.

I thought it was pretty funny too.

I was actually wondering whether this would be what the outcome of a modern voting tax would be in the US. Candidates just pay the tax for people who vote at polling stations they think are in their favor.

Sure. You're welcome to consider other hypothetical societies. I'd like to stick to ones that use taxes, at least in part, to generate revenue. I imagine that even very small states would have that need.

I'm not really interested in playing gotcha here, but you did say
and I don't really know how else to interpret that.



I'm curious what gives you this impression. The only two caveats I have given so far is that [1] I'm not convinced that progressive taxation is immoral, as some in this forum are, and I think that there are some very naive but convincing-sounding arguments in favor of it and [2] Pigouvian taxes alone are likely not to be able to generate sufficient revenues to support a state (even a small one). I am very uncertain about [2], but that is simply a gut reaction on my part.

If you'd like me to clarify further, I'm happy to. I don't want to discuss "how do we get there from here" issues, or really the unique circumstances of the US in 2010. I would also like to assume that the state is using coercion to raise revenues -- why else call it a tax? If you want to be really concrete, imagine a medium-sized Western democracy.

If the sorts of taxes that you think would be "best" vary too much to talk about them in the abstract, feel free to elaborate on why, because it is not entirely clear to me that this must be the case, especially since most states rely on very similar schemes at present.

Hmmm, I would like to treat all income as equal but that would certainly go against my position on the death tax since it would be hard to have a system like I described and not include death tax as income.

Good point, I like some of the other means of taxation presented by others in this thread. Perhaps I'm not thinking outside of the box. I want to have the burden of taxation to be as equal as possible amongst the people while still giving the government a reasonable budget. Even something like 1k per voting citizen per year would be a significant budget imo. It's a little regressive, but it does give a good sense of equality amongst the citizenry.

Yeah...I don't have a quality answer for this. The only thing I can think of at the moment would just be having an exemption for transactions from parties that are no longer alive. Certainly open to cheating, but I am not sure how much.

Without thinking on it too hard I would say that corporations would not exist in my hypothetical like they do in America. No taxes on corporations since they would not have legal standing as a person. Maybe it's just a grass is always greener position, but I think I would prefer people not having the ability to cloud themselves behind the corporate entity.

Also, politicians can go the old school route and sell bonds to raise money for their boondogles and such.

The great thing about national debt fears and placing more burden on our children or future generations is just how much money people avoid paying in taxes currently through cheating or misreporting. I always think a fun thing to say to piss people off when they say oh the next generation will be paying for blah blah blah is if only previous generations had paid the taxes they were supposed to pay they wouldn't have screwed the current generations so much.

Obviously this isn't what I truly think, but you can really make people mad with this reasoning

FWIW, the use of that quote as an arguement in favor of a progressive income tax system is kind of weak, IMO. Enough of Smith's other arguements are sufficient to indicate that he did not favor an income tax. That quote would really be a better arguement for something like a "luxury tax" I mentioned earlier. I don't know if that's where you were going though, to be fair.

This isn't a tax system at all. It's indistinguishable from charity, making this somewhat of an AC hijack.

JB- In general, it's the "progressive" part of progressive income tax that assorted special interest groups like the "fair" tax people focus on as being evil and immoral and unjust and omg won't somebody think of the (rich) children?

IOW, while a tiny fraction of people think any income tax(any tax at all, really) is slavery or whatever, a much larger group of people think a flat income tax is fine but a progressive income tax is socialism or whatever. Remember Joe the Plumber? That is the group that makes the quote amusing.

So to be a tax it must be involuntary?

Fly,

I understand what you're saying, but still don't think it applies to the Smith quote. Smith was an advocate of progressive taxation, but not on income. Therefore, the idea of a flat income tax is still not in accordance with Smith's writings. I generally agree. If I must work under the assumption that the state needs money (which I don't), I would prefer some type of progressive system be used to generate revenue. I just don't believe the fruits of one's labor should ever be subjected to taxation.

If you support the fair tax, why are you making these ill-reasoned posts on the poll tax?

It is completely fallacious to equate "Ownership rights in the government" to ownership of shares in a corporation. The decisions of corporations do not effect non-shareholders to anywhere near the extent that government would effect non-owners under your system.

