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by balfirevic 2129 days ago
It's barely distinguishable from UBI for any practical purpose.
1 comments

Not really. It scales with income, motivates working, is more fair, and avoids a blanket handout which would just raise the prices of everything in response.
I think you are confused about how either UBI or negative income tax works. The most important difference is that negative income tax would do payouts once a year, and even that is not a hard requirement. Other differences are accounting differences and not practical differences in how much money people have available (as they can be made identical by tweaking the tax rates and tax brackets).
Of course both programs will guarantee a certain income, that’s the point after all.

But UBI decreases motivation while also inflating the cost of goods and services so that they rise to meet the new money supply.

NIT avoids both problems by scaling with income. It provides motivation without paying every one. More fair, less cost, and better purchasing power.

You are, frankly, just making stuff up. UBI proposals are not necessarily (nor usually) funded by creating new money supply.
Perhaps that was the wrong wording, but giving everyone money would only inflate costs as they rise to meet the new income levels (whether that money is printed or redistributed). What else are you claiming is made up?
> What else are you claiming is made up

"Motivates working, avoids a blanket handout which would just raise the prices of everything in response"

"More fair, less cost, and better purchasing power"

I mean that it's a made up difference between UBI and NIT, they are simply equal in this regard, for better or for worse.

It makes no sense that they would be different, as the net money flow between individual (or household) and the government can be made exactly the same between UBI and NIT scheme, and how much money someone actually has in their hands is what determines motivation, fairness, purchasing power, inflation etc.

Under UBI: NetMonthlyIncome = income + UBI - taxes_ubi(income)

Under NIT (where taxes_nit can yield a negative value): NetMonthlyIncome = income - taxes_nit(income)

You can make taxes_ubi(income) == taxes_nit(income) + UBI and you get the same exact real life result, it's just that the accounting is different.