I was listening to a tax discussion recently in which one person pointed out that the tax in question was an unfair tax for whatever reason and this got me thinking about different types of taxes and raised the question of what is a fair tax?
Like it or not along with government comes taxes. Our constitution does justify taxation and while our government goes far beyond their constitutional roles, there are justified jobs for which they need to collect money. So what they spend the money on aside, the question is what would be the fairest way to collect taxes.
The main types of taxes I can think of or income (I include any taxes on revenues, inheritance, capital gains etc in this category), sales taxes (including taxes such as gas, alcohol, cigarettes etc), property and flat tax.
After thinking this over I?d have to argue that sales tax would be the fairest form of tax (saying it was done on a national level) for a couple reasons.
First of all on a state by state level it doesn?t work. Anyone on the Mass boarder can see that as people flock over to NH to purchase larger items. But on a national level it would tax people on what they can afford. If necessities were tax free those struggling to get by would be able to spend on what they need and wouldn?t have money they couldn?t spare be taken from them at the point of a gun.
Income tax doesn?t work because it rewards criminal behavior. Illegally earned money or getting paid under the table allows people to avoid taxes.
Property taxes can fluctuate with the value of a home so an elderly person who?s lived in the same home 50 years may find the value of their home due to being in a ?prime? location has gone up such that they can no longer afford the taxes on a fixed income.
Same problem would go with a flat tax depending on how it was levied. I?ve heard the argument that if you take the national budget and divide by every man woman and child it comes to be about $6,000 per person so we each should pay $6,000 for everyone in our homes. Again, that $6,000 would be far less for the average single male but for an elderly person on a fixed income they may not be able to afford it. Not to mention those struggling families would be pushed right over the edge.
So without getting into the discussion of what the government is spending money on what are your thoughts as far as what would be the fairest way to collect taxes?
There really is no such thing as a fair tax. All methods of taxation hurt some people more then others.
We really shouldn't be worrying about fairness. It's overrated. Liberals will be worrying about fairness enough. It's our job to try and reduce them whenever and whereever we can.
Tracy
No tax is fair! All taxes require men with guns to come and rob you.
Quote from: lildog on January 17, 2006, 02:00 PM NHFTLike it or not along with government comes taxes.
Get rid of government and taxes go away. >:D
Great points in response so far!
Quote"without getting into the discussion of what the government is spending money on"
There is no point to discussing what is "fair" if we have virtually no say in what is done with our money.
Quote from: GT on January 17, 2006, 09:08 PM NHFT
Quote"without getting into the discussion of what the government is spending money on"
There is no point to discussing what is "fair" if we have virtually no say in what is done with our money.
And even if we did get to vote on it it would still be mob rule and we wouldn't be deciding what happens to our specific contribution.
I just don't understand what is the fetish of forcing people to pay taxes and then figuring out what to do with the money instead of having people pay directly. If you want police protection you pay the police if you want fire protection you pay the fire department. We are allowed to do this with insurance, why not other things?
A free market in fire protection.
You would have competing companies that offer subscription services to people. Each service would probably be rated by independent consumer reports and papers and word of mouth etc. homeowner Insurence companies would charge lower premiums for people who had fire protection services that the insurence company deemed worthy -- the same way they charge lower premiums if you have fire alarms and things. You'd probably still have the all volentere fire depts that anybody could call providing charety services.
Tracy
Quote from: eukreign on January 17, 2006, 09:25 PM NHFT
If you want police protection you pay the police if you want fire protection you pay the fire department. We are allowed to do this with insurance, why not other things?
Sorry but that?s just absurd!
There are certain things that need to be done on a community level. Police and fire are one of those things.
Let me give you a situation. You?re a well off person. Since you have expensive security alarms on you home, own a gun for self-protection, etc you see no reason to pay police for additional protection.
You?re only living relation is your wife.
She, knowing you don?t pay for the police, decides she wants to hook up with the hot pool guy and ditch you. She also doesn?t want to give up the house, the pool, the bank accounts etc. so she offs you.
Who?s going to investigate your murder? She sure as heck isn?t going to pay for police to look into what happened since she already knows.
So you?d be find with her walking away from your murder free as a bird?
