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by sideshowb 2676 days ago
> CO2 accounting and taxing will be a massive invitation for corruption, gaming and bad actors

That's the problem already. We've had a CO2 price for a long time - but it's meaninglessly low. I can only presume because of lobbying from those with vested interests.
3 comments
karambahh 2676 days ago
CO2 fraud has been uncovered in the EU VAT zone[0] 1.6 billion euros skimmed by a dozen people in France. Up to 10 billion for the EU as a whole.

Unfortunately I could only find sources in french or hebrew but the amounts amassed by this operation is staggering.

[0]https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraude_%C3%A0_la_TVA_sur_les...

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JoshTko 2676 days ago
Can't we make fines high and give anyone that reports fraud a cut of penalty?
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jaggederest 2676 days ago
There's a similar concept to a Pigovian tax for fines, I think of it as a "Pigovian fine", which is the price at which the likelihood of getting caught times the fine exceeds the cost to pay the tax directly.

So if you have a 1% chance of getting caught, the fine needs to be 101x the tax.

This is why so many e.g. banking and consumer protection fines fail to achieve their goal - the cost of adhering is more than the probability of getting caught times the fine, so it's economically rational to not pay.

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sorryforthethro 2676 days ago
Not just simple fraud, but a major hurdle is how to regulate CO2 necessary for producing consumer energy without creating a regressive tax structure. Once CO2 is converted to electricity on the grid, it's fungible and impossible to sort out luxury vs necessity.

Imho, government trying to sin-tax away CO2 is result of our failure to invest in technology solutions.

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gowld 2676 days ago
Not so hard. It's fine if any individual tax is regressive, as long is counterbalanced by UBI or other forms of per-capita welfare support. You don't need to measure precisely, as long as you get rough estimates that people pay $Y in various sin-taxes but get $X>$Y in general welfare benefits.
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sorryforthethro 2670 days ago
I absolutely disagree. Inserting the government into the average citizen's balance sheet can and will be corrupted.
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