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Comment by dublinben | Hacker News Reader

Offsetting income tax would be a massive handout to the rich, who have been and continue to be the greatest contributors to carbon emissions.

Instead, it should be paired with a dividend which makes it revenue neutral for the median household. Lower income families, who are more impacted by but less responsible for climate change, would be paid a benefit.

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Canada’s rebate was per-capita. Most people received more in their rebate than they paid in increased fuel cost.

> Offsetting income tax would be a massive handout to the rich, who have been and continue to be the greatest contributors to carbon emissions.

I'm not sure how these two ideas make sense in your head. If you implement a carbon tax and the rich are the greatest contributors as you stated, one would expect them to be hit by the carbon tax as well.

In any case, I personally see an income tax as a strange thing to have in the context of a discussion wherein taxing undesirable behavior is seen as a way of disincentivizing it.

At the very minimum free the working class and lower-middle class from income tax.

In the U.S. capital gains and dividends are taxed at a low rate to benefit the rich, and "Income tax" is a working-class thing. Maybe the OP was referring to the U.S. concept of income tax.

There is progressive taxation, so you can control who is getting offsets and who is not.

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