Base taxes on net worth only.

When you buy gold or stocks in another country that has a treaty with the U.S. and the U.S. is protecting that investment with military bases etc. you would be required to report that exchange. If you invested in countries with no U.S. protection based treaties you would not have to report that. If you get caught bringing any assets into this country or a country with such a treaty without paying the taxes, all of your assets frozen until the taxes are paid. Yes democracy and any market system is a hot mess. Thinking through variables, options, alternatives and possibilities is the most resourceful game in town. Let the math crunchers, programmers, and analysts get in on the fun. The processes of accountability will have to be upgraded to greater openness and better comprehensive egalitarian policies to prevent a "bust" end of the cycle from being manifest. The resources are available and the holistic nature of our internet world will bring about a "New World Order" inevitably. But, it doesn't necessarily have to be the one the world bank had in mind. There will always be an underground and a black market. There will also be progressive egalitarian minded people using them as well as the fascists and capitalists who see themselves as an island.

The middle class will have much more to wealth to move around if they are not carrying the tax burden of both ends. As it is they will not exist as all before this cycle ends. That is the historical nature of the cycle and the wealthy will once again be mistaken in their belief that they can control it.
https://youtu.be/HP7L8bw5QF4

 

Having a model based on what we know and in principles we can agree on will allow that to happen. Starting with corporate welfare would mean more resources made available faster faster without dumping the streets full of disenfranchised citizens. The oil companies have gotten free resources from virtually free leases while creating illegal monopolies averting consequences through corrupt politicians since the tern of the last century and still not lowered prices or invested in alternative energy sources. No democracy or market system exists without some rules and guidelines and the people come together to create those guidelines and call it a government because it governs the rules of the market. The loss of equity of opportunity follows a delegation of power. The corrupt cheat at elections, cry for a need for representatives to simplify the election process so it can be "managed", buy the representatives and dismantle the democracy. So, we now have the technology to vote via coded stream across the internet. Have open evaluation of the code that tabulates the results and can go back to a popular voting system. We can then say "We the people" will put fifteen percent or twenty percent of our GNP to military spending, etc. If a two thirds majority is required to become law there will be far fewer laws that citizens will think stink to high heaven. But, for those that do not want any regulation, they can eat or be eaten by each other depending on who has the biggest teeth. Just not in a democracy.

 

That is exactly how the people of California got so fed up with their dysfunctional government held hostage by an intransigent minority and finally got themselves rid of them.

I have been in more than a few situations where broad consensus rather than simple majority was required to move forward and from my experience there is a lot of opportunity for some small intransigent minority to force agreement to what they want simply by being intransigent. This is not healthy for any sort of social coherence since what everyone else wants is eventually abandoned in order to maintain group coherence. This sort of consensus building causes projects to crumble as people leave because they were not invested in the project, feeling that they were forced them into agreeing to something disagreeable only to keep the group together.

But then again, there are plenty of people who thrive in these situations because they can force everyone to adopt what they want simply by being intransigent and wearing everyone else down so much that they will agree just to get it over with.

I am extremely sceptical of any scheme that would give power to intransigent minorities. Anyone who thinks that there is some magic formula that can remove such intransigence is naive to an extreme.

 

It would be cheaper and simpler to just tax land value. Land has a lot of value and it can't be hidden, it can't be moved to another country. Also, when you pay the land value tax you get exclusive rights to land in return, which is a good thing. The more taxes you pay the more/better land you get.

Land rents are about 20% of GDP and that is enough to fund efficient government spending. Efficient government spending increases land values which increases revenue; while inefficient government spending doesn't increase land values nor revenues. So, if government is funded out of land rents, government gets positive feedback for good spending because revenues increase; the opposite happens when governments spend foolishly.

Finally, taxes on capital get passed on as lower wages and higher consumer prices, while taxes on land values can't be passed to others. Land value taxation leaving wages high and consumer prices low. So, why not just tax land values and forget all the other taxes?

 

Only by amendment and the States would never pass one. The electoral college works just as it was designed to work and was quite a brilliant compromise by the authors of the Constitution and founding fathers.

 

Taxes have to be uniform. Why should someone who owns a 1000 sq/ftcondo in New York valued at $500,000 because of high property cost pay more in taxes than someone in Indiana who owns a 1000 sq/ft condo that is worth $100,000 where cost are lower? And do so each and every year? And which federal agency is going to asses the value of the land? Leave it to the states? Guess what the states will start doing, ending property taxes and then the citizens don't have to pay federal taxes because there will be no valuation. Or at the lease lower the valuations.

