An Experiment in Basic Income

woolythoughts

cells wrote: »

Almost by definition. Left = rich pay too little. Centre = Its about right. Right = Rich pay too much tax. And of course rich for this discussion probably means anyone earning over >£50k a year....basically a lot of people who will never become truly rich (net assets >£2m)

Actually I'd say true right is everyone pays too much tax

It's only the success of the labour government making tax avoidance the same as tax evasion that a lot of tax planning is being made illegal

woolythoughts

MacMickster wrote: »

Times are changing, and what used to work in the past doesn't always work so well in a global market place.

Increased sales taxes could also replace corporation taxes, removing the advantage that multinationals, who are able to transfer their profits to other low-taxation countries, have over home-based companies.

Really? I beg to differ.

You can reclaim input sales tax. My current client spend more on working out paper based flows of goods to minimise CT and VAT than they do anything else

Generali

woolythoughts wrote: »

Really? I beg to differ.

You can reclaim input sales tax. My current client spend more on working out paper based flows of goods to minimise CT and VAT than they do anything else

Surely if you end up selling to a consumer in the UK then you'll end up charging and paying VAT...? What am I missing?

zagubov

antrobus wrote: »

Sadly, not possible.

The arithmetic is quite straightforward; 40 million adults of working age, 30 million work, 5 million on benefits, 5 million neither pay tax nor receive benefits. (Think students and [STRIKE]housewives[/STRIKE] housepersons.)

Working people will have to pay more tax to fund the basic income of that latter group. (Think 5 million at £6k a year, or an extra 6% on basic rate.)



Here are some more doubts.

The other fly in the ointment - which the Finns do not seem to have thought about very much - is that the provision of such plenty would provide a magnet to those parts of the EU for whom €800 a month is a good wage. Pretty soon, Finland would be swamped by riff-raff, and the whole thing would become unaffordable.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12037623/Paying-all-UK-citizens-155-a-week-may-be-an-idea-whose-time-has-come.html

I see the problem. How do we isolate the study group?
Does €800 a month go far in Finland? In the UK, social and economic experiments used to be carried out in Swindon (cable TV, electronic money) as it was remote enough from other shopping areas to be studied in isolation.

Does it require a local currency that can't be exported clandestinely?
It was once proposed that government employees be paid in different colour currency so they could be challenged if they paid for anything in normal-coloured notes (I'm thinking of the "blue peso" proposal once suggested to combat corruption in Mexico).

Out,_Vile_Jelly

It's an interesting idea. As we've seen here though, any attempts to change our bloated and unwieldy benefits system is met with shrill hysteria (tax credits hoo-ha, "bedroom tax" etc).

Herzlos

zagubov wrote: »

Does it require a local currency that can't be exported clandestinely?
It was once proposed that government employees be paid in different colour currency so they could be challenged if they paid for anything in normal-coloured notes (I'm thinking of the "blue peso" proposal once suggested to combat corruption in Mexico).

What happens if they get change? Does it need to be in the special colour too?

lawriejones1

its a nice idea but far too progressive for either party to consider.

zagubov

Herzlos wrote: »

What happens if they get change? Does it need to be in the special colour too?

I think that was the case. Other people could use the blue peso, but government employees had to use it. Having said that I don't know if it was tried out in the end,

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

I think that was the case. Other people could use the blue peso, but government employees had to use it. Having said that I don't know if it was tried out in the end,

An interesting idea. I can't find anything from a quick Google.

What would happen when a vendor had to make change? I'd be pretty annoyed as a Government employee if I had to pay the exact sum for everything and I'd be quite annoyed as a shopkeeper if I had to keep two floats, one for Government employees' change and one for everyone else.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

An interesting idea. I can't find anything from a quick Google.

What would happen when a vendor had to make change? I'd be pretty annoyed as a Government employee if I had to pay the exact sum for everything and I'd be quite annoyed as a shopkeeper if I had to keep two floats, one for Government employees' change and one for everyone else.

This was floated in the 80s by a think tank somewhere. I remember wondering about the practicalities at the time and think the idea was there would be two floats so if you were given blue notes you gave blue change, or ordinary coins.

It did assume the same people would be frequenting the same shops as regular customers. I can see problems policing it if people travel a lot.