-pay-no-tax mania is much higher in the country than in the city. There's a local accountant who calls it "the farming mentality." Buy him a beer and he'll tell you some hair-raising tales of farmers buying $100,000 worth of farm equipment to avoid paying $10,000 in taxes. "Why, I ask them, why? And they just say, 'I don't wanna give the guvmint nuthin'."

[Louis VI the Fat]

I voted:

A Direct Tax on Wealth
A Direct Tax Consumption
A Graduated Income Tax
A Direct Tax on Property

Gimme taxes and lots o' them! A nice blend of the above would do. Taxes are nothing but the price you pay for living in a civilized country.
The Congo and Papua New Guinea don't rake in a lot of taxes, Switzerland and Sweden do.

[Randarkmaan]

Graduated income tax

I think this works well, with a taxation like this you should be able to provide citizens with 'free' healthcare and schooling among other nice things, which I seem to have forgot the names of

You could also provide citizens with these goods by having a high flat tax, but remember a 60% income tax (probably a little high, I know) hurts a person who makes 30 000 $ a year a lot more than a person who makes 150 000 $ a year. Think about it, after a 60 % income tax they still have 60 000 $ left which is more than enough to put food on your family's table and probably live a perfectly happy life.

[Don Corleone]

There's a big problem with direct taxation on wealth and graduated income. When you make your tax policies too unfair to 'soak the rich', they leave.

[Vuk]

I say no income tax. It was first instated because the government was in a crisis with the civil war, and then it was taken away. It has always been a last resort for crisises, till they made it permenant. I am not as learned on taxes as I'd like to be, but I know it is unnessacary.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Taxes are nothing but the price you pay for living in a civilized country.

No, taxes are the price you pay for spend happy politicians. Civilization doesn't depend on government handouts.

Oh, and I would have no taxes on property whatsoever.

CR

[Louis VI the Fat]

There's a big problem with direct taxation on wealth and graduated income. When you make your tax policies too unfair to 'soak the rich', they leave :

Rocker Johnny Hallyday is just one of the famous or anonymous French nationals who pull out of the country's tax base daily in a rarely discussed phenomenon fueled by European fiscal competition.
"Like many French people, I've had enough of the taxes we are forced to pay and this is it, I've made my choice," Hallyday told French radio

Gah! Let 'm leave. Tsk, who needs these paupers who can't afford to live in France...


Nice googling btw. I'm impressed.

[Kagemusha]

I voted for graduated income tax. People should commit shair of their resources on the upkeep of the society according to their abilities. Ofcourse in the graduated model there has to be a top percent for the people with better income so it doesnt turn into punitive for the succesfull.

[Don Corleone]

Gah! Let 'm leave. Tsk, who needs these paupers who can't afford to live in France...


Nice googling btw. I'm impressed.

As wonderful as your praise is, I'm afraid I didn't earn it. I found the story linked on Drudgereport.

It just struck me as very relevant to the discussion at hand. What nobody seems to understand is that it's impossible to 'soak the rich'. They have the money to hire an accountant or take a 2nd residence to escape the damage. It's the middle class that pays taxes. Always have, always will. When you talk about the wealthiest 3% or some other horse-hooey, you're really talking about me, and more importantly, Jillian paying for you to sit and play X-box all day on the government dole. (Not you personally, just the legions of welfare leeches, lobbyists, farmers and other miscreants that bleed the system dry in 'wealth redistribution')

[Louis VI the Fat]

you're really talking about me, and more importantly, Jillian paying for you to sit and play X-box all day on the government dole. (Not you personally, just the legions of welfare leeches, lobbyists, farmers and other miscreants that bleed the system dry in 'wealth redistribution')

I know you weren't talking about me, Don - I play PS3 all day.

[Kanamori]

You put it up there, and it's my duty to chose it. (Don't put it up there and you'll only get meaningful responses)

They made profits off us, they can pay a little more. Not about to say it is fair, but they can certainly handle it. Ah, Democracy.

[Ice]

A Direct Tax on Consumption

All persons are taxed on the goods and services they purchase. This can be done in a strict fashion, or combined with non-taxable items (often foodstuffs), or all persons can be compensated to a set level, effectively leaving the first “X” level of spending untaxed.

A Flat Tax on Income

All persons’ incomes are taxed at the percentage rate. Optionally, this can be combined with a “no tax below this income level” threshold.

I voted for this two. The government should provide basic services and it needs revenue to acheive that.

[Strike For The South]

As little as possible

[Louis VI the Fat]

As little as possible

Who's going to pay for your school then? Or do you prefer as little education as possible too?

[Strike For The South]

Who's going to pay for your school then? Or do you prefer as little education as possible too?

Whats a school

[Louis VI the Fat]

Whats a school

Oh, nothing important really. Just a place where lots of hot bimbos gather daily:

[Andres]

I want to be named King: everybody pays taxes to me, so I can afford my golden palace and my dito statue of 300 meters...

Now start earning me some money, you lazy inferior servants

[AntiochusIII]

I want to be named King: everybody pays taxes to me, so I can afford my golden palace and my dito statue of 300 meters...

Find a way to marry into the Royal Household of Brunei then deliver a coup d'etat. You can have your palace, your cake, and your more than one thousand cars if you succeed.

As of this, I think there's a lot of "potential taxes" that the rich just managed to avoid through their little lapdogs'private lawyers' help. We don't even need to increase taxes (on whoever, rich, middle class, poor) if we successfully reform and prevent those "let's-make-it-into-real-estate" or "let's-go-to-the-Bahamas" tricks from actually working. Apparently a certain pioneering Medici was celebrated greatly in Florence when he changed the tax system from income to assets, "so that those who paid 20 florins are now paying 300." (AGCEEP text).

But oh, what a naivety I display!