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Re:A world of free movement would be $78T richer by gremlinsinc on Sunday June 24, 2018 @09:26PM (#17389356)
Easy solution to all this. End income taxes. Make consumption tax + national id system. With id you pay 4%, without you pay 15-20%. Make the consumption tax be on everything : Wages, Rent, Mortgage, Food, etc... if you spend money on something it's taxed at the point of payment. - By wages - I mean the company pays the tax. If a person or company pays money or exchanges money it's taxed. Shareholder dividends, CEO bonuses, all taxed.

You could then fund a guaranteed basic income (for citizens only), and just adjust the sales/tax yearly to balance the budget-- everyone pays taxes, no deductions are given, but GBI would guarantee people wouldn't live in poverty at all. It'd be easier to manage technically so we could dismantle welfare and handout programs as well as the IRS.

Re:A world of free movement would be $78T richer by smsm42 on Monday June 25, 2018 @01:38AM (#17390107)
> Easy solution to all this. End income taxes.

With current political and budget system, I don't see any path to this ever happening. Maybe in theory that could be a better solution (I don't know, it would need thorough analysis) but I don't see how it could happen in reality.

> You could then fund a guaranteed basic income (for citizens only),

Again, same argument applies. If GBU is a benefit for society, there's no reason to gate it on citizenship - we'd be just limiting the benefit on irrelevant metric, it's like demanding to lower your own salary if your boss' last name begins with certain letter - it'd be irrational. If, however, it is not beneficial to society but is a wealth transfer which benefits one group while hurting another, because the former has more political clout - one should argue this should never be done at all, citizen or not.

Re:A world of free movement would be $78T richer by gremlinsinc on Monday June 25, 2018 @02:33AM (#17390340)
I'd be for a universal gbi -- if it's built on blockchain, w/ tax system builtin via transaction fee, perhaps it's tied to an identity coin, and each identity has a 'score' on how unique that person 'appears' to the algorithm, and using a combination of biometrics (like iris scan), and social graph. The more 'unique' or seemlingly unique/trusted the person is as an individual the less transaction fee they pay per transaction.

Something like this could then be adopted as a global currency and have gbi paid out to all members monthly. Perhaps we could create a not-for-profit corp that creates small businesses where 100% of left over income goes back to consumers who use the store (think grocery) and workers who work in the store as a bonus.

Re:A world of free movement would be $78T richer by nradov on Monday June 25, 2018 @05:32PM (#17396002)
A 4% consumption tax wouldn't be nearly enough to maintain current tax revenues. And consumption taxes are highly regressive; the poor have to spend almost all their income on consumption.
Re:A world of free movement would be $78T richer by gremlinsinc on Monday June 25, 2018 @05:51PM (#17396121)
Consumption would include all money exchanged. If you invest in the stock market for example $ paid to broker, and money invested would be taxed as it leaves your hand. When you pull it back, broker/investment firm pays the consumption tax because it's leaving them, going back to you.

Anything a company pays money for goes to consumption including: Wages, Power bill, Land, Buildings, Planes, Trains, Transportation of Goods.

Poor would be offset by guaranteed basic income and universal healthcare. GBI would basically be a negative income tax, the 4% is variable and can be raised/lowered yearly whether the country's in the black/red - but only 1-2 points per year w/ congress's approval. Also 4% was just a number I pulled out of ass, could be 7 or 8% instead.

I don't see how poor would suffer under this if they have a guaranteed 30-40k income if they don't work one day the entire year. Sure they might spend all of that back in food, tax, shelter, etc..but they have food, and shelter which they may not have had before.

The only stipulation on GBI would be you must have a residence to collect. (If you want to remain homeless and spend all cash on Meth, that won't work, you need to at least get housing).

Re:A world of free movement would be $78T richer by gremlinsinc on Monday June 25, 2018 @05:57PM (#17396175)
there could be a land/resource tax on top, for property owners. If you own land > $200k in value, you'd pay a specific tax on the land, if you use resources you pay a tax on that on-going including:Water, Coal, Natural Gas, Oil - if it comes from the earth, it'd be taxed.

I've heard of schemes that involve fully paying for GBI using ONLY land/resource taxes, but I think that wouldn't be enough to pay for things. But we don't need a military as big as we have, there's lots of places we can cut corners and spend less money.

WE need to explore our budget and use tech to lower costs across the board as much as possible and streamline things.