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Comment by dchichkov | Hacker News Reader

Putting a price of $6.5 for a gallon of gas (this is how much gas in Europe normally costs €1.58/liter = $6.5/gallon) is a right thing to do.

Hopefully this would diminish consumption, reduce carbon footprint and wouldn't require purchasing extra crude. May cause a revolt though, if advertised to the main street improperly.

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For a smooth transition, you need to "make before break". If we take away people's cars overnight, then people will be stranded with no way to buy food or earn income. (Raising prices on gasoline is a slower means of effecting change, but people don't have the opportunity to just throw away their home and home equity to move somewhere with public transportation. This just makes people miserable; it doesn't help them out of their miserable situation.) We can't undo 100 years of terrible urban planning with one stroke of the pen.

Creating conditions to force people into highly dense urban area also = miserable people.

Not sure of a good answer here

> Creating conditions to force people into highly dense urban area also = miserable people.

Do you have a source for this? Denser European cities seem to have much higher happiness than people living in single family residential suburbs.

Not sure about European cities or if they directly compare to US. Most major metropolitan areas in the Midwest and East coast region are seeing people leave for suburbs or even small town America.

older article but still applies (I think) https://www.chicagoreporter.com/chicago-is-the-fastest-shrin...

It's because suburbs are subsidized in the current system. Roads, infrastructure, and other upkeep costs are paid by the entire city but since the denser regions are more productive/profitable, they end up paying for the services that suburban residents are using. If suburban residents had to pay for the real cost of their housing, then I think it would be a lot less appealing. Building suburbs is terrible city planning and it's sad that cities are continuing to endorse them.

I consider cramming millions of people in tiny city apartments terrible planning as well. I want to smell the roses, not human waste. The root cause I guess that there are too many of us

The right thing for the environment maybe, but it would be an extremely regressive tax, regardless of how it's advertised.

This can be fixed by spending some or all of the new tax revenue on income transfers.

I will support $10 gallon gasoline if we first pass constitutional amendment to repeal the personal income tax.

Why would you support a regressive tax scheme that impacts the poor and middle class far more than the wealthy? To be clear, I'm not trying to be argumentative. I just don't understand this viewpoint at all.

They already suffer, and the benefit is to free the poor and middle class from personal income tax. The rich already escaped as generally their money is not personal income for purpose of income tax.

When the king takes a portion of my labor 'because he can', then I am a slave. The rich generally understand how to escape the income tax slavery. Let's free the poor.

Personally I'd rather see the loopholes get closed instead of adding a tax on consumer goods.

Remove some of the loopholes for trusts that let people avoid inheritance taxes. Add another tax bracket or two for capital gains. Get rid of the carried interest loophole.

There is merit to closing loopholes. It seems difficult to implement considering how codes and laws are actually crafted. Huge business of leeches creating tax code and then helping people to utilize the tax codes to maximum effect.

Straight consumption tax (excluding uncooked food) and it becomes very simple to implement. And nobody would file a personal income tax again. Employers would not do payroll tax withholding so wage slaves would get an immediate increase of take-home pay.

Weird then that the top quintile pays most of the income taxes that are paid.

How is it weird the top 20% of income tax payers pay the most? Is that by definition what makes the top 20% of income tax payers the top 20%? The very rich can structure affairs to have capital gains, minimize income, and therefore not be in the top 20% of income tax payers. Poor and middle-class wage slaves have income (per IRS definition) and generally don't escape income tax beyond the standard deduction which applies to everyone who files.

The rich understand these phrases: "capital gains", "everyone who files". Those with minimal wage income may not even need to file.

The poor basically only pay payroll taxes.

Capital gains are taxed using a different rate schedule, but they are still taxed as income (they are literally included in AGI).

>>> The poor basically only pay payroll taxes.

And sales tax and use tax.

Capital gains are assessed when recognized, not like a yearly schedule so rich can defer this and choose when to recognize it. Will certainly take many fun 'business' trips that year to offset.

Remove payroll taxes (which support collection of income tax) and employee take-home pay increases. Employers can stop hassles of the withholding accounting. Employees can stop hassles of yearly income tax filing to IRS.

There would be a temporary increase of unemployed payroll tax bookkeepers and storefront tax prep people. Hopefully they will find something more productive to do.

Nice try. Other than the government mandating this price which is just another tax the operators have no reasons to suddenly charge this much.

Besides you either have loads of money and do not give a hoot or you just live close to work.

Yes, add on to the tax which is already around 55 cents per gallon. Would you support $6 gallon fuel tax while relieving everyone from fear of IRS audits? (It's for the children!) And add $10 to aviation fuel.

As long as public transportation in the US continues to be unsafe, dirty, and slow people will continue to drive cars. It doesn't matter how much public transport you build out, if I have to sit next to a guy smelling like piss I will never get on the subway when I have a car.

You could sell your car to get the guy some new clothes and a shower.

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