And let?s look at one additional situation? you?re no longer the guy she offed but the NEXT guy she hooks up with. Had we a public police department they may have caught her but since the first guy didn?t think to hire them in advance they aren?t looking for her? now she hooks up with you and after a couple months gets board of you and offs you. See the problem here.
Quote from: lildog on January 18, 2006, 10:13 AM NHFT
Sorry but that?s just absurd!
There are certain things that need to be done on a community level. Police and fire are one of those things.
Let me give you a situation. You?re a well off person. Since you have expensive security alarms on you home, own a gun for self-protection, etc you see no reason to pay police for additional protection.
You?re only living relation is your wife.
She, knowing you don?t pay for the police, decides she wants to hook up with the hot pool guy and ditch you. She also doesn?t want to give up the house, the pool, the bank accounts etc. so she offs you.
Who?s going to investigate your murder? She sure as heck isn?t going to pay for police to look into what happened since she already knows.
So you?d be find with her walking away from your murder free as a bird?
And let?s look at one additional situation? you?re no longer the guy she offed but the NEXT guy she hooks up with. Had we a public police department they may have caught her but since the first guy didn?t think to hire them in advance they aren?t looking for her? now she hooks up with you and after a couple months gets board of you and offs you. See the problem here.
Sorry but your arguments are very typical and have been torn apart many times in many different places. If you really want to learn how an anarcho-capitalist society works I suggest you read up on mises.org and lewrockwell.com they have a huge amount of work on this subject.
To get you started: http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty11.asp
Excerpt:
Quote
"But how could a poor person afford private protection he would have to pay for instead of getting free protection, as he does now?" There are several answers to this question, one of the most common criticisms of the idea of totally private police protection. One is: that this problem of course applies to any commodity or service in the libertar?ian society, not just the police. But isn't protection necessary? Perhaps, but then so is food of many different kinds, clothing, shelter, etc. Surely these are at least as vital if not more so than police protection, and yet almost nobody says that therefore the government must nationalize food, clothing, shelter, etc., and supply these free as a compulsory monop?oly. Very poor people would be supplied, in general, by private charity, as we saw in our chapter on welfare. Furthermore, in the specific case of police there would undoubtedly be ways of voluntarily supplying free police protection to the indigent?either by the police companies themselves for goodwill (as hospitals and doctors do now) or by special "police aid" societies that would do work similar to "legal aid" societies today. (Legal aid societies voluntarily supply free legal counsel to the indigent in trouble with the authorities.)
There are important supplementary considerations. As we have seen, police service is not "free"; it is paid for by the taxpayer, and the taxpayer is very often the poor person himself. He may very well be paying more in taxes for police now than he would in fees to private, and far more efficient, police companies. Furthermore, the police companies would be tapping a mass market; with the economies of such a large-scale market, police protection would undoubtedly be much cheaper. No police company would wish to price itself out of a large chunk of its market, and the cost of protection would be no more prohibitively expensive than, say, the cost of insurance today. (In fact, it would tend to be much cheaper than current insurance, because the insurance indus?try today is heavily regulated by government to keep out low-cost com?petition.
Quote from: lildog on January 18, 2006, 10:13 AM NHFT
Quote from: eukreign on January 17, 2006, 09:25 PM NHFT
If you want police protection you pay the police if you want fire protection you pay the fire department. We are allowed to do this with insurance, why not other things?
Sorry but that?s just absurd!
There are certain things that need to be done on a community level. Police and fire are one of those things.
Let me give you a situation. You?re a well off person. Since you have expensive security alarms on you home, own a gun for self-protection, etc you see no reason to pay police for additional protection.
You?re only living relation is your wife.
She, knowing you don?t pay for the police, decides she wants to hook up with the hot pool guy and ditch you. She also doesn?t want to give up the house, the pool, the bank accounts etc. so she offs you.
Who?s going to investigate your murder? She sure as heck isn?t going to pay for police to look into what happened since she already knows.
So you?d be find with her walking away from your murder free as a bird?
And let?s look at one additional situation? you?re no longer the guy she offed but the NEXT guy she hooks up with. Had we a public police department they may have caught her but since the first guy didn?t think to hire them in advance they aren?t looking for her? now she hooks up with you and after a couple months gets board of you and offs you. See the problem here.