If it makes sense that a person who can't pay poll tax should lose their vote, why shouldn't a person who can't pay the income tax lose their vote?

What about a state system in which there is no tax at all?

Imagine that there was no Fed, and the government didn't have to pay interest on the money that it borrows. Instead, it issues money and uses that to cover it's expenditures directly. That way inflation is steady and predictable, and the government is constrained by how much they are allowed to print and spend.

Thoughts?

I was answering Sholar's question, about what would be done to those who couldn't pay the poll tax, and they aren't ill-reasoned, they are the reasons the the policy was instituted in the first place.

And yes, the decisions of corporations effect non-shareholders, they effect customers, employees, competitors, business associates, and society in general. Moreover, the government is a corporation.

And following the logic of the poll tax, someone who can't pay their income taxes should lose their vote. Hell, it would be a lot better than sending them to prison.

And I highly recommend Fly actually research the fair tax before he makes false statements about it as he has already done.

Hint: the fair tax is progressive.

But again, let me reiterate, I am just as opposed to the poll tax as I am the income tax. While I obviously hate taxes in general, I prefer the fair tax above all others.

A. your not Adam Smith so if your gonna quote from Wealth of Nations you should cite it.

B. It is possible for a philosopher to be right about a great many things and still be wrong on others.

C. "contribute to the public expense" != support every extravagance and idiocy imaginable under the sun.

Thanks for the thoughts. I have only vague memories of discussing corporate structures here (and how people think they ought to structured in an ideal world, or AC-land); I'll have to search for those old threads.

Is the idea that the government will inflate the monetary supply in terms of the number of physical dollars, say, outstanding and do so in a constrained/statutory manner?

(This wouldn't preclude, for example, the government borrowing money and paying interest on it, so I want to make sure I am interpreting you correctly.)

If so, it would seem that this is a pretty regressive tax, since those who are required to hold most of their worth in cash (because they are using it) would find more of their income/net worth subject to this inflation tax.

(The removal of the federal reserve system is sort of unrelated to having an inflation tax like this, and since it would probably also have some interesting side effects -- although what those might be is likely to be a big point of contention between Austrians and others -- perhaps we would be wise to avoid discussing those here.)

What would be constraining this activity?

I explicitly cut my comments short in order to double-check with Sholar about what kinds of posts he wanted because I wanted to be polite and avoid hijacking his thread. If anything, your participation in the thread (which largely consists complaining about how others are participating) - maybe along with tomdemaine's semi-serious suggestion - is the hijack.

Who cares about the bolded? The OP didn't specify a particular revenue level that needed to be collected. You're just randomly adding premises to the discussion.

Again, with regard to the amount, you just made up this premise. The question in the OP is considerably more general than that. Both vhawk01 and I are addressing (or at least planning on addressing) the relative merits of different kinds of taxation.

Exactly. We all know that they are inflating the money supply right now. Unfortunately, they do this simply when they need more money. If they were constrained by law, they would know what the next year's budget would be and plan accordingly.

It probably would, unless they were able to make money to pay back the interest within their own budget. They could lend money to make some, for example.

No differently than right now. Except that the inflation tax is taking more, and more silently, while people are ALSO being taxed on their income.

On the other hand, the government is constrained, open, and accountable for their own actions, because they have no recourse to get money non-voluntarily from the people.

Possible downside would be disaster reaction when a huge amount of money and resources are needed quickly.

Well of course that's the problem. The law would be constraining the activity. The populace must keep stay vigilant, same as any political system imo. Also VERY strict penalties for governmental officials who misuse the system.

If these constraints can exist for an inflation tax, why can't it exist for any other form of tax?

In a perfectly competitive market for government (Tiebout model), people will migrate to communities that have exactly the level and type of government spending they desire, which they will pay a poll tax for. I assume this is the AC wet dream.

However, there are a couple of reasons that a near-perfectly competitive system of government may not survive if they emerged (let alone the logistics of getting there in the first place). Firstly, economies of scale may mean the optimal size of a community is quite large, thus smaller communities end up merging. Secondly, the lack of redistribution may cause resentment to build up among the underclass, who may revolt until the communities agree to merge or collude so they have sufficient market power to tax the rich.

The govt is in charge of constraining the govt, ldo. If that doesn't sound safe, don't worry there will of course not have the exact same interests and keep eachother in check

I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're asking.