But this is explicitly what the proponents of BI want. It's as much about the optics as who pays for it. I.e. the idea is to create a program that draws its political support from everyone getting paid a check, similar to how Roosevelt enacted social security to include all citizens, even those who were millionaires and had no need for it.
Which is what sets it apart from Negative Income Tax.
Your argument that BI would be revenue neutral for some taxpayers and therefore we should just use NIT to avoid the sillyness of the government taking $1 from you just to give $1 right back to you isn't wrong, but it's missing what BI proponents are trying to achieve.
It's mainly about achieving roughly the same ends with different optics, and the comparison to Social Security is often brought up. Enacting any system like this is going to be politically difficult, and BI proponents believe that "everyone gets the same" is an easier sell than "this is another subsidy for the poor".
1. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/01/michael_munger_3.ht...