Japan's Hometown Tax

Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by retrac on Monday September 18, 2023 @12:53PM (#37558714)

There is a similar phenomenon with Canada, and the USA. University is cheaper and more subsidized in Canada, and then a small but significant % of graduates - often some of the very best - move to the USA, and then never pay another tax dollar towards education, or anything else. It might be a bit annoying, but there's little that can actually be done about it, and all the usual arguments about the benefits of an educated populace still apply; the vast majority don't move away.

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by vineyardmike on Monday September 18, 2023 @01:04PM (#37558846)

In the US, there are programs where various federal agencies will pay for your education, and offer you a job on graduation. At a high level, the terms require you to repay the cost of education (prorated) if don’t work for that agent for a certain period of time.

I can see this working in Canada (or other states that want a boost in educated citizens). Subsidize education via forgivable loans, then forgive the loans if you work in-state. The main issue I see is that the US has a terrible history with loan forgiveness. You always hear stories of (eg) teachers who should get their loan forgiven being rejected for some paperwork issue or simply bank fraud.

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by femiagbabiaka on Monday September 18, 2023 @12:57PM (#37558761)

Pure spitballing. What if: in exchange for fully subsidized schooling at a state school, graduates participated in a profit-sharing agreement with the country and city that they went to school in? Similar to the Lambda model (what happened to them anyways?).

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by drw3 on Monday September 18, 2023 @01:22PM (#37559087)

Sued by former students: https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardconroy/2023/03/29/former-...

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by femiagbabiaka on Monday September 18, 2023 @01:24PM (#37559124)

Yikes! Well this seems like a place where colleges are socialized better: we all know that getting a college degree, especially certain degrees, are no indicator of employability.

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by kelnos on Monday September 18, 2023 @05:15PM (#37562162)

Sure, but Lambda got sued for misrepresenting material facts about the deal to their students. I don't think this lawsuit (or Lambda's actions) invalidates the idea GP presented.

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by drw3 on Monday September 18, 2023 @10:14PM (#37564893)

I don’t disagree, I was just responding to the person who asked what had happened to Lambda :)

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by lmm on Monday September 18, 2023 @07:34PM (#37563669)

"Profit-sharing agreement" is economically the same thing as "indentured servitude", which is illegal (for good reasons IMO).

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by femiagbabiaka on Monday September 18, 2023 @07:52PM (#37563860)

Under that line of thought, wouldn’t taxes also be indentured servitude? Or loans? IMO the key is that the government will need to take a loss on the “loans”.

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by lmm on Monday September 18, 2023 @08:34PM (#37564252)

> Under that line of thought, wouldn’t taxes also be indentured servitude?

Taxes are much like indentured servitude. We allow the government to do things that we wouldn't allow private entities to do.

> Or loans?

Loans for specified amounts are legal, subject to some fairly strict protections (limits on APR, discharging them in bankruptcy, lots of required disclosure). You can't generally write a profit-sharing agreement that way - how would you tell the person how much they're going to have to repay? How would you stop them declaring bankruptcy immediately to get out of it?

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by bryanlarsen on Monday September 18, 2023 @05:51PM (#37562581)

Canada is probably a net recipient though -- lots of our immigrants were educated in South Africa, Turkey, Iran, et cetera. I suspect we gain more from other countries than we lose to the States.

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Re:Japan's Hometown Tax by FredPret on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @10:44AM (#37570680)

> but there's little that can actually be done

Decrease taxes, encourage entrepreneurship and VC funding, and Canadian salaries will rise while cost of living will come down.

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