Comment by SolaceQuantum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SolaceQuantum | Hacker News Reader

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Honestly, I'm down for paying taxes. It pays for my lifestyle and is propostional to my lifestyle. If I own land, that land is only valuable due to the society that land exists in. It's protected, and safe, due to public services like roads, which law enforcement, fire control folks, postal service, and ambulances drive upon. I've earned my income from a lifetime of education, starting from my public school kindergarden all the way to me state university attendance, which in of itself is only useful to attend because there are bright minds teaching what they research via government grants.

All of that costs money, and paying taxes is more or less funding my lifestyle as it is now. If you want to not pay taxes, then stop paying taxes and give up everything you purchase with them. Go subsistence farm in the woods or something, or deal with bartering instead of money (which itself is only useful because there is some regulation to keep it useful).

I think most people would be down for paying taxes, however their main gripe, in my opinion, is that the quality of services (infrastructure, tax dollars being used for NSA spying on citizens, etc.) we're getting back for our tax dollars is dropping while taxes increase.

Taxes on regular people increases and the quality of services they provide decreases, precisely because of the tax-evading [0] behavior of the multinational corporations.

[0]: If you feel the need to point out the difference between tax-avoidance and tax-evasion then please watch this first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2q-Csk-ktc

Yes, I agree. We should vote appropirately, organize appropriately, and fully fund the IRS to be able to go after people who aren't paying their fair share in society.

I suspect few people here think they should pay no tax, however I’m quite sure that most would disagree about what the “right” amount would/should be. Furthermore, this is exacerbated by the quality and quantity of public goods different people use (e.g. there are plenty of people that have never set foot in any type of public school/university)

"however I’m quite sure that most would disagree about what the “right” amount would/should be."

I currently spend a little over 30% of my income as the sticker price to living in a first world country. Compared to the price of renting an apartment in my city, I think this is a steal.

People who never set foot in any type of public school or university benefit from everyone else being educated, because everyone else designs their clothes, their cars, their planes, their buildings, roads, computing devices, etc.

No one is self sufficient in the society I live in. It's totally possible to go and be self sufficient. This reduces your income so you don't pay taxes, since you're not interacting with government-protected, government-manipulated currency. Seems reasonable to me.

I'm glad you feel like you are a net beneficiary - but my comment really boils down to "reasonable people can disagree" and "not everyone has the same experience"

A consumption tax (a tax on sales) is proportional to your lifestyle. If someone chooses to buy a gas guzzler v8, they should pay taxes on the gallons they burn to pay for roads and emissions.

Consumption tax is also easier to be set to a geographic location, and harder to shift to different tax jurisdiction.

Harder to play games in comparison to an income tax.

But nobody wants it. Very unpopular in a vote because, people rather have someone else pay such as rich people and corporations.

Consumption taxes are regressive, serving to further exacerbate income inequality.

It's not regressive. It's flat.

Rich people rarely buy stuff in proportion to their greater income (earning 100x more but not buying cars worth 100x more, etc). This would mainly affect the not-so-rich people, who, given fixed purchase budgets, would probably respond by consuming less, which is likely to hurt businesses with lower demand for just about any product.

> This would mainly affect the not-so-rich people, who, given fixed purchase budgets,

Certain items can be excempt from sales tax, such as groceries.

> Likely to hurt businesses

Since when is the HN crowd worried about hurting businesses. Most people here want higher taxes for corporations.

Consumption taxes are also regressive in that in the lower your income, the harder those taxes become to pay. I would prefer a tax scheme in which you're ability to pay the tax is proportional to the taxes you owe.

It's not regressive. It's a flat tax, everyone pays the flat rate. Feels like spin when you say regressive.

The reason people call a flat consumption tax regressive is that poorer people, even though they're often buying cheaper things, generally spend a much larger proportion of their income on "consumption."

That's fine if you want to pay them. But you should not and cannot ethically force others to consent to pay them.

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