General Ideas for a Tax System

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SpanishMatMaster -> General Ideas for a Tax System (5/16/2013 2:05:50 AM)
General Rule: We tax only what we want to discourage. - Let us tax environmental damage, but covering many times the probable cost of repairing the damage done (even for nuclear waste we can estimate the way to eliminate the damage in the future and the necessary investment today to be able to repair it later). With "one time" we repair it (or plan its repair). With the rest we finance the state. - Let us tax inequality, but only above a limit considered "natural" (number to be found by democratic consensus). Let us motivate the rich to help the poor... so that they themselves pay less taxes when the inequality indexes decrease towards that natural limit: but only then. No tax reduction for one individual help - tax reduction for all when inequality actually decreases. - While doing this, let us tax inequality in properties, not in income. We have nothing against income. We have nothing against a very poor guy earning suddenly a bunch of money. We have something about many people having few and few people having many (beyond the natural limit). - Let us not tax profit: we want people to have profit. Nor building companies: we want people to building companies. Nor getting a job: we want them to have a job. - Let us tax the abuse of the state institution, but not the use of state institutions. A normal use should be for free, because we do not want to discourage it. Exaggerated use should be punished by law with many times the damage done. This includes particularly the abuse of the legal system. Let us tax only what we want to discourage. And that, let us tax is heavily, so heavily that the society actually changes.

DesideriScuri -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/16/2013 6:22:42 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster General Rule: We tax only what we want to discourage. - Let us tax environmental damage, but covering many times the probable cost of repairing the damage done (even for nuclear waste we can estimate the way to eliminate the damage in the future and the necessary investment today to be able to repair it later). With "one time" we repair it (or plan its repair). With the rest we finance the state. So, tax the industries that create the environmental damage, right? That won't really motivate them to stop, you realize? Any extra cost (the tax) gets rolled into the cost of goods and sold to the consumer anyway. Consumers have no real way to pick and choose which power sources they get their power from, so you'll just be taxing consumers, rather than producers. And, that's a big boot in the ass to a "captive audience." FirstEnergy owns several nuke plants. Their "Davis-Besse" plant in NW Ohio was shut down because of a "pit" found in the containment cap (okay, the pit was merely the size of a football and left 10mm stainless steel cladding out of a 150mm thick carbon and stainless steels reactor cap; but, it was only a pit [8\|]). The company paid $800M to fix the problem and $28M in fines. One of the odd things (to me) was that the fines were not allowed to be passed down to rate-payers. How they were to pay those fines without charging rate-payers struck me as impossible. Well, while working for a different employer, I had the opportunity to talk to some of the linemen for FirstEnergy. Since FirstEnergy rate-payers weren't allowed to be charged, when bulk energy was sold between providers, the fines were, essentially, included in those rates. So, when FirstEnergy produced more power than it's customer base was using and sold that excess to power companies looking to cover shortfalls (say, in California), the fines were paid for by bumping up the cost of that excess power. So, the rate-payers of the power company in CA that bought extra generation from FirstEnergy, ended up paying for those fines. Who are you taxing/fining, then? The producers who are causing the damage, or the customers who don't really have much of a say? quote: - Let us tax inequality, but only above a limit considered "natural" (number to be found by democratic consensus). Let us motivate the rich to help the poor... so that they themselves pay less taxes when the inequality indexes decrease towards that natural limit: but only then. No tax reduction for one individual help "Democratic Concensus" isn't a "natural number" (other than in a mathematical sense), and will be open for political manipulation. "Democratic Concensus" is, in and of itself, pretty much an oxymoron. 50%+1 vote isn't concensus. How would you tax "inequality?" quote: - tax reduction for all when inequality actually decreases. - While doing this, let us tax inequality in properties, not in income. We have nothing against income. We have nothing against a very poor guy earning suddenly a bunch of money. We have something about many people having few and few people having many (beyond the natural limit). How are you defining "property?" Is an investment a "property," or are you thinking of physical things like houses, buildings, real estate, etc.? quote: - Let us not tax profit: we want people to have profit. Nor building companies: we want people to building companies. Nor getting a job: we want them to have a job. What is left to tax? Are you saying to tax whatever is "saved?" That is, if a person makes a profit (which would be exchanging their time-labor input for money), what they don't spend of that profit gets taxed? That is still taxing the profits and income. quote: - Let us tax the abuse of the state institution, but not the use of state institutions. A normal use should be for free, because we do not want to discourage it. Exaggerated use should be punished by law with many times the damage done. This includes particularly the abuse of the legal system. The devil of this last part lies in the details that define it. Use/abuse are subjective terms and may be defined quite differently depending on who is doing the defining. A local radio station puts it this way, "It's not about what is fair and what is not fair. It's about who gets to decide." In the US, conservatives and liberals will define "fair" quite differently when it comes to things like what level of taxation constitutes a "fair share." quote: Let us tax only what we want to discourage. And that, let us tax is heavily, so heavily that the society actually changes. The issue is who gets to decide what "we" want to discourage, and what we are allowed to discourage. Placing heavy tax loads on derogatory speech is most definitely an infringement of free speech, regardless of what the majority may or may not decide. This is the problem with pure democracy. In a pure democracy, you will have tyranny of the majority. Those in the minority will not have any rights (in those areas they disagree with the majority) and will be at the mercy of the majority. That is an afront to any who believe that there are Human rights inherent solely on a person being a human. The general gist of this sort of tax plan is great, but I don't think there is any apolitical way of implementing it. At least in the US, it will be abused to the benefit of those in power staying in power.

