[tomcam]

If you use your car only couple of days a week, should you be taxed more on your car than someone who uses theirs every day of the week? What about a piano you haven’t practiced on for a few years? The expensive ski boots you haven’t touched since high school?

[lotsofpulp]

Maybe, but we can at least start with the more fundamental resources that have to be shared amongst people and are in limited quantities, such as land.

Driving giant pickup trucks for no productive reason also uses up a societal resource, and increases societal risks, so I would not mind seeing extra taxes on those compared to more reasonable methods of transport, and a case could be easily made that all personal vehicles should be taxed much higher to incentivize public transit construction and use.

Society is not losing out much if you don’t use your ski boots since college, but maybe society does benefit if you consume less throwaway things, so a generally increased tax on consumption, perhaps based on mass and distance (since more mass moved further distances takes more energy to move) might work. Easiest way to do this is simply 10x tax on fossil fuels, it will flow down to everything.

Tax things you don’t want. Taxing the result of productive work (income) is disincentivizing something we do want. We want people working hard and striving to do the difficult tasks that are in short supply of expertise (and higher income).

[tomcam]

Does property tax count in your scheme?

Do you understand that for many people in the world, the car you or at least people in your peer group might drive would be the equivalent of a giant pickup truck to them? Who decides what a reasonable method of transportation is? For example, the bus system is terrible where I live. Am I allowed to have a giant pickup truck under your scheme or should that be taxed the same as if I had a better mass transit system near me? How would you monitor use of my giant pickup truck to be sure I was using it practically in a way that meets your requirements for proper pickup truck usage?

[lotsofpulp]

Property tax is the same as a wealth tax.

> Do you understand that for many people in the world, the car you or at least people in your peer group might drive would be the equivalent of a giant pickup truck to them?

Yes, I am aware these schemes would require reducing consumption for quite a few people.

> Who decides what a reasonable method of transportation is?

Society? But it has to be planned with long term consequences in mind. Are we prioritizing pedestrians over individual car owners and detached single family home owners or not, because the two are wholly incompatible.

> For example, the bus system is terrible where I live. Am I allowed to have a giant pickup truck under your scheme or should that be taxed the same as if I had a better mass transit system near me?

You are allowed to have whatever you want, just like you can have a $10M home right now, but society does not need to give you the streets and parking lots to use the giant pickup truck.

The mass transit system will come about eventually, but probably will take decades of rezoning. I think voters making this kind of sacrifice is realistic at all, people’s priority at the polls is which politician will allow them to consume as much as possible.

> How would you monitor use of my giant pickup truck to be sure I was using it practically in a way that meets your requirements for proper pickup truck usage?

Again, high fossil fuel prices take care of this, especially at marginal tax rates. Use a little fuel? Less tax. Use more fuel? Higher taxes. At some tax rate, it will no longer make sense for 90% of people to use a pickup truck if they don’t need it.

[tomcam]

What about the people who install your HVAC or hang drywall? Are they allowed to use their giant pickups without punitive taxes? Will it help inflation to tax them heavily? Will it help them lower their prices? Will it lower housing prices?

[lotsofpulp]

Why is it “punitive” taxes? If they are performing sufficiently productive work with the giant pickup, then they will be able to pass down the cost to their customers.

The purpose of the tax is to dissuade frivolous use that harms society at large. If the use is valuable enough, it will be reflected in the prices of the services it helps provide.

[tomcam]

Taxes by their nature tend to inhibit the thing being taxed. This is why every state in the USA has heavy liquor taxes, and it’s why places like New York City and Seattle tax soft drinks extra.

The taxes you are proposing are literally designed to inhibit people from buying the vehicles they want.

[tomcam]

The mass transit system will not come about eventually in my opinion. Self driving cars will almost completely replace mass transit, especially in the suburban areas.