Re: An idea on taxes

From: Mike Linksvayer (ml@gondwanaland.com)
Date: Wed Jan 02 2002 - 22:36:21 MST


On Wed, Jan 02, 2002 at 08:02:06PM -0800, James Rogers wrote:
> Suppose income taxes were eliminated altogether and replaced with a
> marginally higher tax on capital gains (not more than 30%). The government
> would have to tighten its belt for a few years, but the net effect may
> actually be what the progressive income tax claims to be and isn't. There
> are a number of apparent consequences to this. Overall, this looks like a
> more promising way of bootstrapping people from low affluence to moderately
> high levels of affluence.

I suspect the take from a capital gains-only tax would vary
tremendously year to year and would negatively impact investment
and thus growth. A wealth tax (which you alluded to in an earlier
post today) wouldn't have these problems. Property taxes may be
viewed as a tax on one (very important) store of wealth. I suspect
Georgists have hashed these issues out ad nauseum.

-- 
  Mike Linksvayer
  http://gondwanaland.com/ml/


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