Japan's Hometown Tax • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#41

Post by luckydata » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

tvanantwerp wrote: post #31

rayiner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. Half of all K-12 funding comes from state and federal sources, which are disproportionately directed to schools in lower income districts. There was a WaPo article a few years ago showing that, if all funding sources are accounted for, most states show little difference between funding for rich and poor districts, and many show poor districts are better funded.

Equalizing the funding doesn't help much if you're still stuck going to school based on where you live. If all the rich kids go to one school and all the poor kids go to another, it's entirely predictable that you'll have vastly different outcomes. I once conversed with a friend in college who had grown up upper-middle class and attended very nice public schooling. She told me that poor schools would be better if the…

That's the reason why sending more money to schools at some point doesn't do anything to improve outcomes. It's much better to spend on safety nets like single payer healthcare, unemployement support etc... so that parents can actually get more involved with their kids' education.

But in Mad Max America only the strong survives so none of that will ever happen. I hope the "winners" like the world they are creating because I find it fucking horrifying.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#42

Post by romed » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #27

rb808 wrote: post #22

The American system (& Japanese?) where schools are mostly funded by local taxes is a root cause of inequality, poverty and unfairness in the USA. Schools in Europe and Australia are funded by centralized government more evenly so doesn't have this problem and dont need this donate to a region system the article talks about. I think its much fairer.

This is not correct. Half of all K-12 funding comes from state and federal sources, which are disproportionately directed to schools in lower income districts. There was a WaPo article a few years ago showing that, if all funding sources are accounted for, most states show little difference between funding for rich and poor districts, and many show poor districts are better funded.

It would seem to be a mistake to generalize across the entire nation, and basing your analysis on a denominator of school districts will be weirdly biased; better would be on a student-weighted basis.

Locally, i can tell you that despite the bulk of funding coming via the state California district spending per pupil varies widely. The quite adjacent districts of Fremont, Oakland, and Piedmont spend $10k, $14k, and $20k per student, respectively.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#43

Post by Arnt » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #26

rb808 wrote: post #22

The American system (& Japanese?) where schools are mostly funded by local taxes is a root cause of inequality, poverty and unfairness in the USA. Schools in Europe and Australia are funded by centralized government more evenly so doesn't have this problem and dont need this donate to a region system the article talks about. I think its much fairer.

> Schools in Europe and Australia are funded by centralized government This has the other problem that in Europe, governments write all the education program to the letter and this leads to complete brainwashing of the kids or silly educational policies (like completely changing how kids learn how to read, which led to about half a generation of kids with very poor reading/orthographic skills in France just to name o…

This is HN not facebook. People here are used to reading metrics, so you can elaborate. Show numbers instead of saying "very poor". Link to graphs.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#44

Post by gwern » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #37

gwern wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider it perverse because it incurs overhead in making the payments (eg if you send a town $100, get back a gift card for $100, and cash it for $97, that's $3 burned for nothing whatsoever than if they could've just transferred $100 into your bank account or not taxed it in the first place), deadweight loss in gifts (you don't value those hometown meibutsu at their market value to other people), overhead from th…

It's only perverse and pointlessly burning money if you exclusively look at it from an economics perspective, but most countries have some sort of highly politicized redistribution mechanism, so it's also a sociological and political question. I.e. you can look at it like an accountant and consider it a 3¢ loss for every $1, or you could consider that perhaps a system like this increases societal goodwill towards red…

I struggle to see what beneficial social effects there are from most people cynically ticking a box on a website to get half back as a gift card they immediately sell for 97% face value. The original intent of the tax program in compensating rural areas, yes; what it has morphed into, no.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#45

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:31 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #28

jessaustin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inevitable given the political structure. Since votes are distributed by area and population rather than by wealth, wealthier political divisions will necessarily bribe poorer ones into political compromises that are closer to the wealthier divisions' preferences than they would have been without bribery. The only way to prevent that would be for the overall polity to have much lower taxes and thus much less mon…

"Bribe" is way too loaded, you could also call it social justice and redistribution, a way to give poorer areas better chances to improve their life. Saying that redistribution is bribery is about the same level of discourse as saying that taxes are theft and prison kidnapping.

Those who pay attention to our "justice" system might go along with part of that... Besides lots of these transfers have nothing to do with "social justice"; they're military spending or Drug War stupidity or similar. The point is, if Kansas were run the way that actual Kansans would democratically choose to run it, it would be even more awful than it already is. (It would also be better, in some ways, but we don't need to argue about that.) Those sweet federal dollars convince them to make different political decisions than they would have made otherwise.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#46

Post by rayiner » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

romed wrote: post #42

rayiner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. Half of all K-12 funding comes from state and federal sources, which are disproportionately directed to schools in lower income districts. There was a WaPo article a few years ago showing that, if all funding sources are accounted for, most states show little difference between funding for rich and poor districts, and many show poor districts are better funded.