Lildog, ultimately your responce is a socialist one. You say poor people wouldn't be able to afford basic protection. In principle this argument isn't any different from the arument that poor people couldn't afford food. But we all know that the freer the food markets the cheeper food is and the easier it is forpoor people to have it and the cheeper it is the run charities to help the feew that truly can't.
The fact is their are already private charaties that help provide protection because the cops are incompetant or if they're not, care more about protecting their turf then actually protecting people. Many churches and charities offer shelters for instance funded by donations and their are many organizations that donate legal services to help people sho can't afford it, from the ACLU to the NRA, and the Ruthaford foundation. How much more money would be availible to these organizations who provide these sorts of charities if money wasn't diverted by force into protection and legal socialism.
That really wasn't your question though. It was "what is a fair tax." And the fact is, the only way for a tax to be fair is for it to be nonexistant. So if you want socialised protection and legal services, unfair taxes are something that you're going to need to live with.
Tracy
Quote from: lildog on January 18, 2006, 10:13 AM NHFTYou?re only living relation is your wife.
She, knowing you don?t pay for the police, decides she wants to hook up with the hot pool guy and ditch you. She also doesn?t want to give up the house, the pool, the bank accounts etc. so she offs you.
Who?s going to investigate your murder? She sure as heck isn?t going to pay for police to look into what happened since she already knows.
Your drinking buddies can avenge your murder. ;D
What happens if your wife kills you and pays off the cops to not do anything?
What if your wife kicks you out of the house and uses the courts and the cops to keep you away from your kids and possessions? Oh yea ..... then you would be me. :(
I can think of very little situations where I wished I could use the governments power but many where I wished noone else could use it.
"What if your wife kicks you out of the house and uses the courts and the cops to keep you away from your kids and possessions? Oh yea ..... then you would be me."
That sucks Russell.
About fifteen years ago I had something similar happen to me. I decided I didn't like my (first) wife so I separated from her. She came to where I was living while we were separated and started a fight (verbal). When it was over she got very mad at me and said "if I wanted to I could get a restraining order on you and you'd never see your kids!" I responded by saying she couldn't because I'd never "laid a hand on you or the kids". She responded by saying I can, my lawer said I could but I said no, now watch me. The next day I got a call from my lawyer. It was done. Without me ever steping into a courtroom I was convicted of the crime of stupidity believing that our justice system has anything to do with justice. My lawyer explained that the restraining order was "mutual" and niether of us was to be within 1000' of the other. I than explained that when she came home from getting said restraining order she so badly needed, she'd violated it because we lived within 1000' of each other! Didn't matter, that's not really what it means. Huh? Honestly even if my house was broken into or car stolen, I'd only report such events as a pre-emptive strike to keep ME from being somehow incriminated in something R/T the theft or the goods stolen from me. I've absolutly no faith in our crminal justice system! It's an us against them mentality and THEY started that. The cops and judges are part of an organized crime syndicate known as the US government. I feel safer around gangsters than cops.
So I guess Vermass doesn't like paying taxes either.
My answer to the question...
Assuming you actually need taxes and government, I would be most in favor of the land tax, as I believe it is the most fair and most moral.
The income tax is essentially a tax on the sale of your labor, so everything wrong with a sales tax is also wrong with an income tax.
A sales tax requires the government to inject itself into what would otherwise be voluntary transactions. It requires recordkeeping and puts you in the position of proving your innocence (as opposed to them proving your guilt).
A sales tax also requires a police state, since the very existance of the sales tax creates a "black market" (which should be called a white market) that must be combatted.
A tax on property can be considered a retroactive, and continuing, tax on your labor. (Your labor was required to earn the property)
I agree that it is more important to try to keep taxes low than it is to find a "fair" tax. That's why its important to try to have as few types of taxes as possible. Fewer tax types makes it easier to watch the bastards.
A general sales tax is hard to keep low because at any particular time the "bite" is small. That's an advantage of a land tax - you typically see just how large the bite is.
QuoteSo you?d be find with her walking away from your murder free as a bird?
And what percentage of murders are actually solved by the local police? What if, instead of the pool guy, she hooked up with say the evidence room cop at the local PD?
