Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nadaka]

I find that most people who talk about how naturally lazy they are and how much they'd love to just do nothing for the rest of their lives are just backlashing against the frustration of being so fucking busy all the time.  After a while, they'd get bored, some idea would capture their interest, and they'd actually do something.  I know at this point in my life, I feel like I need a vacation lasting months... but definitely not forever.

Knowing myself, I believe I could spend months and months doing no actual productive work and I would be extremely content.

Knowing myself, I believe that I couldn't spend more than a week doing nothing. Given whole days to do stuff, I would start coding projects for fun. Besides that, not many people would want the subsistence level of survival. People The vast majority would be willing to work, at least a bit, for their luxuries and conveniences.

[Owlbread]

If you gave me 24 months to do my own thing, I'd have learned how to play the bagpipes, have biceps the size of watermelons, a beard down to my chest and possibly a novel written. There's a good chance I'd have completed many of my games several times over and explored the countryside.

I don't really consider those things work, though. I suppose they are in a way.

[GlyphGryph]

I have trouble going more than a day or two without doing something "productive". I enjoy projects. Not having to work, oddly enough, would probably not reduce the amount of time I spent working - it would just result in most of my work being done on the many individual projects I involve myself with.

[Sheb]

Also, it is totally possible to redistribute wealth while keeping incentives to work. Just give everyone a flat amount of cash, in addition to anything they earn. Sure, you'd need to jack taxes up, but not by that much, since such an allocation would replace unemployment compensation, child support and most of welfare, including Social Security.

I'm pretty sure it would be easier politically than just increasing welfare for the now unemployed as well, since everybody would profit from it.


Iirc, some think-tank did the math, and scrapping all welfare would allow every belgian a 700 euros monthly allocation.

[Helgoland]

The idea circulates in Germany under the name "Bürgergehalt" - citizen's wage. It's mostly seen as a leftist idea, but I guess it would allow us to cut down on the bureaucracy surrounding unemployment benefits.

[Nadaka]

Also, it is totally possible to redistribute wealth while keeping incentives to work. Just give everyone a flat amount of cash, in addition to anything they earn. Sure, you'd need to jack taxes up, but not by that much, since such an allocation would replace unemployment compensation, child support and most of welfare, including Social Security.

I'm pretty sure it would be easier politically than just increasing welfare for the now unemployed as well, since everybody would profit from it.


Iirc, some think-tank did the math, and scrapping all welfare would allow every belgian a 700 euros monthly allocation.

I did the back of the napkin math for that using this as a basic reference.
A 50% flat tax on personal income in the US could allow:
0% corporate taxes
fully paying the entire federal budget
A stipend equal to the poverty line income for every household in America.

Note that I am not really advocating a flat tax, but its the only that can be used with any accuracy without a much more detailed breakdown.

[GlyphGryph]

Imo, flat taxes are perfectly fine when combined with a guaranteed minimum income, which is in and of itself highly progressive. It pretty effectively emulates a strongly progressive tax structure without any of the overhead and much simpler logistics.

I doubt government would ever want to give up its tax-based attempts at societal control though, or its loopholes for the wealthy.

It's also the position I've been pushing on the board for the last... 3, 4 years?

[Descan]

Yeah, I've had that idea since my first civics class, back in... '06? Or so.

The idea that working is something I -could- do, to make money to better my life, rather than working is something I NEED to do, so that I don't starve or die from exposure, is very appealing.

[Helgoland]

The idea that working is something I -could- do, to make money to better my life, rather than working is something I NEED to do, so that I don't starve or die from exposure, is very appealing.

Come to Europe - it's like that over here! Mostly, at least.

Imo, flat taxes are perfectly fine when combined with a guaranteed minimum income, which is in and of itself highly progressive. It pretty effectively emulates a strongly progressive tax structure without any of the overhead and much simpler logistics.

I come from a family that is by no means poor, and I believe my parents are in the highest or second-highest tax bracket; they can very well afford to pay that much. Some friends of mine (who are also well above the poverty/government assistance line) couldn't, though.
Even with a minimum income, a flat tax rate would be a great injustice.