thompsonx -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/16/2013 12:30:23 PM)
quote: So, tax the industries that create the environmental damage, right? That won't really motivate them to stop, you realize? Any extra cost (the tax) gets rolled into the cost of goods and sold to the consumer anyway. Consumers have no real way to pick and choose which power sources they get their power from, so you'll just be taxing consumers, rather than producers. And, that's a big boot in the ass to a "captive audience." The corolary to this is that if all taxes were removed from these corp. they would rebate the savings to the consumer. quote: FirstEnergy owns several nuke plants. Their "Davis-Besse" plant in NW Ohio was shut down because of a "pit" found in the containment cap (okay, the pit was merely the size of a football and left 10mm stainless steel cladding out of a 150mm thick carbon and stainless steels reactor cap; but, it was only a pit ). The company paid $800M to fix the problem and $28M in fines. One of the odd things (to me) was that the fines were not allowed to be passed down to rate-payers. How they were to pay those fines without charging rate-payers struck me as impossible. One would think that they would be paid out of profits...unless of course first energy is a non profit then it would be paid out of the operating budget. quote: Well, while working for a different employer, I had the opportunity to talk to some of the linemen for FirstEnergy. I am more than a little curious how a lineman would have access to sculduggery in the bookkeeping dept.[8\|] quote: Since FirstEnergy rate-payers weren't allowed to be charged, when bulk energy was sold between providers, the fines were, essentially, included in those rates. So, when FirstEnergy produced more power than it's customer base was using and sold that excess to power companies looking to cover shortfalls (say, in California), the fines were paid for by bumping up the cost of that excess power. So, the rate-payers of the power company in CA that bought extra generation from FirstEnergy, ended up paying for those fines. Who are you taxing/fining, then? The producers who are causing the damage, or the customers who don't really have much of a say? Is that illegal? If it is then isn't it the job of the auditors to catch that? If it is not illegal why hasn't the regulatory agency responsible seen to it that it is.

DesideriScuri -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/16/2013 5:34:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: thompsonx quote: So, tax the industries that create the environmental damage, right? That won't really motivate them to stop, you realize? Any extra cost (the tax) gets rolled into the cost of goods and sold to the consumer anyway. Consumers have no real way to pick and choose which power sources they get their power from, so you'll just be taxing consumers, rather than producers. And, that's a big boot in the ass to a "captive audience." The corolary to this is that if all taxes were removed from these corp. they would rebate the savings to the consumer. quote: FirstEnergy owns several nuke plants. Their "Davis-Besse" plant in NW Ohio was shut down because of a "pit" found in the containment cap (okay, the pit was merely the size of a football and left 10mm stainless steel cladding out of a 150mm thick carbon and stainless steels reactor cap; but, it was only a pit ). The company paid $800M to fix the problem and $28M in fines. One of the odd things (to me) was that the fines were not allowed to be passed down to rate-payers. How they were to pay those fines without charging rate-payers struck me as impossible. One would think that they would be paid out of profits...unless of course first energy is a non profit then it would be paid out of the operating budget. Where do you think they get their operating budget or profits? Uh, from the rate-payers. quote: quote: Well, while working for a different employer, I had the opportunity to talk to some of the linemen for FirstEnergy. I am more than a little curious how a lineman would have access to sculduggery in the bookkeeping dept.[8\|] quote: Since FirstEnergy rate-payers weren't allowed to be charged, when bulk energy was sold between providers, the fines were, essentially, included in those rates. So, when FirstEnergy produced more power than it's customer base was using and sold that excess to power companies looking to cover shortfalls (say, in California), the fines were paid for by bumping up the cost of that excess power. So, the rate-payers of the power company in CA that bought extra generation from FirstEnergy, ended up paying for those fines. Who are you taxing/fining, then? The producers who are causing the damage, or the customers who don't really have much of a say? Is that illegal? If it is then isn't it the job of the auditors to catch that? If it is not illegal why hasn't the regulatory agency responsible seen to it that it is. I'm going to guess that it isn't illegal. Without charging ratepayers, how is a company to pay a fine? Anything paid out by a power company is pretty paid for out of charges to rate-payers. There is no other way.