Quote from: tracysaboe on January 18, 2006, 01:12 PM NHFTLildog, ultimately your responce is a socialist one.
I fully acknowledge that when it comes to community level protection that that approach is socialistic in nature and I accept that. This is one of the areas where I lean more toward being a constitutionalist then a libertarian in my views.
If you look at the way our founding fathers set up this country, they put the majority of it on individual responsibility but they also acknowledged the need for a government and the need for some community services. Some of those services over time and with new inventions that came up along the way are no longer necessities as they were when this country was founded (such as the need for a post office since letters were the ONLY way to communicate back then).
But I digress? we have started down that road I hoped to avoid which is discussing the validity of where the tax dollars are being spent.
How can we not discuss where the dollars go if that is relevant to fairness? I think a fair tax is one where there is a clear relationship between what you pay and what you get. If property tax pays for schools, then is it fair for a landed small family to pay many times more than the hard working Mormon with 7 kids? No relationship, means unfair.At least to me. A lot of times a head tax makes more sense to me.
Cathleen
User fees. You use it, you pay for it.
No monopolies.
Quote from: rhelwig on January 18, 2006, 06:50 PM NHFTI agree that it is more important to try to keep taxes low than it is to find a "fair" tax. That's why its important to try to have as few types of taxes as possible. Fewer tax types makes it easier to watch the bastards.
Very well said! Not to mention you bring up a point I?ve said in conversation a number of times? if many of those people who turn to the government for little serves here and there that the government has no business being in (such as forced charities) saw how much the government actually takes from the average person total there would be a massive revolt in this country.
I had this conversation with my parents soon after I moved to NH and they were shocked that my property taxes where so high (actually though when you look at what my home is appraised at vs. theirs my house is much higher but they weren?t considering that). I pointed out to them that NH has no sales or income taxes and started looking at what they pay in income and sales taxes. My parents quickly realizes that they pay a much higher percent of their annual earnings then I do but since it?s broken up in so many different ways they didn?t realize just how much is being take from them.
In fact if the free state project wants to quickly gain more members they should go state by state looking for volunteers to log ALL the taxes they pay then add them up and show what a random person pays each year to the government (We?re talking all levels added up here) you?d have people banging on the door to join up the fight. Think about it, if you live in a state like MA or NY add up your property tax bill, income taxes, sales taxes, car registration, cost of stamps, any fees like hunting licenses etc and just look at what is taken from you. And if you really want to depress yourself, add up your share of costs for services you actually use and don?t pay for directly such as buying stamps to use the post office. For instance, say you use the town library (even if it?s only once every couple months) take the town?s library budget and divide it by whatever the offset is between residential and commercial property tax (for example in Merrimack residents pay 49% of the total budget) then divide by the number of homes in your town. Look at the difference between what you are paying and what you actually use from the government. But alas, I?m preaching to the choir here.
I think taxes on corporations might be legitimate. As corporations are a protected class, a public entity and owe their existence to government. Of course I am dubious that allowing corporations to exist, as a protected class, is fair either.
Quote from: cathleeninnh on January 19, 2006, 10:12 AM NHFT
hard working Mormon with 7 kids?
or the Roman Catholic with 7 kids.
Quote from: Dreepa on January 19, 2006, 12:16 PM NHFT
Quote from: cathleeninnh on January 19, 2006, 10:12 AM NHFT
hard working Mormon with 7 kids?
or the Roman Catholic with 7 kids.
Just because someone has a bunch of kids does not mean they use the public school system.
A head tax on minors would be taxation without representation, unless you let minors vote, or give the gardian that vote.
Quote from: dead president on January 19, 2006, 12:42 PM NHFT
Quote from: Dreepa on January 19, 2006, 12:16 PM NHFT
Quote from: cathleeninnh on January 19, 2006, 10:12 AM NHFT
hard working Mormon with 7 kids?
or the Roman Catholic with 7 kids.
Just because someone has a bunch of kids does not mean they use the public school system.
A head tax on minors would be taxation without representation, unless you let minors vote, or give the gardian that vote.
What?s being discussed isn?t a head count as much as a user fee. People who have kids pay for the services those kids use.