[Frumple]

Yeah... it's honestly kind of idyllic, to me. Give me a guaranteed source of food and shelter (internet would be nice, too) without the spectre of homelessness and starvation looming, and I'd spend somewhere between half and a third of my time volunteering, helping around the community. 'Cause I could afford to sink the time into it and wouldn't be distracted by trying to find a way to feed myself.

Totally love to be able to walk up to a research lab or something and just say, "Hey, fuck pay, there anything I can do to help out around here?" too. Stuff like that.

There anywhere out there that's, like, tried it, so far?

[Reelya]

The idea that working is something I -could- do, to make money to better my life, rather than working is something I NEED to do, so that I don't starve or die from exposure, is very appealing.

Come to Europe - it's like that over here! Mostly, at least.

Imo, flat taxes are perfectly fine when combined with a guaranteed minimum income, which is in and of itself highly progressive. It pretty effectively emulates a strongly progressive tax structure without any of the overhead and much simpler logistics.

I come from a family that is by no means poor, and I believe my parents are in the highest or second-highest tax bracket; they can very well afford to pay that much. Some friends of mine (who are also well above the poverty/government assistance line) couldn't, though.
Even with a minimum income, a flat tax rate would be a great injustice.

It's wrong to automatically assume that the flat-tax rate in such a situation will be the current lower tax rates. That's the goal of the conservative version of the flat tax rate, but it's not the only way to implement it.

The sustainable idea is to set the flat tax rate at a fairly high rate (around what your parents are paying), and give equal payments to everyone. This emulates a lower tax-rate on the less affluent, and the existing high tax rate on the rich, but it does not require tax returns, asset testing, auditing. You could also bundle payments for family benefits into this system (which would increase to the adult level, and go into personal accounts when you hit 18).

e.g. the flat-tax rate could be 40% of income, but everyone gets, say, $10000 per annum, which effectively replaces welfare payments for the very poor, and tax returns/progressive tax breaks for the middle class. You can look at existing tax figures and work out what level to set everything at.

Effectively it would "end" welfare by paying the same cheque to everyone in the community, and since you can't be "kicked off" the base payments for working, there's no disincentive to take a job, or "bracket creep".

[GlyphGryph]

I come from a family that is by no means poor, and I believe my parents are in the highest or second-highest tax bracket; they can very well afford to pay that much. Some friends of mine (who are also well above the poverty/government assistance line) couldn't, though.
Even with a minimum income, a flat tax rate would be a great injustice.

I'm not sure you're following the idea. Assume guaranteed income is 15k. Assume your friends make 20k. This means that after this plan was instituted, their total income would be...

25k. A strict step up. That doesn't seem like much of an injustice to me, and I don't see how they'd be unable to afford it if they can afford to live now.

[10ebbor10]

Problem for something like that is that you need to do it globally. After all, as soon as you institute it the majority of the rich/high income people are going to leave. This hollows out the Upper and higher middle class, and can eventually cause a collapse of the entire social service.

[Reelya]

You're missing the point that the tax burden on those rich people hasn't increased at all under this proposal. What it does, is to massively reduce government overheads, whilst ensuring nobody is broke.

say the top tax rate is 40% now. The rich aren't running away yet, right? The flat tax would be 40%, and everyone, including the rich get their $15,000. Why would they run away when there's no actual increase in the taxes for the rich? If they're running away from 40% taxes, then they already left, so that point is moot.

[Helgoland]

I come from a family that is by no means poor, and I believe my parents are in the highest or second-highest tax bracket; they can very well afford to pay that much. Some friends of mine (who are also well above the poverty/government assistance line) couldn't, though.
Even with a minimum income, a flat tax rate would be a great injustice.

I'm not sure you're following the idea. Assume guaranteed income is 15k. Assume your friends make 20k. This means that after this plan was instituted, their total income would be...

25k. A strict step up. That doesn't seem like much of an injustice to me, and I don't see how they'd be unable to afford it if they can afford to live now.

My point is that there'll be people stuck in the middle; midle-middle class people like that friend of mine, not poor, not rich.
Does anyone have an estimate of how much the bureaucracy for (simple) progressive taxation costs as opposed to that needed for a flat tax?