Pushing for flat tax, but no mention of Andorra or Isle of Man. Guess those aren't considered growth centers to support their argument
Well they clearly haven't flat tax deregulated enough! /s
Its not flat enough
Taxing Growth
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: Taxing Growth
#42I'm starting to believe "economic growth" is fiction. Just because an item has a higher price does not mean it's higher output. If we measure the value of things based on say the energy + labor cost to produce it, economic output (or GDP) will look very different. I'm not saying that's a good measure, but that there are other ways to look at it and the current one seems broken. When Elon Musk says the only way to sol…
They do adjust for higher prices (inflation) in GDP calculations though.
We will have to drastically change the tax base if automation really takes off. Every individual company or industry is rushing to flush out their workers but someone has to make money to buy their products eventually and I doubt they'll enjoy the level of taxes needed to maintain an economy if they all manage to dump their employees at the same time.
Re: Taxing Growth
#43> It’s core argument is simple: in a world where talent and capital move easily […] I'm not sure about the talent part: unless you're strictly talking about remote work, going to a new country is not what I would think of as "easy". > Doug explained why a staged path to a 20% flat tax […] It seems to me that flat taxes ignore the marginal utility of every new dollar of income. What exactly is having the top income ea…
I'm pretty sure that wealth accumulated by the very rich at the expense of the poor is bad for total economic development because we drastically under-estimate the value of properly developing human beings. We see enormous flourishing in society whenever labor is given more power for whatever reason (usually mass deaths) because this increases the amount of resources which flow towards raising children, who then beco…
I think a problem is to think that people become rich at the expense of the poor. This is not a zero-sum game.
This leads to the erroneous assumption that making the rich less rich will make the poor less poor. That's obviously not the case.
Re: Taxing Growth
#44Re: Taxing Growth
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not flat enough
The only line flat enough for industry to not come back asking for more cuts will be the flat strike through line on any taxes that they pay.
I would like to introduce a concept - negative taxation - you (the taxpayer) pay us a royalty for gracing you with our presence.
Re: Taxing Growth
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure that wealth accumulated by the very rich at the expense of the poor is bad for total economic development because we drastically under-estimate the value of properly developing human beings. We see enormous flourishing in society whenever labor is given more power for whatever reason (usually mass deaths) because this increases the amount of resources which flow towards raising children, who then beco…
I think a problem is to think that people become rich at the expense of the poor. This is not a zero-sum game. This leads to the erroneous assumption that making the rich less rich will make the poor less poor. That's obviously not the case.
It isn't a zero sum game, but people still get rich at the expense of the poor, sometimes. There are different ways to accumulate wealth and some are better for society than others.
I object to the observation "wealth isn't zero sum" being used to sop up every possible objection to the way the system currently works.
Re: Taxing Growth
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> GDP per capita has been declining in the UK not true: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CN?location... There were declines in 2009 andd 2020, for reasons that out to be fairly obvious, but overall consistent growth > that also means retaliatory barriers from the EU, which is still the largest trading partner (41% of exports, twice the volume to the 2nd export market, which is the US However, trade wi…
> but overall consistent growth Gunna need to inflation adjust that one bud, its not decline, but it is not great . https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KN?location...
Thanks, I meant to link to a constant number.
It still debunks the post I replied to.
its not great, but very similar to the closest comparable economies: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KN?end=2024...
Re: Taxing Growth
#48The problem with the UK tax system is not that it is progressive. In fact, once you add NI it is not all that strongly progressive. The problem is that complexity of tax law, the number of loopholes, incentives, refunds.... The really big problem is that people on low incomes do not have an incentive to work because the loss of benefits means they are barely any better off from working. That is a strong argument for…
Read a comment some stories back, that all loss of benefits should be gradual on a curve, never with cliffs. So that you'd pay a few hundred thousand in taxes and get a benefits check for 1 dollar, or pound or whatever.
The UK does not have many cliffs, but the curve is too steep.
There is also a very high effective marginal for high earners in certain circumstances (particular range of incomes, have children). People complain about his as well as the steep loss of benefits. Its very rarely the same people complaining about both.
Re: Taxing Growth
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but overall consistent growth Gunna need to inflation adjust that one bud, its not decline, but it is not great . https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KN?location...
Thanks, I meant to link to a constant number. It still debunks the post I replied to. its not great, but very similar to the closest comparable economies: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KN?end=2024...
Why do you feel the need to "debunk" my comment especially when the data do show the decline of GDP per capita I mentioned? Of course you'll always be able to claim that I was wrong by picking a suitable baseline year... But why? My point was to highlight how the lack of growth is a big issue.
Do you have something constructive to discuss on the topic of the article?
Re: Taxing Growth
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure that wealth accumulated by the very rich at the expense of the poor is bad for total economic development because we drastically under-estimate the value of properly developing human beings. We see enormous flourishing in society whenever labor is given more power for whatever reason (usually mass deaths) because this increases the amount of resources which flow towards raising children, who then beco…
I think a problem is to think that people become rich at the expense of the poor. This is not a zero-sum game. This leads to the erroneous assumption that making the rich less rich will make the poor less poor. That's obviously not the case.
> This leads to the erroneous assumption that making the rich less rich will make the poor less poor. That's obviously not the case.
Taking more money from the poor makes them more poor.
Taking more from the rich 'harms' them less because of the margin utility of money: taking $1k from someone making $160k is qualitatively different from someone making $60k. Taking 20% from someone making $160k ($32k) is qualitatively different than taking 20% from someone making $60k ($12k).
So if you want to have X revenues for funding government, you can take it from those who have more marginal need of it, or those who have less.