Unfortunately this is a battle that will NEVER be won in our life times? the government pays for education and that isn?t going to change. I?d at least like to see parents (and I?m speaking as a parent here) pay for non-educational activities such as extra curricular sports.
One battle I think would be winnable in our lifetime that would help tenfold is to at least get the government out of running education? they want to pay for it, fine let them. But let?s open the market to real competition. This will drive costs down and quality up as schools would need to compete for our dollars. Then the government can turn around and look to see what the average cost is and cut each family a check for that amount per kid (which would be a lot less then we?re spending now) and they could use that money any way they see fit for their kids education. If you want a better school you pay the extra. You want a very cheap school and use the extra for tutors and extra books? fine! Anyway you look at it, it would be a vast improvement over where we are now.
Just look at colleges, we have some of the best in the world? why, because they have to compete to get your dollars.
I think that for certain items as user tax.
That would be the fairest.
I think that a national sales tax would also be better than income tax.
If you don't buy a lot of stuff then you don't get taxed.
I just finished reading Neil Boortz and John Linder's book "The Fair Tax Book." OK but I don't see the government keeping their hands out of the batter and trying to "fix" it. Also, the prebate idea leaves a bad taste in my craw. You have to register with the remnants of the tax system to get it. The government just wants to know who and where we are.
Quote from: patmccotter on January 20, 2006, 03:08 PM NHFT
I just finished reading Neil Boortz and John Linder's book "The Fair Tax Book." OK but I don't see the government keeping their hands out of the batter and trying to "fix" it. Also, the prebate idea leaves a bad taste in my craw. You have to register with the remnants of the tax system to get it. The government just wants to know who and where we are.
Boortz and Linder have gone beyond disingenous, straight into outright dishonesty when they claim the Fair Tax will "eliminate the IRS". So, okay, you change the name to "Tax Prebate Accounting Service"... it's still going to be just as big and have just as much control over your money. No solution is workable so long as the government gets their hands on your money before you do, then gets to decide how much of it you get back.
I can't imagine any libertarian or smaller-government advocate embracing putting the entire nation on welfare via monthly "prebate" checks. Those who have fallen for the Fair Tax plan apparently got all giddy when they heard "eliminate the IRS", and stopped critiquing the plan at that point.
Kevin
A fair tax is just a ploy by those rich Republicans to pay less taxes. This fair tax that Bortz talks about will harm the lower and middle class, and help people like myslef earning in the top braket.
But if you buy secondhand it won't be taxed! We're just going to tax NEW items! ::)
OK, I'll play.
If you pay for something you use, it is a fee, not a user tax.
If you accept obscene federal spending, than the 'Fair Tax' is probably better than all of the taxes it replaces.
If you accept the existance of government and believe it's sole function is to protect citizens and all citizens get equal protection, than the only fair tax would be a head tax. The cost of providing protection divided by the number of people. Individual pays X, family of 5 pays 5X.
On the subject of "fair taxation", I'll address the national sales tax idea.
With the FairTax, the government would soon have databases of every transaction in the entire country. Every economic aspect of our lives would be under tight government control.
FairTax proponents push for a national sales tax while ignoring the near impossibility of eliminating the 16th amendment. This would leave us with yet another national tax.
The FairTax would be a complete disaster on many fronts, the least of which is the rapid destruction of consumer privacy and expansion of the government.
All monopolies of force are illegitimate. The heart of government beats inside each of us with violence and death, and pumps blood of pure evil through the veins of all who participate in it. We should not fund or participate in government at all, through any means.
Sincerely,
Michael
Ex-Vermont State Director of Americans for Fair Taxation
So long as government --all levels, from school board to federal-- remains as large and powerful as we have today, there will be no fair tax. So long as government continues to derive its power not from the consent of the governed, but through coercion, intimidation, and bribery of the governed, then taxes it imposes will not be fair.
Okay, that much said... once we've reduced spending by reducing government power, then whatever is left should be funded thusly: First, direct user fees to the maximum extent possible, with such fees going only to the activity for which they are collected (and no profit allowed). Second, a head tax for whatever is left over, meaning the general cost of administrating government (minimal, since we've already slashed as much as possible).