Edwynn -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/16/2013 8:50:32 PM)
If the company complies with those instructions, then the fine is deducted from earnings, reducing the amount available for dividends. The shareholders pay. That was the intent of the directions in imposing the fine. Do you know how earning, dividends, and stock ownership work? Your claim that "there is no other way" leads me to believe that you might not.

BamaD -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/16/2013 9:12:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Edwynn If the company complies with those instructions, then the fine is deducted from earnings, reducing the amount available for dividends. The shareholders pay. That was the intent of the directions in imposing the fine. Do you know how earning, dividends, and stock ownership work? Your claim that "there is no other way" leads me to believe that you might not. And when fines exceed profits?

Real0ne -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/16/2013 10:58:05 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri So, tax the industries that create the environmental damage, right? That won't really motivate them to stop, you realize? Any extra cost (the tax) gets rolled into the cost of goods and sold to the consumer anyway. Consumers have no real way to pick and choose which power sources they get their power from, so you'll just be taxing consumers, rather than producers. And, that's a big boot in the ass to a "captive audience." which was the whole point in taxing the shit out of the corporations and not the individual in the first place. the corps have enormous leverage that the individual does not. High taxes on corps benefit the private sector by opening up opportunities. If they are captive you just described a monopoly, break it up. Corps should be limited to a small number of people and conglomerates completely abolished.

RottenJohnny -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/16/2013 11:21:47 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Real0ne High taxes on corps benefit the private sector by opening up opportunities. ...in other countries.

SpanishMatMaster -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 1:34:45 AM)
Hello, DesideriScuri. I am sorry if my answer sounds dry sometimes, there are discussion I consider distracting here. By other side, I trust your intelligent to understand somethimes what I mean (first answer). quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster General Rule: We tax only what we want to discourage. - Let us tax environmental damage, but covering many times the probable cost of repairing the damage done (even for nuclear waste we can estimate the way to eliminate the damage in the future and the necessary investment today to be able to repair it later). With "one time" we repair it (or plan its repair). With the rest we finance the state. So, tax the industries that create the environmental damage, right? That won't really motivate them to stop, you realize? Any extra cost (the tax) gets rolled into the cost of goods and sold to the consumer anyway. Consumers have no real way to pick and choose which power sources they get their power from, so you'll just be taxing consumers, rather than producers. You are supposing that all companies have the same environmental problems and that the customer has no influence on his needs, not matter the price. This only happens in an infinitely inelastic monopoly. This is not the real situation, almost nowhere, and even where it is, it does not have to last forever: they are wonderful opportunities for new technologies. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: - Let us tax inequality, but only above a limit considered "natural" (number to be found by democratic consensus). Let us motivate the rich to help the poor... so that they themselves pay less taxes when the inequality indexes decrease towards that natural limit: but only then. No tax reduction for one individual help "Democratic Concensus" isn't a "natural number" (other than in a mathematical sense), and will be open for political manipulation. "Democratic Concensus" is, in and of itself, pretty much an oxymoron. 50%+1 vote isn't concensus. How would you tax "inequality?" No oximoron, consensus is not unanimity. I told already how would I tax inequality, below. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: - tax reduction for all when inequality actually decreases. - While doing this, let us tax inequality in properties, not in income. We have nothing against income. We have nothing against a very poor guy earning suddenly a bunch of money. We have something about many people having few and few people having many (beyond the natural limit). How are you defining "property?" Is an investment a "property," or are you thinking of physical things like houses, buildings, real estate, etc.? I do not think that I have to explain what is property. No, I did not mean real estate, I meant property. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: - Let us not tax profit: we want people to have profit. Nor building companies: we want people to building companies. Nor getting a job: we want them to have a job. What is left to tax? Are you saying to tax whatever is "saved?" That is, if a person makes a profit (which would be exchanging their time-labor input for money), what they don't spend of that profit gets taxed? That is still taxing the profits and income. I told already what is left to tax. Work labor is not the only source of capital. I would tax the capital (the property), no matter where it comes from. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: - Let us tax the abuse of the state institution, but not the use of state institutions. A normal use should be for free, because we do not want to discourage it. Exaggerated use should be punished by law with many times the damage done. This includes particularly the abuse of the legal system. The devil of this last part lies in the details that define it. That's the reason why this is called "general ideas" (see title) and not a set of law proposals including regulations for every country. I would like to see some cash if you want me to do that :) . quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: Let us tax only what we want to discourage. And that, let us tax is heavily, so heavily that the society actually changes. The issue is who gets to decide what "we" want to discourage, and what we are allowed to discourage. Placing heavy tax loads on derogatory speech is most definitely an infringement of free speech, regardless of what the majority may or may not decide. 1. We decide democratically what is defamation and we tax it with with penalties, so I do not see your problem here with the authority of the state regarding the free speech. If you want to put in question this, then please open another thread. If you accept that authority, then we could, at least in theory, define and tax derogatory speech. 2. But please realise that I wrote "let us tax only what we want to discourage" and *NOT* "let us tax everything we want to discourage". It was A into B, not B into A. 3. Anyway, I do not want to discourage derogatory speech. It's funny :D . Best regards.

