From: Delvieron@aol.com
Date: Sat Mar 20 1999 - 09:18:15 MST
Flat Tax Redesign,
Hmmm....well, how about we figure out based on location what each person
needs financially to live. Subtract that amount from the person's income (the
ONLY kind of deduction). Then tax everyone at the rate necessary to fund the
government's projected expenditures for the coming year, based on the past
year's GNP. If taxes need to be cut, it should be based on cutting
expenditures, with the exception of true emergency spending (natural and
artificial disasters) which will have to be figured into the future rate.
That's an initial, off the top of my head, way to do a flat tax. Note, I
would have the "Cost of Living" deduction be simply a per person amount, and
if people were smart enough to combine living expenses to make their funds go
further (communes, marriages, buying blocks, etc.), then good for them.
Whether I would use the same adult amount deduction for children or some age-
based formula I'm not sure of, and suggestions would be welcome. Also, if you
wanted a kinder, gentler society, you could make as part of the government
expenditures giving everyone with negative taxes (those whose Cost of Living
deduction is greater than their income) enough to bring them up to that Cost
of Living amount, then it would be up to them to spend it sensibly. I will
address the concept of social safety nets in another post.
I might modify the taxation by dividing government expenditures into two
categories, infrastructure and philanthropy. Infrastructure expenditures
would be those things that are absolute core duties of the government and must
be funded every year. They could be funded as described above in the Flat
Tax. The Philanthropy expenditures would be those things that people think
might be useful for the government to give aid to and encourage (the arts,
sciences, maybe even subsidizing those with income below the cost of living
deduction, etc.). There could be a list sent to the taxpayers of all the
current programs, those proposed, and how much their projected minimum cost
would be for the upcoming year. Then people would be free to voluntarily
donate (or not) funds to those programs they like. Any that are
insufficiently funded would not be done that year, and the supporters' money
could either be refunded, or they could have indicated on their donation form
what other programs those funds should be disbursed to should any of their
primary choices fail to fund. Before that happens, there could be a general
announcement of which programs are short and by how much, and people would
then have a short time period in which to make additional donations before
those programs are declared dead for that year. BTW, these donations to the
additional programs would NOT be deductable from the Infrastructure tax. This
way people are only obligated to pay for those things which must be maintained
for society to continue to function, but liberals could still have large
programs, as long as people are willing to pay for it. Of course, the biggest
political fights would then be over what qualifies as Infrastructure and what
qualifies as Philanthropy.
Glen Finney
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