Some kind of mass voting system to construct a budget?

Europe is correct here: they have much more regressive taxes. The result is that the rich don't bother mucking about with the tax code.

Do you really think that the rich don't bother mucking about with the tax code in Europe? That they say "it doesn't matter to us where government spending happens, because much of the revenue comes from a regressive tax"?

Do you really think the American rich would behave like that?

Dating myself probably to the Brits but when I was there just about every middle class type, and wide boy, had a usually entirely fake business that allowed them to get a "Makro Card" to buy goods at a VAT free distributor, ostensibly for resale or corporate use. It was only the legitimate poor and unconnected who couldn't get one.

Personally I like the VAT idea as long as it excludes food, utilities, and clothing under some reasonable amount such as $100. VATs don't NEED to be either universal or regressive.

a regressive one

to keep them from mucking around and making the tax code regressive?


Makes perfect sense.

I am just gonna hit myself in the face here, just in case somebody comes around who might wanna punch me. In fact, let me go get a hammer.

or ERA? Taking the rich out of the equation seems like an odd goal; they are the ones who benefit most from society, shouldn't they pay their way?

Bryant

Because they would no longer care at that point.

And, frankly, they aren't very far-seeing people.

Does a VAT apply to all purchases or just "luxuries?"

Bryant

1. Single payer Medicare for all.
2. Off budget so that the VAT money is balkanized and separated from the overall government budget.
3. Demand/desires to expand scope of Medicare (pharmacy/dental/mental health/long term care) can be specifically tied to required incremental increases in the VAT (you want this, this is what it will cost).

list, and the VAT would just be piled up onto everything else. And everything would cost more, IMO, because all the VAT would be added to the final cost to the consumer.

The oligarchy would be happy to collect more taxes, but they sure as fuck don't want to spend that money on anything but themselves. And there would, of course, be loopholes for the wealthy and corporations and Wall Street.

Sorry, but that would be the GOP and/or the Third Way way.

A VAT would take a much higher percentage out of a poor person's spending ability.. And THEY'RE the ones buying just the stuff they really need.

How is this not regressive?

because the one-percenters' motto is "I consume, therefore I am."

The question is, how to make it non-regressive? And non-avoidable? (That "Makro Card" scam reminds me of places like Costco that are technically wholesale outlets; this is why you have to pay a membership fee.)

. . .waiting to happen to everyone from the lower middle class on down.

The only way we could make this work is to the need for currency, on perhaps, the first $25k. No matter your job, the first $25k funds a debit card and any expenditures on that card, up to $25k, is no VAT or consumption tax.

After that you pay VAT at a constant amount on any purchase up to $1k, and an uptick on expenditures from $1k to $10k, and another on purchases over $10k.


People who only make $30 per year would only pay the consumption tax on $5k.

And, you'd have to cut income taxes to nearly nothing on anybody making less then $50k.

It's the only way you'd avoid anything close to a terribly regressive tax system.

When everyone pays in, everyone protects the programs that they pay for. See Soc. Security and Medicare.

But it has to have generous allowances for necessities. Good idea, Yav.

Just raise tax rates for high earners, close most tax exemptions for businesses over a certain revenue, and raise the minimum income subject to taxation.

A "high earner" in Duluth, MN is far different from a "high earner" in NYC.

The Feds ( and states with income taxes )already define income tiers using median and similar metrics. That's the way it's already done. We only need to adjust the rates.

If you think so, you really need to see how and where you can live here on that income.

Next?

One is just choosing to spend far more of their high income to be close (in distance if not often in time) to world class cultural amenities and a choice of Ukrainian delis. Personally I can just as easily listen to the Met on the radio, get my rye bread at a normal baker's and save a few grand a month on rent and parking, but if others choose not to it does not stop them being high income, it just makes them high spenders too. I-78 doesn't stop at the end of the Holland.

education. That would protect the poor.

in the European model. There may be different percentages..i.e. in the Netherlands, food and drink are 6% while everything else pretty much is 21%.

Items can be zero-rated or exempt. For example, in the UK:

I meant durable goods.

I see a significant "black market" following this.

Wisconsin beer has the same VAT as French wine?
American made shoes have the same VAT as Chinese made ones?
Bibles have the same VAT as adult videos?

This is a nightmare in the making.

easy choice coming from someone who does not live in the U.S.

Even if you could gather all that data real time then my wife, whose income is zero, would just be the one spending for everything we buy.

nt

Instead, let's bring back the progressive income tax and let's index it to inflation this time so that people aren't being squeezed to death by bracket creep the next time some bunch of countries decide to jack up the price of a necessary commodity.

and affects the poor in ways that you obviously have not thought though.

And how would that fit in with local voter-approved taxes in some locals (my county has voted in sales tax increases to fund transportation, and my city has voted in parcel taxes to fund schools, for example): are we all going to be reduced to the level of the taker states who don't want to spend their own money (but are happy to take it from others)?

As a regular reader of British newspapers - the UK has a VAT close to 20% - I don't see how it's reduced how conservatives whine about public spending.

They don't want their real tax burden increased, either.

I'm sorry to Godwin myself, but your proposal is, as noted, regressive as all fuck. Tax the ones who can easily afford it. You don't have to punish the folks who already can't afford groceries.

yet they still want to steal SS.

Whatever money goes into the government with a VAT will still get raided by the rich, to pay for ever growing lavish life style.

It's just naive to think the rich will not continue to raid the federal treasury.

Also, what do we do with states that already have a sales tax? The poor would be crushed with both a state and local sales tax + VAT.