Kevin
Quote from: KBCraig on January 21, 2006, 09:45 AM NHFT
So long as government --all levels, from school board to federal-- remains as large and powerful as we have today, there will be no fair tax. So long as government continues to derive its power not from the consent of the governed, but through coercion, intimidation, and bribery of the governed, then taxes it imposes will not be fair.
Okay, that much said... once we've reduced spending by reducing government power, then whatever is left should be funded thusly: First, direct user fees to the maximum extent possible, with such fees going only to the activity for which they are collected (and no profit allowed). Second, a head tax for whatever is left over, meaning the general cost of administrating government (minimal, since we've already slashed as much as possible).
How about just putting everything into use fees? When the use fees get too much, people will start using the free market instead :-)
Quote from: eukreign on January 21, 2006, 09:58 AM NHFT
How about just putting everything into use fees?
That's what I suggested, for all services and such. But there will always remain some small amount of overhead, such as the cost of elections, printing and archiving laws, minutes, records, etc. For those things, which aren't "used" by anyone in particular, and don't benefit anyone more than anyone else, a head tax makes since.
In my ideal world, a couple of bucks a year per capita should suffice.
Kevin
Quote from: KBCraig on January 21, 2006, 11:15 AM NHFT
Quote from: eukreign on January 21, 2006, 09:58 AM NHFT
How about just putting everything into use fees?
That's what I suggested, for all services and such. But there will always remain some small amount of overhead, such as the cost of elections, printing and archiving laws, minutes, records, etc. For those things, which aren't "used" by anyone in particular, and don't benefit anyone more than anyone else, a head tax makes since.
In my ideal world, a couple of bucks a year per capita should suffice.
Kevin
Okay, I can live with a couple of bucks a year! 8)
That would make it what? $580,000,000
Should be enough to run the elections and print stuff.
I can even live with 4 bucks a year. That would bring us to a billion bucks. If the government can't run elections and print money for a billion dollars that's just too damn bad.
Quote from: eukreign on January 21, 2006, 11:23 AM NHFT
If the government can't run elections and print money for a billion dollars that's just too damn bad.
Why should the government print money? ;)
Quote from: rhelwig on January 21, 2006, 01:49 PM NHFT
Quote from: eukreign on January 21, 2006, 11:23 AM NHFT
If the government can't run elections and print money for a billion dollars that's just too damn bad.
Why should the government print money? ;)
In that case why should the government even collect taxes? ;)
Taxes and fiat money are equally evil.
The government has no business getting involved in money.
On that note, I just spotted (http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2007/04/19/when-government-has-your-identity-you-arent-safe/#comment-41199) an IRS bureaucrat posting links for Neal Boortz's "Fair Tax" (NOT!) from WORK. I'm not sure what to make of it.
Whenever I hear someone arguing that the government MUST perform a certain task and I think to myself that there are enough people agreeing with that person to impose that viewpoint with votes (say 50.1% for the sake of discussion), then I can't help but think that's enough people to pull out their checkbook and support that. I tell my liberal friends they could easily afford to support public education and welfare if they didn't have to contribute to national defense, which they think deserves a budget of about $75 a year, and the inverse for my conservative friends.
Anyone ever considered the idea of replacing our compulsory government with one that runs either like a charity or a non-profit business? Perhaps a large corporation that you could buy shares in and your total influence on that organization (votes) would be based on how many shares you'd bought over your lifetime. You could even sell your shares (your influence) for some amount smaller than what a new share costs. And of course, even better, there could be many of these to choose from. Local activity would tend to be more effective when possible.
Of course, this organization should not have any real authority over others beyond what people personally choose to extend to it. For instance, you could hire people who's job it is to keep an eye out for violations of people's rights and write up reports when there is a real crime (one with a victim), but these "police" wouldn't have any special authority to act beyond what any citizen would be allowed to do. If I see a person being robbed, it is my prerogative to assist the victim if I want and since force is being used, force is justified. The difference for the "policeman" is it would be his or her job to act. Of course, a report written by one of these people would have no more official value than a report written by someone else. It's just a tool for information and their word is no better than yours or mine.
This system doesn't employ taxes, because money collected voluntarily isn't actually a tax. But in essence, I guess I'm saying that a fair tax is one that isn't extracted by force.