Taxes

[Ad Orientem]

Just saying...

[Pointedstick]

But! But! But! [vomitatious plethora of excuses]

[madbean]

So I guess the lesson of history is that if you want to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, and promote the general Welfare you'd better be willing to pay for it.

[WildAboutHarry]

Someone once said of George III and the nascent American Republic, "I would rather have one tyrant 3,000 miles away than 3,000 tyrants one mile away".

[MachineGhost]

You have to normalize it by the increased standard of living.  Then it will seem insignificant compared to Colonial times.  Same with inflation.

[Lowe]

How do you do that normalization?  I don't even understand how they got the percentage-of-income figures from a set of tariffs and excise taxes.  It seems contrived.

[MachineGhost]

How do you do that normalization?  I don't even understand how they got the percentage-of-income figures from a set of tariffs and excise taxes.  It seems contrived.

I guess we could use units of time required to mine an ounce of gold now vs then?

[Pointedstick]

You have to normalize it by the increased standard of living.  Then it will seem insignificant compared to Colonial times.  Same with inflation.

I'm not sure this makes sense to me, as it implies that high taxes are a "cost of doing business" to live in a modern, industrialized nation. There are plenty of countries with high standards of living with tax burdens that are far lower than ours. Compared to the USA, Singapore for example has a much lower income tax, much lower property tax, lower corporate tax, and no taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest, or employment. Just about the only tax higher than over here is that on cars.

[Lowe]

How do you do that normalization?  I don't even understand how they got the percentage-of-income figures from a set of tariffs and excise taxes.  It seems contrived.

I guess we could use units of time required to mine an ounce of gold now vs then?

I suppose you mean we could measure incomes in gold, now and then.  That seems fair.

Then we express the tariffs and excise taxes in gold, and likewise the income taxes of today, plus all the additional tariffs, excise taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes of today.  Then we boil each side down to one figure, effective income tax, and compare them.  Except how do you do that?

[MachineGhost]

I suppose you mean we could measure incomes in gold, now and then.  That seems fair.

Then we express the tariffs and excise taxes in gold, and likewise the income taxes of today, plus all the additional tariffs, excise taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes of today.  Then we boil each side down to one figure, effective income tax, and compare them.  Except how do you do that?

Real income doesn't always represent improved living standards.  It has to be by a unit of time, since a decrease in time to do something represents improved productivity and hence an increase in living standards.  So something like Total Factor Productivity or number of days/hours to travel between x city and y city.  In theory, the combined taxes we pay now will be a smaller percentage of a modern reference measurement than the combined taxes were on the old reference measurement.

Same reason why we're not all dead broke despite that fact the U.S. dollar has lost 95% of its value since the Fed was instituted in 1913.

[MachineGhost]

I'm not sure this makes sense to me, as it implies that high taxes are a "cost of doing business" to live in a modern, industrialized nation. There are plenty of countries with high standards of living with tax burdens that are far lower than ours. Compared to the USA, Singapore for example has a much lower income tax, much lower property tax, lower corporate tax, and no taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest, or employment. Just about the only tax higher than over here is that on cars.

City-states like that are parasites on the world's blue-water navy and reserve currency.  They benefit without paying the full costs.  U.S. taxpayers subsidize the whole f*cking world, literally.

[Pointedstick]

I'm not sure this makes sense to me, as it implies that high taxes are a "cost of doing business" to live in a modern, industrialized nation. There are plenty of countries with high standards of living with tax burdens that are far lower than ours. Compared to the USA, Singapore for example has a much lower income tax, much lower property tax, lower corporate tax, and no taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest, or employment. Just about the only tax higher than over here is that on cars.

City-states like that are parasites on the world's blue-water navy and reserve currency.  They benefit without paying the full costs.  U.S. taxpayers subsidize the whole f*cking world, literally.

Every person and government that has ever been and ever will be has benefited from various things without paying their full costs. It is a feature of life itself. Even here in the USA with our reserve currency and biggest blue-water navy in the world, we benefit from all kinds of expensive things without paying the costs of having to balance our budget or maintain friendly relations with anybody.

[moda0306]

PS,

Interesting about Singapore taxes... inspired me to look into it a bit.

Do you have a comprehensive source on their tax system?  I'm only finding scattered info.


But if this link is correct, it would appear that they have a MASSIVE property tax.  http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/page04.aspx?id=2094.

But it doesn't appear so here: http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/data/ ... diture.pdf

This link... http://www.guidemesingapore.com/taxatio ... -tax-rates ... says they have a 7% "Goods and Services tax" (Sounds like a sales tax).

And if you look at this list...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... age_of_GDP

... you find that being on the "low tax rate" end of the list doesn't give you a high chance of being an appealing country to live in.  Singapore is almost the exception that proves the rule.  (I know.. I know.. correlation =/= causation).

[Pointedstick]

And if you look at this list...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... age_of_GDP

... you find that being on the "low tax rate" end of the list doesn't give you a high chance of being an appealing country to live in.  Singapore is almost the exception that proves the rule.  (I know.. I know.. correlation =/= causation).

It would be interesting to make a graph of this information, as it seems almost random. Among the top 10 countries in terms of tax revenue, we have highly desirable countries like Sweden and Norway, and we also have basket cases like Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Lesthoso.

