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Comment by willholloway | Hacker News Reader

My favorite reform would be an end to the difference between business and personal expenses. I would like to see a tax code where all expenses were 100% deductible and only savings were taxed after an annual threshold was reached (similar to the current IRA rules).

Allowing all expenses to be tax deductible would reduce accounting overhead incredibly, and would incentivize consumption and trade.

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This seems backwards from what we actually want to do, but also has significant compliance concerns.

It's obvious how to tax consumption. It's (fairly) obvious how to tax income. How would you tax savings?

Is buying stock in a company "saving" or "consuming"? Is buying Bitcoins "saving" or "consuming"? What about gold coins/bars? What about guns and ammo? What about a collector car? Artwork? What about a house for personal residential use? What about a house for rental/income use? What about just holding suitcases of $100 bills?

It seems like there would immediately spring up a system of "not treated as savings" savings mechanisms. I seriously doubt that you'd accomplish your intended accounting simplicity...

I think "savings" is probably the wrong word - "profit" might be better.

If I have a car to drive to work, then I should be able to claim some proportion of it as a deduction. Currently that's not allowed (at least in Australia, where I'm from).

Homes are routinely taxed. They are also routinely taxed at different rates depending on whether they are owned for personal use or for renting out.

There are even countries that have a modest tax on bank accounts.

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