The federal government has no business taxing real property, that is the for the states who have the sovereignty.

if your goal is cheaper and simpler then the Flat Tax or the Fair Tax fits your bill. Having to assess values and net worth's would be impossibly costly and intrusive in a federal system.

 

ROFL who told you the US has military station around vaults of gold in other countries to protect it? That is hilarious.

 

So the rules say, but I am in favor of changing the rules.

He might not have to, depends on how tall of a building the condo is in, and how many others the cost of the tax is shared with. The 1000 sq/ft condo in New York might pay less if enough 1000 sq/ft condos are stacked on top of one another. Land value tax requires you to pay compensation for the amount of land value you exclude others from enjoying -- taller buildings allow that tax to be shared by more condo owners, reducing their individual burden.

You pay the land value tax each and every year because the infrastructure and services the government provides (for the financial benefit of landowners) has costs each and every year.

The local government can provide an assessment of the lands rental value, but an option should be available for the owner to supply the assessment himself --> while also putting the land on a “for sale” sheet. If the owners assessment is sufficiently high then the land won't sell and the current owner can keep enjoying his privilege. If the owners assessment is low a buyer might present himself, and a sale would ensue. If the owner takes the local governments assessment, then he is safe.

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I advocate that the federal government abolish all taxation, which burdens production or consumption, at every level of government, as a protection of individual rights. Local and state governments would be forced to collect land rents in order to gain sufficient revenue. State government would pay federal taxes for services or infrastructure provided by the federal government. Very few individuals would pay any state or federal taxes. Most people would just a local tax for the privilege of excluding others from land, and people who only rent an apartment or home would pay no taxes at all.

Did God tell you that? I'm agnostic.

Those taxes are not fair. They are tool to make others pay for public infrastructure and services that only make landowners richer. I do not support such wealth redistribution schemes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem

 

Why not forget land value taxes too?

 

Not only is this a bad idea for basically every reason imaginable, it is basically a type of class warfare that screams "i hate the rich"

I guess this is what happens when you get ideas from people who have no clue how the economy works.

 

Sure, we could just charge landowners a market based fee to access public infrastructure and services at any given location. The fee would be identical to the land value tax. Whoever pays the fee gets the services and access to infrastructure.

Not paying the fee means nobody can legally enter or leave from that location, and the owner can not be protected in his possession. Where land parcels are grouped together within public right of ways, and one individual owner doesn't pay the fee, the non-payers fee could be added to the groups fees, to ensure that access was not gained for free via neighboring properties. Does that sound more fair?

 

Why not get rid of public (i.e. socialized) infrastructure?

 

With a bulldozer? Who will pay for the diesel?

 

The people who wish to buy the diesel?

 

I don't want to get rid of public infrastructure. You do. Plowing all the county roads, state highways and federal interstate highways back into donkey trails isn't going to be cheap. So I assume you're willing to pay the bill for that?

 

Yes, I am in favor of eliminating socialism.

Yup.

 

Okay, you win this one.

 

Georgism in a nutshell...

 

Because the value and cost to replace that value is different.

If a free market system can only exist if property and property rights are protected and no other criteria is a determinant of that existence then that government not only has the right but the responsibility to assess and tax based on that which it is protecting. The IRS can and need be restructured to handle this. With proper over-site and real consequences for cheaters, which may mean hiring more people, this would be no more problematic and insure a large, stronger and healthier middle class.

 

That's not what was said. The resources Germany and Japan would use to protect themselves from invasion but are actually done by the U.S. are used to provide better internal security. So, yes indirectly we make McDonald's stores in Germany more secure. I know you know this so your remark sounds a little more than disingenuous.

 

Simple problem with this idea. The farmer or rancher who has 10 million in net worth of land to raise crops or cattle but only clears $60,000 a year. They would have to sell their land to pay the taxes and we would end up importing all of our food.

No soup for you - one year.

 

Looks like a state of the art road in Longshedvillage. How often do the two of you travel it by horse carriage to extract fees from your vassals?

 

The problem, and it is a very big problem, is how to value the land so it can be taxed. The US, as a nation, has centuries of experience with the taxing of land by value and it has never been able to solve the vexing problem of objective valuation.

Taxes on capital do not get passed on as lower wages, if anything they spur increases in wages because capital owners can get better returns by investing in more productive workers than they can from gambling in the equity markets and paying capital gains tax. In fact, a lot of the problem today with job and wage growth and general economic growth is being created by a capital gains tax rate that is lower than all other tax rates on income. This has the perverse effect of reducing relative risk in the equities market, which encourages business to direct their income into the equities market instead of into their business where taxes are higher, increasing the risk relative to the markets.

If anything the tax rates on capital gains and business income should be reversed, with business income taxes lowered to 15% and capital gains taxes raised to 35%.