tweakabelle -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 2:42:15 AM)
The ideas suggested in the OP seem to me to be an attempt to make corporations more socially responsible without taxing them out of existence. If that is the goal, mightn't it be time to look at another way of ensuring corporations accept and discharge their social responsibilities? I have in mind that instead of using the tax system to enforce corporate responsibilities, we might look instead at the equity system. Corporations, whether they admit it or not, exist in a relationship with the society that provides them with all kinds of assistance (eg. supplying skilled workers, creating a legal structure to ensure contract compliance, infrastructure for trading goods etc). Traditionally part of this arrangement has been expressed in tax $. Instead of paying tax, if public companies were to pay part of their tax burden by allocating equity to the State (up to an agreed cap) it would create a common interest relationship which would be far more productive for both sides. This would change the relationship between corporations and the communities who support them. Instead of an adversarial relationship in which both sides seek to retain as many $ as possible, this would lay the basis for a genuine partnership between corporations and communities. It could be described as enlightened self-interest by all parties. As both corporations and communities would have a vested interest in seeing each other prosper, each side would be far more sensitive to the other's needs. Ultimately who knows ....... it might even take the psychopath out of corporation.

SpanishMatMaster -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 3:08:40 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle The ideas suggested in the OP seem to me to be an attempt to make corporations more socially responsible without taxing them out of existence. Actually it is much more and much less than that. Affects everybody, not only corporations, and affects its strategy, but not necessarily their "social responsibility". quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle Instead of paying tax, if public companies were to pay part of their tax burden by allocating equity to the State (up to an agreed cap) it would create a common interest relationship which would be far more productive for both sides. I suggest this could be treated in another thread, expanding a bit. I do not understand much how this would be something else as the well-known system of reduce taxes by donating to social means. But seriously, an analysis of your proposa, l would prefer to make it in another thread, I think it deserves it, too. Best regards.

DesideriScuri -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 5:49:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Real0ne quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri So, tax the industries that create the environmental damage, right? That won't really motivate them to stop, you realize? Any extra cost (the tax) gets rolled into the cost of goods and sold to the consumer anyway. Consumers have no real way to pick and choose which power sources they get their power from, so you'll just be taxing consumers, rather than producers. And, that's a big boot in the ass to a "captive audience." which was the whole point in taxing the shit out of the corporations and not the individual in the first place. the corps have enormous leverage that the individual does not. High taxes on corps benefit the private sector by opening up opportunities. If they are captive you just described a monopoly, break it up. Corps should be limited to a small number of people and conglomerates completely abolished. A "captive audience" is always going to be had in the case of power provision. FirstEnergy is the largest provider, by far, and could send down rate increases with no option for the customer but to pay. Sure, PUCO (Public Utility Commission of Ohio) is supposed to provide a limit on the rate increases, but I can't see how they would act considering the kowtowing they do after the preliminary dance to show off the facade that is their support of Ohio customers. Case in point: First Energy came up with a plan to deliver a certain number of CFL's to each and every customer. The cost of the bulbs would have been inserted in your bill for 2 or 3 cycles - it's been a while since this bullshit went on. The CFL's would end up costing the customer $10-12 each. PUCO signed off on the plan as a good idea. Well, the CFL's they were sending out could be bought for around $8 at the time, and the plan would have charged every customer, regardless of the customer's choice to participate or not. Captive Audience, American style.

