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Japan's Hometown Tax

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Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#51

Post by _cbsz »

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…

> based on the way the government is set up, rural votes have disproportionate power, and for this reason the LDP has a tendency to pander to rural interests

Is there a Western government that isn't set up this way? You could write this same blurb about the United States. I would be very curious to hear about what happens when rural areas have political power consummate with their population instead of with their land area or with the mere fact of their historical existence. (For example, does it look less or more "fair"? Are there unexpected consequences, like maybe further depopulation of rural areas?)

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#52

Post by scott_s »

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.

This may be the story you're talking about: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2...

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#53

Post by dsfyu404ed »

21 wrote: post #11
pgz wrote: post #2

I always found this system very interesting, since the citizen can decide how some of their tax money is spent (besides voting). On the other hand I have always lived in Northern Italy, and around half of my taxes go to the poorer regions of Italy, mostly to be squandered by corruption, clientelism, and organized crime.

> On the other hand I have always lived in Northern Italy, and around half of my taxes go to the poorer regions of Italy Everybody says that, Catalonia that it pays more to Spain that it receives back, California and New York to the rest of US... But it's the only way to have nation states, otherwise we'd have to go back to city states (which some people like Taleb actually advice).

California and New York are the size of countries. Why couldn't they function on their own as countries? I think a lot of states would be better served if they operated more autonomously and the federal government managed less of their business. I get that in certain cases that's not the optimal situation for resource allocation but freedom has a price.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#54

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #38
pgz wrote: post #2

I always found this system very interesting, since the citizen can decide how some of their tax money is spent (besides voting). On the other hand I have always lived in Northern Italy, and around half of my taxes go to the poorer regions of Italy, mostly to be squandered by corruption, clientelism, and organized crime.

For US income taxes the only amount of your taxes that you can direct is $3 for the presidential election fund. Why not expand this and let you pick from a dozen or so categories?

Then people would be gravely offended by who was and wasn't on the list of choices.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#55

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

jessaustin wrote: post #33
overdrivetg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait - are you claiming that New Jersey is somehow bribing New Mexico for policy concessions? https://www.moneytips.com/is-your-state-a-net-payer-or-a-net...

New Mexico may be a bit of an outlier since they aren't deep red like some other western states? I would certainly say that New Jersey is bribing e.g. Montana, North Dakota, etc. If the residents of those states had their way, the Department of Interior would be run differently, entitlements would be lower, Israel wouldn't get so much support, etc.

> entitlements would be lower

That's just the political rhetoric. Red-staters love their entitlements just so long as they go to the "right" people.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#56

Post by munk-a »

luckydata wrote: post #41
tvanantwerp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 be…

Honestly, the only way to "win" the game at this point is to emigrate to somewhere sensible, Canada is nice!

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#57

Post by megaman2 »

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…

> but there's absolutely zero reason to allow the return gifts in the first place

There are reasons, but just ones that you don't agree with or haven't thought of. You need to understand that reciprocation is in the culture, and people are not purely rational economic actors. It's entirely possible some towns would outright refuse 'assistance' without being able to reciprocate somehow.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#58

Post by Brockenstein »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #54
asmithmd1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For US income taxes the only amount of your taxes that you can direct is $3 for the presidential election fund. Why not expand this and let you pick from a dozen or so categories?

Then people would be gravely offended by who was and wasn't on the list of choices.

Well they're already greatly offended by taxes and the idea that civilization requires money to run...

I think outside of being offended, you'd just have a hard to getting any agreements on what would qualify.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#59

Post by resoluteteeth »

_cbsz wrote: post #51
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…

> based on the way the government is set up, rural votes have disproportionate power, and for this reason the LDP has a tendency to pander to rural interests Is there a Western government that isn't set up this way? You could write this same blurb about the United States. I would be very curious to hear about what happens when rural areas have political power consummate with their population instead of with their lan…

It's actually interesting because in the US it's enshrined in the constitution with the way the senate is set up, so it's not even viewed as a problem.

In Japan the central government isn't supposed to work this way and it is as least viewed as a problem: the disparity in the power of votes is considered unconstitutional, but the supreme court isn't willing to actually invalidate election results (they made up a distinction between being "unconstitutional" and being in an "unconstitutional state" which is not at all supported by precedent (although it's a civil law country so technically there's no binding precedent) or the constitution), so the ruling LDP does the absolute bare minimum to act like they're trying to improve the situation so they can pretend their doing something while actually dragging their feet as much as possible.

Probably the main negative consequence of ensuring that all votes have equal power would be to make it easier for the central government to ignore the wishes of rural areas, but this depends on how the government is structured in other ways.

In Japan, prefectures are relatively weak. For example, Okinawa recently attempted to invalidate approval for filling in of land for the new US military base because residents of Okinawa want the base out, but there's basically zero chance that this will actually end up working because the central government considers the base essentially for national security.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#60

Post by Brockenstein »

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.

Right, and the other half of funding? The problem is the school in poor areas are still underfunded as a result, or if you prefer wealthy areas can afford to fund their schools a lot better. Either way the system isn't all equal for everyone is the points.

And even if you want to break it down further, some states are rather poorer than others, so that state funding for education is bound to be lean too relative to some wealthier states.

And what he's saying in some other countries schools are funded more evenly by the central government, not that U.S. schools receive no funding from our central government whatsoever.

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