Not a mistake at all...
I applaud the effort made in thinking about a better way... and I think you got a good part of the way there...
I wholeheartedly support that element in yours that is "simplification"...
So it seems we can agree on eliminating redundancies that have taxpayers supporting multiple and overlapping systems of taxation that add negative value by existing ? I'd say that mostly shows how little government ever bothers to stop to consider their product... at all... as happens with a lack of competition. If the government were a fast food joint, you'd have to drive through 5 different stores... one for your burger, one for the fries, one for the drink... another for the packaging, provided separately... and a fifth just to threaten, abuse and punish you for complaining about the first four... Businesses that are that bad at doing what they do... need to be put out of work. Just like the banks have been made pre-digital era legacy dinosaurs... only because of erecting barriers to competition [20 years ago, etc.] to isolate themselves from having to compete with better/faster/smarter competitors. Government should be forced to compete to provide services people want in the ways they want them delivered, too... the more mandates vs. competition are involved... the worse the product will be...
I don't think the idea of a tax on transactions is intrinsically or wholly in error... We know that sales tax "works"... and others have "value added taxes" that appear functional enough... if still focused on taxing good things to make less of them vs. the opposite.
So the challenge is narrowing the target down... to a particular enough set of exchanges... that minimizes disruptions by avoiding wasting our time while layering a wet blanket over everything...
Ideally, taxes would not suppress velocity at all... rather than enable it ? I don't know how to make that happen.
I think you have more the right idea there... as by trying to transfer the focus to only a narrow set of transactions that excludes most of the people most of the time... you get closer to meeting needs in that element... just by vastly reducing the interface... to not enable interference in the flow by limiting contact.
Your idea is perhaps not too much much different than what the American colonies did, early on... by focusing the taxes on the import of goods... pretty much all the taxes needed coming from tariffs levied at the entry point.
But, the focus was on "goods" in the normal course of business... not on trying to tax people punitively for having succeeded in some small part... just to have won some bit of wealth to be able to transfer it...
We have recent enough experience with that here in the U.S. too... with local cops having been empowered in "arresting" your money if they find you have any... based on their "suspicion" alone that you are up to no good... because you have money. If they become suspicious... they get to take and keep your money ? Not shockingly, the cops have become increasingly suspicious and are far more aggressive in stopping innocent people who never used to seem suspicious before... but who are now very clearly major drug sellers or illegal arms dealers... as required to justify the takings ?
Using taxes in trying to prevent money from leaving... fosters the local corruption and protects those imposing the problems from being forced to recognize it... while doing that as if the money is the product of the place of its origin rather than the efforts of the one who earned it ? I think that idea is non-functional... Really all that does is say that you're not allowed to have or express an opinion... even to the degree that voting with your feet is outlawed. Irony in the "open borders" crowd... wanting the borders to be open in only one direction... Hotel California style...
The U.S. is grossly over-reaching in trying to attach foreign earnings of American citizens already... even if that's not the worst over-reach extant in errors made attempting to impose American law outside of the borders ? Other parallels exist, too... as American's overwhelmingly want illegal immigration stopped... but the government wants more future taxpayers... so what the law says, and what the people say... doesn't matter a whit ? Kids in cages it is. The beast must be fed.
Finding ways to starve it... is a necessity... not just to preserve the fiction of freedom... but to prevent the evil growing beyond the point there is no longer any ability to contain it...
Reducing the scope of the potential portals through which payment can be extracted is a good way to prevent the beast growing too large to be limited.
That "tariff based" approach is a bit more functional today, also, as most of the goods are almost necessarily physical... or, even if digital, have physical attachments that are already monitored as a function of enabling payment for digital goods... so still easily taxed as a "sales tax" function that works well enough independent of the origins/destinations ?
There are other benefits of such a system... including that it encourages local industry... rather than global transport to move things that don't need moving... it raises the bar appropriately on the competition required to make foreign made products competitive enough to be worth shipping... The digital difference obviates shipping... so it levels the playing field a lot more in terms of opening markets to real competition...
But, the core element... has to be restoring respect for people and their property... disabusing the tyrant of the idea that he owns you and anything that's yours... that ownership giving him the right to determine any and all of what he will be able to do to you.
You own yourself. No one else... individually or in the aggregate... may own another... and by virtue of you owning yourself... you own whatever you have managed to acquire without taking it by force ?
Respect for others property is a foundational requirement for sharing in the benefits of modernity...
Without that respect... we're heading back into the dark ages... [which is what we're doing now]...
Government's that don't get that... earn their place on the ash heap of history... |