[moda0306]

And if you look at this list...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... age_of_GDP

... you find that being on the "low tax rate" end of the list doesn't give you a high chance of being an appealing country to live in.  Singapore is almost the exception that proves the rule.  (I know.. I know.. correlation =/= causation).

It would be interesting to make a graph of this information, as it seems almost random. Among the top 10 countries in terms of tax revenue, we have highly desirable countries like Sweden and Norway, and we also have basket cases like Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Lesthoso.

Most Western countries are in the higher-tax end of that list.  Of those below 20% tax, the following countries are the ones I'd consider "good places to live" based on gut instinct.

Singapore
Taiwan

Of those countries above 30%, here are my "gut instinct" good places to live:

Ireland
Canada
New Zeland
Luxembourg
Israel (gotta be some peaceful parts, right?)
Portugal
Spain
UK
Hungary
Netherlans
Iceland
Germany
Italy
Austria
Finland
Norway
France
Sweden
Belgium
Denmark


I'm really not trying to be unfair here... I think "high taxes" wins the correlation game.  This is to say nothing too concrete about causation... but it would appear the evidence is against "low taxes cause safe, productive economies to naturally result," or whatever our lesson is supposed to be, here.

Also, one big thing we're not factoring in is state-owned businesses.  If a government gets all the oil profits, they don't need, possibly, to tax much.

[Mountaineer]

And if you look at this list...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... age_of_GDP

... you find that being on the "low tax rate" end of the list doesn't give you a high chance of being an appealing country to live in.  Singapore is almost the exception that proves the rule.  (I know.. I know.. correlation =/= causation).

It would be interesting to make a graph of this information, as it seems almost random. Among the top 10 countries in terms of tax revenue, we have highly desirable countries like Sweden and Norway, and we also have basket cases like Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Lesthoso.

Most Western countries are in the higher-tax end of that list.  Of those below 20% tax, the following countries are the ones I'd consider "good places to live" based on gut instinct.

Singapore
Taiwan

Of those countries above 30%, here are my "gut instinct" good places to live:

Ireland
Canada
New Zeland
Luxembourg
Israel (gotta be some peaceful parts, right?)
Portugal
Spain
UK
Hungary
Netherlans
Iceland
Germany
Italy
Austria
Finland
Norway
France
Sweden
Belgium
Denmark


I'm really not trying to be unfair here... I think "high taxes" wins the correlation game.  This is to say nothing too concrete about causation... but it would appear the evidence is against "low taxes cause safe, productive economies to naturally result," or whatever our lesson is supposed to be, here.

Also, one big thing we're not factoring in is state-owned businesses.  If a government gets all the oil profits, they don't need, possibly, to tax much.

moda,

Do the I's have it or not (or is that aye, matey  ), your selection of Ireland, Israel, Iceland, Italy vs. Iraq, Iran, India, Ivory Coast, Indonesia?

... Mountaineer

[Pointedstick]

I'm really not trying to be unfair here... I think "high taxes" wins the correlation game.  This is to say nothing too concrete about causation... but it would appear the evidence is against "low taxes cause safe, productive economies to naturally result," or whatever our lesson is supposed to be, here.

I'm mostly trying to say that low taxes and safe, productive societies are not incompatible. It appears that any type of society can have any type of tax rate. The highest taxes of all are imposed by Zimbabwe, one of the world's worst basket cases.

[goodasgold]

One caveat is that future tax rates, like stock market returns, are unknowable.

Many financial advisors talk as if tax rates are set in stone. When financial reality finally dawns on our clueless rulers of all political parties - i.e, the looming crisis due to vast and ever-growing unfunded liabilities - tax rates will have to go up sharply. The alternative, lower government spending, is unthinkable for most of our rulers.

And when the real crisis strikes, as one day it will, I hope I am not out paddling my kayak, burdened by my modest stack of gold coins. It would be shocking to lose all those coins in a tragic boating accident, just before the revenuers have a chance to grab them from me! 

[goodasgold]

As I was saying... 

http://www.americanlegislator.org/unive ... -increase/

University of California Pension Costs Force Tuition Increase


Ben Wilterdink | January 16, 2015

Time and time again, California proves itself to be a what-not-to-do handbook for states looking to responsibly balance their budgets. This reputation was clearly on display by the University of California Board of Regents’ decision to increase the cost of tuition by 25 percent over the next five years.

The increased tuition won’t be going to make improvements for students but rather will almost certainly go directly into funding for UC’s underfunded and mismanaged pension system....

[Kriegsspiel]

Of those countries above 30%, here are my "gut instinct" good places to live:

Ireland
Canada
New Zeland
Luxembourg
Israel (gotta be some peaceful parts, right?)
Portugal
Spain
UK
Hungary
Netherlans
Iceland
Germany
Italy
Austria
Finland
Norway
France
Sweden
Belgium
Denmark


I'm really not trying to be unfair here... I think "high taxes" wins the correlation game.  This is to say nothing too concrete about causation... but it would appear the evidence is against "low taxes cause safe, productive economies to naturally result," or whatever our lesson is supposed to be, here.

Did those countries always have high taxation, or did they have low taxes while they were becoming awesome, then afterwards/towards the end enact higher taxes?