[blamestross]

Honestly, I think we need an entirely different way of looking at "taxes". We need to find a way to calculate the externalities of a company and charge that as taxes.

I don't have a magic way to do that, nor am I convinced it is possible.

But I think that is the bare minimum we can agree government and regulations are for, to prevent and compensate for us hurting each other. Especially in ways that are hard for individuals to handle.

[edgyquant]

Or we can stop trying to have the government solve every problem there is and stop taxing people at every instance of money transfer. If you’re an average person your income is taxed, your spending is taxed and any investments you make are then taxed. If you give someone a gift it’s taxed ffs. The end result is a government that spends more than it makes so think tanks can push the idea we need to find more ways and people to tax.

Anyone who stops for a second and thinks about it knows that if we taxed the “super rich” to the gills the end result would be an increase in government spending, not a reduction of our deficit.

[blamestross]

> Or we can stop trying to have the government solve every problem there is and stop taxing people at every instance of money transfer. If you’re an average person your income is taxed, your spending is taxed and any investments you make are then taxed. If you give someone a gift it’s taxed ffs. The end result is a government that spends more than it makes so think tanks can push the idea we need to find more ways and people to tax.

That literally is what I am proposing. Things like pollution, global warming, and resource extraction should have the costs on the commons paid back to the commons. If that cost is too high for profitability, the business shouldn't exist.

[edgyquant]

No it isn’t, you’re proposing adding tons of new taxes on to businesses and it’s some cognitive dissonance that you think this means reducing taxes and spending.

Proposals like this are the reason the right is able to claim climate change politics is nothing more than an excuse to enact leftist policy.

[xboxnolifes]

> If you give someone a gift it’s taxed ffs.

Not if you're an average person giving normally priced gifts.

[edgyquant]

This was an example of one of the untold number of taxes our current system requires to extract wealth from literally every transfer of money it can get its hands on. Funny you pick that one and ignore the entire point.

[xboxnolifes]

But it doesn't exist as a means of extracting wealth. It exists because otherwise you could avoid the entire taxation system by just "giving gifts" for every transaction. Many seemingly odd taxes exist for the same reason.