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Why
the tax proposals you've heard about
aren't the ones that can work. |
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Most
heavily-promoted tax reform proposals focus on one of five
ideas:
(1) Make the income tax more “progressive,”
meaning that higher-income people pay a larger share of
the burden.
But high-income people can pass the increase on to their
clients, customers, tenants, or shareholders, not to mention
that they can hire lobbyists to carve out loopholes for
themselves
(2) Simplify the income tax by removing many special
provisions and reducing the number of tax brackets
But while this may (or may not) make life easier for high-income
people, it does little for the rest of us.
(3) Reduce the tax on investment earnings, because
investment creates jobs
But the kinds of investments that tax law favors aren’t
the kind that create jobs, and the direct benefits always
go to the wealthy.
(4) Scrap the income tax entirely, and replace it
with a national sales tax, combined with a “rebate”
for low-income people
But the sales tax rate would have to be at least 64%, which
would be a very serious burden and would lead to large-scale
evasion.
(5) Instead of a sales tax, use a value-added tax
or gross receipts tax. These may be harder to evade.
But they require even larger bureaucracies and more forms,
and still raise the cost of everything we buy by over 50%.
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So
is there a tax that avoids these problems?
- That doesn’t burden those who must
work for a living? -
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That doesn’t raise the cost of living? -
- That doesn’t require taxpayers to hire accountants
and other specialists in order to comply? -
- That does raise sufficient revenue for all the legitimate
costs of government? -
Yes there is, and it’s variously called the “single
tax,” “land value tax,” “tax on
privilege,” or simply “Georgist tax.”
To understand it fully requires a little bit of thinking.
The Henry George School can help, and we invite you to investigate
what we offer. Some of our relevant links are below.
Chicago free events
Chicago inexpensive classes
Affiliated schools in other
cities
Courses
over the Internet |
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