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Japan's Hometown Tax

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Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#141

Post by thaumasiotes »

Retric wrote: post #69
thaumasiotes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the overhead of the system is paid for out of the tax savings you get by participating in the program. As I understand it: 1. Earn $2000 in Tokyo. 2. Owe $200 to Tokyo. 3. Donate $80 to Gifu. 4. Receive $40 from Gifu. 5. Liquidate gifts for $38.80 You just saved almost 20% on your income taxes. This presumably lowers the deadweight loss associated with them. Does it lower it by more or less than the 3%…

When you can just lower tax revenue by 40$ and keep 40$, a system that lowers tax revenue by 40$ and only gives you 38.80$ is less efficient. Why does someone else not you get that 1.20$ from your income? Remember, long term the government ends up raising the taxes to cover that 40$ and your just out 1.20$ for zero gain. On top of that even if you kept the full 40$, the dead weight loss of extra paperwork is pure eco…

So the effects of the program are:

1. Lower Tokyo's income tax by 20%

2. Transfer 25% of Tokyo's (reduced) income tax out to rural areas chosen for sentimental reasons.

3. Incur overhead costs of 3% of the value transferred. This seems comparable to what you'd pay to directly transfer through Square.

It strikes me as a little excessive to look at this list of effects and condemn the system as "perverse".

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#142

Post by dragonwriter »

eiaoa wrote: post #131
Frondo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states; For those of us living in urban areas, we're simply vastly underrepresented in federal government, and quite a few of us don't like it.

> Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states; It really depends on how you conceptualize it: there isn't much of an issue if you think of the Senate as a body that represents states as sovereign political entities not population. IIRC, Senators were origin…

> It really depends on how you conceptualize it: there isn't much of an issue if you think of the Senate as a body that represents states as sovereign political entities not population.

That doesn't remove the problen, it just clarifies that it is a fundamental design problem and not a problem with an implementation details.

> If the Senate is to be reorganized to be proportional to population

That's a bad solution.

A better solution is just to transfer it's quasi-executive powers to the House, and it's quasi-judicial powers either to the House or the Supreme Court (if the House, then some consideration may need to be done of how charging works for impeachment, but that's not an insurmountable problem), and perhaps reduce it's legislative powers as has been done with the similarly problematic British House of Lords.

Or (and this can be combined with the above) rearrange it so that both seats from a state are in the same class (elected simultaneously), and instead of FPTP mandate a two-seat, preference ballot, proportional method like STV for Senate elections.

Besides, you can't restructure the Senate to make it proportional to population (at least without unanimity among the states), as that is literally the one thing that an Amendment cannot do. (There used to be another, but that was time-limited.)

> The current comprise means neither small nor large states can ram through legislation that neglects the other's interests.

Small states are slightly overrepresented in the House, radically overrepresented in the Senate and in judging electoral votes, and overrepresented at a level between those two in the Electoral College.

There's no real compromise or two-sided balance there.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#143

Post by [deleted] »

ensignro2340 wrote: post #133
narag wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that the current consensus was that races don't really exist. "Modern" racism can be more subtle than that, more about xenophobia or just classism.

> I thought that the current consensus was that races don't really exist. Races do not exist biologically[0][1], but they do 'exist' as a social construct[2][3][4]. And I second your second sentence :) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrKrGkgeww4&index=4&list=PLy... [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism [3] https://www.theatlant…

[deleted]

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#144

Post by hyperpape »

rayiner wrote: post #134
hyperpape wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not misleading. If each state is internally equal, but richer states have much higher funding, that's still a case where richer districts get more funding, just not one that's visible within any one state. Something related has happened in recent elections: higher income is correlated with voting Republican in every state, but richer states are typically bluer. So if you aggregate by state, it looks like there's…

> If each state is internally equal, but richer states have much higher funding, that's still a case where richer districts get more funding, just not one that's visible within any one state. The U.S. isn't like the EU, where there are "rich" states and "poor" ones. Adjusted for purchasing power, the states are fairly closely clustered in terms of income: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vwpy8_glsgc/Vi5llZ9ZILI/AAAAAAAAIv..…

I see what looks like $26k vs. $38%, so that's more like a ratio of 2:3, isn't it? That said, it puts an upper bound on how large the discrepancies could be.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#145

Post by pcmaffey »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #14
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, mostly to be squandered by corruption, clientelism, and organized crime. Heh, funny that richer parts of the EU say this about Italy itself.

As they say, everywhere has its "south".

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#146

Post by mempko »

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?

I think because, at the federal level, taxes don't dictate how much one part of the pie gets vs the other. Budgets determine that. The federal government doesn't use taxes to pay for different parts of that pie. Taxes are a way to control inflation and influence behavior, that's it.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#147

Post by asmithmd1 »

asah wrote: post #140
killerdhmo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a game if you want to try it for yourself. I agree I would be curious to aggregate https://www.federalbudgetchallenge.org/

awesome! I took it, did pretty well: $2.61T spending decreases $3.94T increased revenue $2.85T deficit (i.e. tackle via economic growth aka increased revenue due to increased GDP) interesting to see how impactful a public health plan is ($158B) and raising the limit on social security income ($633B) and 2% VAT ($885B).

Yeah, adding a public option (a.k.a. Medicare for all) actually decreases the budget deficit. So why aren't we doing this?

If Social Security is an entitlement program like any other, why is there any max income? Why is it only on "earned" income?

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#148

Post by dorfsmay »

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?

So people educated with public funds but without kids will allocate 0$ to education, then complain that youths these days just hang in the street doing no good, and allocate more of their tax towards policing?

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#149

Post by MereInterest »

dragonwriter wrote: post #142
eiaoa wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just one nitpick: the anti-democratic nature of the Senate (and the Electoral college, while we're at it) is very much seen as a problem by a lot of people living outside the sparsely populated rural states; It really depends on how you conceptualize it: there isn't much of an issue if you think of the Senate as a body that represents states as sovereign political entities not population. IIRC, Senators were origin…

> It really depends on how you conceptualize it: there isn't much of an issue if you think of the Senate as a body that represents states as sovereign political entities not population. That doesn't remove the problen, it just clarifies that it is a fundamental design problem and not a problem with an implementation details. > If the Senate is to be reorganized to be proportional to population That's a bad solution.…

> Besides, you can't restructure the Senate to make it proportional to population (at least without unanimity among the states), as that is literally the one thing that an Amendment cannot do. (There used to be another, but that was time-limited.)

Though, if there was enough support, it could be done with two amendments. The first would be an amendment to Article V, removing the requirement of unanimous changes to the Senate composition. The second would actually change it.

The likelihood of that happening is effectively nil, but it is allowed by the rules set out in the Constitution.

Re: Japan's Hometown Tax

#150

Post by coldtea »

delinka wrote: post #102
coldtea wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the subtle racism towards southern italians...

Are Souther Italians their own race?

Somewhat, since they include ancient Greek and old-time islamic ancestry (as far as I know). According to Wikipedia: "There is a noticeable genetic difference between Sardinians, Northern Italians and Southern Italians. People from the North seem to be close to the French population, while those from the South overlap with Balkan and other southern European populations".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Italy

But that's beside the point. I invoked the modern use of the term "racism" that includes different ways of segregating a population and not just genetics. "Southerners are lazy, corrupt" etc. Call it cultural racism if you wish.

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