DesideriScuri -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 6:17:37 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster Hello, DesideriScuri. I am sorry if my answer sounds dry sometimes, there are discussion I consider distracting here. By other side, I trust your intelligent to understand somethimes what I mean (first answer). I think we have had enough conversations to help dictate the tenor of our communications here. quote: quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster General Rule: We tax only what we want to discourage. - Let us tax environmental damage, but covering many times the probable cost of repairing the damage done (even for nuclear waste we can estimate the way to eliminate the damage in the future and the necessary investment today to be able to repair it later). With "one time" we repair it (or plan its repair). With the rest we finance the state. So, tax the industries that create the environmental damage, right? That won't really motivate them to stop, you realize? Any extra cost (the tax) gets rolled into the cost of goods and sold to the consumer anyway. Consumers have no real way to pick and choose which power sources they get their power from, so you'll just be taxing consumers, rather than producers. You are supposing that all companies have the same environmental problems and that the customer has no influence on his needs, not matter the price. This only happens in an infinitely inelastic monopoly. This is not the real situation, almost nowhere, and even where it is, it does not have to last forever: they are wonderful opportunities for new technologies. Your example was nuclear, which I took to mean nuclear power generation and limited my discussion to nuclear power generation. I failed to state that my disagreement was specific to the power companies. There are similarities to all sectors of the economy, but my comments were specific to power generation. In that sector, I think you'll find more of that inelasticity than you might think. At least in the US. I won't comment on the accuracy to other countries as I don't have any background in them. quote: quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: - Let us tax inequality, but only above a limit considered "natural" (number to be found by democratic consensus). Let us motivate the rich to help the poor... so that they themselves pay less taxes when the inequality indexes decrease towards that natural limit: but only then. No tax reduction for one individual help "Democratic Concensus" isn't a "natural number" (other than in a mathematical sense), and will be open for political manipulation. "Democratic Concensus" is, in and of itself, pretty much an oxymoron. 50%+1 vote isn't concensus. How would you tax "inequality?" No oximoron, consensus is not unanimity. I told already how would I tax inequality, below. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: - tax reduction for all when inequality actually decreases. - While doing this, let us tax inequality in properties, not in income. We have nothing against income. We have nothing against a very poor guy earning suddenly a bunch of money. We have something about many people having few and few people having many (beyond the natural limit). How are you defining "property?" Is an investment a "property," or are you thinking of physical things like houses, buildings, real estate, etc.? I do not think that I have to explain what is property. No, I did not mean real estate, I meant property. Actually, I disagree. You do need to explain what constitutes property for this. I would not be surprised if the list of what is considered property in the US is different from that of other countries. For a global discussion, there certainly does need to be more defining of terms. Hearken back to the comparisons of "violent crimes" between the US, UK and Australia. Those things are not defined the same for all 3, so comparison to each other can't readily be made. quote: quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: - Let us not tax profit: we want people to have profit. Nor building companies: we want people to building companies. Nor getting a job: we want them to have a job. What is left to tax? Are you saying to tax whatever is "saved?" That is, if a person makes a profit (which would be exchanging their time-labor input for money), what they don't spend of that profit gets taxed? That is still taxing the profits and income. I told already what is left to tax. Work labor is not the only source of capital. I would tax the capital (the property), no matter where it comes from. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: - Let us tax the abuse of the state institution, but not the use of state institutions. A normal use should be for free, because we do not want to discourage it. Exaggerated use should be punished by law with many times the damage done. This includes particularly the abuse of the legal system. The devil of this last part lies in the details that define it. That's the reason why this is called "general ideas" (see title) and not a set of law proposals including regulations for every country. I would like to see some cash if you want me to do that :) . I wasn't dismissing it out of hand, but commenting that generalities of this kind aren't necessarily fitting, because the devil is in the details. We can agree that taxing a negative is better than taxing a positive, but that's almost so general it's not even necessary to state. quote: quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri quote: Let us tax only what we want to discourage. And that, let us tax is heavily, so heavily that the society actually changes. The issue is who gets to decide what "we" want to discourage, and what we are allowed to discourage. Placing heavy tax loads on derogatory speech is most definitely an infringement of free speech, regardless of what the majority may or may not decide. 1. We decide democratically what is defamation and we tax it with with penalties, so I do not see your problem here with the authority of the state regarding the free speech. If you want to put in question this, then please open another thread. If you accept that authority, then we could, at least in theory, define and tax derogatory speech. 2. But please realise that I wrote "let us tax only what we want to discourage" and *NOT* "let us tax everything we want to discourage". It was A into B, not B into A. 3. Anyway, I do not want to discourage derogatory speech. It's funny :D . Best regards. 1. Democratically decide? Tyranny of the majority at the expense of the minority. 50%+1 does not provide for everyone being equal. You are only equal if you are on the "correct" side. Or, as stated in Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." 2. What is the difference between "tax only what we want to discourage" and "tax everything we want to discourage?" Did you err here, or am I simply not seeing the difference? 3. It was simply an example, demonstrating the problem.

