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comment by briandmyers
briandmyers  ·  2920 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: As a nation, what is the best way to tax my citizen?

Sales taxes (compared to income taxes) are inherently harder on the poor than the rich - the poor spend nearly all their income, so are taxed on nearly 100% of it. The rich are taxed less, according to how much of their income they actually spend. So naturally, the rich will always love sales taxes in favour of income taxes.

I'd prefer a govt that didn't tax citizens at all on their income OR their spending, as much as possible. Once upon a time there was no income tax in the USA at all.





rob05c  ·  2919 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    the rich will always love sales taxes in favour of income taxes.

Further, the wealthy gain far less in direct income than capital gains. So they're still pretty happy with high 'income' tax and low capital gains tax. Like the US has now.

briandmyers  ·  2919 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I like the idea of distinguishing income, so that there is something like a concept of 'labour income', with a lower tax rate (as opposed to capital-gains income, pure interest income, benefits, inheritance, stock bonuses, whatever). For the poor, most of their income is labour income, so it's a natural way to ease the tax burden of the poor. Would probably need a maximum upper limit for it also, to prevent abuse of the lowered 'labour income' rate.

elfassy  ·  2919 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Agreed. My point is that if financial goods were also taxed, that would affect the rich (which have most of their wealth in these) more than the poor. The only thing that wouldn't be taxed is the accumulated interest... until it's used to buy more goods.

steve  ·  2920 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I'd prefer a govt that didn't tax citizens at all on their income OR their spending, as much as possible. Once upon a time there was no income tax in the USA at all.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_constitutional_arguments