[extropy-chat] Income Tax

[Jeff Davis]

--- Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The sales tax is however not the end of the way for
tax reform - think about the following tax: a tax on
any financial transaction whatsoever, any transfer of
ownership, the "universal transaction tax". <

I like it.  This is the first original alternative tax
idea I heard.  

My sense of the "unfairness" of a sales tax stems from
my impression that the non-wealthy pay a
disproportionate percentage of such a tax.  Rafal's
method seems, at first glance, to move toward
correcting this imbalance.  The wealthy make (I'm
supposing) substantial non-sales transactions all the
time, yes?

By my criteria of fairness, those who have more and
make more should pay more.  While this may seem
reasonable, it is not by itself helpful, since it
leaves us at square one: how do you calculate who pays
how much?

My notion--replacing income and other taxes-- has been
a flat net worth tax.  Say three, four, five percent. 
Whatever it takes to meet the budget.  So, for
example, if the total assets of the entire country
were say 50 trillion dollars, and the budget for a
given year were one trillion dollars, then the tax
would be two percent.  Clearly, the practical
difficulty with this would be in knowing, and
accurately, every individual's net worth.   

Rafal's method does not have this problem, though it
may have others.  
 
Best, Jeff Davis

   "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                           Ray Charles



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