subsissy4bbc -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 6:45:23 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster General Rule: We tax only what we want to discourage. - Let us tax environmental damage, but covering many times the probable cost of repairing the damage done (even for nuclear waste we can estimate the way to eliminate the damage in the future and the necessary investment today to be able to repair it later). With "one time" we repair it (or plan its repair). With the rest we finance the state. - Let us tax inequality, but only above a limit considered "natural" (number to be found by democratic consensus). Let us motivate the rich to help the poor... so that they themselves pay less taxes when the inequality indexes decrease towards that natural limit: but only then. No tax reduction for one individual help - tax reduction for all when inequality actually decreases. - While doing this, let us tax inequality in properties, not in income. We have nothing against income. We have nothing against a very poor guy earning suddenly a bunch of money. We have something about many people having few and few people having many (beyond the natural limit). - Let us not tax profit: we want people to have profit. Nor building companies: we want people to building companies. Nor getting a job: we want them to have a job. - Let us tax the abuse of the state institution, but not the use of state institutions. A normal use should be for free, because we do not want to discourage it. Exaggerated use should be punished by law with many times the damage done. This includes particularly the abuse of the legal system. Let us tax only what we want to discourage. And that, let us tax is heavily, so heavily that the society actually changes. I'm sure other people will go through point by point and debate you. I just have two points. One, what is wrong with a flat tax? Everyone pays their "fair share" based on their own situation. Also the simplicity would make tax fraud much more difficult. Two, you do realize that you can't control behavior through legislation/taxes. They tried with alcohol. They've tried with cigarettes and "unhealthy" food.

SpanishMatMaster -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 6:58:05 AM)
Hello again, DesideriScuri. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri Your example was nuclear (...) my disagreement was specific to the power companies (...) I think you'll find more of that inelasticity than you might think. At least in the US. Well, my example was an example of an extreme situation on the aspect, that it is extremely hard to cover the "damage done", it was not meant as typical example. And my principles are not limited to the US and may admit exceptions :) that's why they are general ideas. However... In this example, I think there are two obvious breaks of the inelastic monopoly, also in the US... nuclear energy is not the only form of energy... and consuming less energy is definitely an option. Plus, my argument on developing technologies which help a company to take better care of its waste definitely apply (however, this can be a complex subject to handle and maybe I must expose much more for anybody to understand). quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri Actually, I disagree. Well, I disagree with you, sorry. This being an exposition of general ideas, I think that the concept of "property" is clear enough. If that helps I can write "capital owned by the subject being taxed". If this is still not enough - sorry, I will not enter here in a discussion on the nature of property or ALL its different forms. No way. Another thread, maybe. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri We can agree that taxing a negative is better than taxing a positive, but that's almost so general it's not even necessary to state. Would not say so, looking at how frequently positives are taxed, from profit to building a company, from getting a job to renew a permission, from getting a guilty man imprisoned to building a house. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri 1. Democratically decide? Tyranny of the majority at the expense of the minority. 50%+1 does not provide for everyone being equal. You are only equal if you are on the "correct" side. In some moment you decided that I understand consensus as 50%+1 and that I would like to disable all other guarantees of a modern democracy, including those established democratically by a wide consensus (precisely). I am standing here looking at my strawman while you punch it. But if you have problems with a real, modern democracy, I am sorry I consider them out of this topic, as they affect much more as the tax system, which is the matter of this thread IMHO. quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri 2. What is the difference between "tax only what we want to discourage" and "tax everything we want to discourage?" Did you err here, or am I simply not seeing the difference? You are not seeing that in the first case there can be things we want to discourage, but we do not tax, and in the second, there cannot be such things. Tax only what we want to discourage = Do not tax something, if we do not want to discourage it = If (x) is not to be discouraged THEN do not tax (x) => no-p implies no-q (which I said) Tax everything we want to discourage = If something is to be discouraged, then tax it = If (x) is to be discouraged THEN tax (x) => p implies q (which I did not say) ( (no-p implies no-q) does not imply (p implies q) ) for the same reason that ( (p implies q) does not imply (no-p implies no-q) ). Do you know first-order logic? I said: Vx\|x€{y\|tax(y)} => discourage(x) You translated: Vx\|x€{y\|discourage(y)} => tax(x) Best regards!

