Okay, I get what you are saying. The distinction I was trying to make was that a program that gives people cash every month and then asks some of them to pay it back to the government at the end of the year would be devastating to most consumers (this is how some UBIs have been framed).

But I think we are on the same page. If you file a W-2, you are probably going to withhold income. At which point they are functionally the same.