It would seem to be a mistake to generalize across the entire nation, and basing your analysis on a denominator of school districts will be weirdly biased; better would be on a student-weighted basis. Locally, i can tell you that despite the bulk of funding coming via the state California district spending per pupil varies widely. The quite adjacent districts of Fremont, Oakland, and Piedmont spend $10k, $14k, and $2…

The funding levels are per capita obviously. And the point is not that funding levels don’t vary, but there is no systematic bias toward richer districts. Around here, for example, Baltimore and DC spend far more per student than the rich suburbs surrounding them.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#47

Post by romed » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #46

romed wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would seem to be a mistake to generalize across the entire nation, and basing your analysis on a denominator of school districts will be weirdly biased; better would be on a student-weighted basis. Locally, i can tell you that despite the bulk of funding coming via the state California district spending per pupil varies widely. The quite adjacent districts of Fremont, Oakland, and Piedmont spend $10k, $14k, and $2…

The funding levels are per capita obviously. And the point is not that funding levels don’t vary, but there is no systematic bias toward richer districts. Around here, for example, Baltimore and DC spend far more per student than the rich suburbs surrounding them.

You analysis was stated as "most states show ..." when the fact is you can add up the population of "most states" and not get anywhere near most of the people. So it's a mistake to think that way.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#48

Post by usaar333 » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

resoluteteeth wrote: post #10

Couching this in terms of Japanese culture is unhelpful in my opinion. The return gifts probably wouldn't exist in the first place elsewhere, but allowing them is simply a blatant loophole that various local governments have cynically abused to increase their revenue and this is something that would happen in any country. The biggest problem is that some local governments are apparently giving return gifts that have…

> . The whole reason for the first 2000 yen not being tax deductible is this is something you are only supposed to do if you seriously want your money to go to a local government, and allowing non-taxed return gifts defeats the intention of how the system is set up

I definitely found it strange Japan is allowing the local governments to gift 50% back.

In the US, legally any portion of a charitable contribution you get back in personal benefit (e.g. an expensive banquet) is not tax deductible.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#49

Post by malkia » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #22

The American system (& Japanese?) where schools are mostly funded by local taxes is a root cause of inequality, poverty and unfairness in the USA. Schools in Europe and Australia are funded by centralized government more evenly so doesn't have this problem and dont need this donate to a region system the article talks about. I think its much fairer.

When my son started at an LAUSD school (Los Angeles Unified School District), I was surprised of how much fund-raising is going on - for a school of 500 pupils (or roughly), the local (parent) association raises roughly $500,000. Now I live in relatively good area, where lots of people own houses, have good jobs, or their own businesses. But I can also imagine that just few miles to the east that won't be the case - hence school there might get more money, as they need to.

I certainly can't say which works best, but I'm appalled by the ass-licking during fund-raising events. It's beyond gross... Call me a socialist, but I'd rather spent my taxes on fixing this, without getting me involved community-wise, though every year we pay our "voluntary" debt, or you feel guilty about it (and not get invited to the yearly party or so... lol).

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#50

Post by JackFr » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

tvanantwerp wrote: post #31

rayiner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. Half of all K-12 funding comes from state and federal sources, which are disproportionately directed to schools in lower income districts. There was a WaPo article a few years ago showing that, if all funding sources are accounted for, most states show little difference between funding for rich and poor districts, and many show poor districts are better funded.

Equalizing the funding doesn't help much if you're still stuck going to school based on where you live. If all the rich kids go to one school and all the poor kids go to another, it's entirely predictable that you'll have vastly different outcomes. I once conversed with a friend in college who had grown up upper-middle class and attended very nice public schooling. She told me that poor schools would be better if the…

> I thought, what an ignorant and privileged position to think that, yes, a single mother working two jobs to make ends-meet has the time and energy to go to PTA meetings!

What a smug and condescending attitude!

Poor schools are a very hard problem. Your friend's point certainly only capture's one aspect of a many-faceted problem. However, her point is borne out, to some extent, by performance of inner city parochial schools:

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/education/where-children-...

"...a growing number of researchers who have found that poor, minority children do particularly well in Catholic schools compared with their public school peers.

...

Public school defenders insist that the comparisons are unfair because only the most motivated parents and children, however poor, choose Catholic schools..."

Rather than calling out your friend's privilege, how about assuming good faith on her part. If you assume she would like poor schools to improve as much as you would, how would your response have been different? Maybe you both could learn something.