SpanishMatMaster -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 7:04:31 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: subsissy4bbc I'm sure other people will go through point by point and debate you. I just have two points. One, what is wrong with a flat tax? Everyone pays their "fair share" based on their own situation. Also the simplicity would make tax fraud much more difficult. Two, you do realize that you can't control behavior through legislation/taxes. They tried with alcohol. They've tried with cigarettes and "unhealthy" food. Hello! 1. Flat tax on what? If you answer me that I can answer you. My general ideas say nothing about the progressiveness of the tax so right now I do not understand your point, absolutely. I am sorry. 2. I am pretty sure that companies do consider the tax system carefully when calculating costs, and therefore strategies. I know that for sure because I participate in such calculations. So, speaking in general, I know for sure that you are wrong: taxes can affect behaviour. Speaking about alcohol and cigarettes, I would be glad if you shared conclusive scientific data showing that they are an exception. On the net in a first search, what I find is the opposite, and this for very soft taxes compared to what I would do to environmental damage. But I am all ears. Best regards.

thompsonx -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 7:10:48 AM)
quote: One would think that they would be paid out of profits...unless of course first energy is a non profit then it would be paid out of the operating budget. quote: Where do you think they get their operating budget or profits? Uh, from the rate-payers. quote: I'm going to guess that it isn't illegal. Without charging ratepayers, how is a company to pay a fine? Anything paid out by a power company is pretty paid for out of charges to rate-payers. There is no other way. quote: The company paid $800M to fix the problem and $28M in fines. One of the odd things (to me) was that the fines were not allowed to be passed down to rate-payers. How they were to pay those fines without charging rate-payers struck me as impossible. Th company makes money by selling electricity. That is called profit. The company gets fined for a violation and told that they may not pass the cost on to their customers. In english that means that the company may not raise rates to customers to cover the cost of the fines but instead pay the fine out of their profits that they get from selling electriciy.

SpanishMatMaster -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 7:13:12 AM)
I forgot to say: Thanks everybody for your participation, it is always nice to get the own ideas analysed and you are a good community for that. So, thanks everybody :)

thompsonx -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 7:17:22 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BamaD quote: ORIGINAL: Edwynn If the company complies with those instructions, then the fine is deducted from earnings, reducing the amount available for dividends. The shareholders pay. That was the intent of the directions in imposing the fine. Do you know how earning, dividends, and stock ownership work? Your claim that "there is no other way" leads me to believe that you might not. And when fines exceed profits? Sieze their asssets and sell them.

BamaD -> RE: General Ideas for a Tax System (5/17/2013 10:38:16 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: thompsonx quote: ORIGINAL: BamaD quote: ORIGINAL: Edwynn If the company complies with those instructions, then the fine is deducted from earnings, reducing the amount available for dividends. The shareholders pay. That was the intent of the directions in imposing the fine. Do you know how earning, dividends, and stock ownership work? Your claim that "there is no other way" leads me to believe that you might not. And when fines exceed profits? Sieze their asssets and sell them. Put them out of business, destroy all those jobs, and eliminate any service they were providing, brilliant!

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