[catskul2]

Step 1: Calculate the effect on local utility rates.

Step 2: Create a new tax which brings in 150% revenue of the calculated effect which applies progressively on power users one standard deviation above the mean

Step 3: Apply a negative tax on everyone using less > 1 standard deviation above the mean. Either preserve the excess revenue, or put it into infrastructure.

Step 4: recalculate every year and adjust rates accordingly.

[wmf]

(gymnastics meme) Just auction electricity.

[StreetChief]

are negative taxes a real thing currently?

[catskul2]

Yes. Even in Canada they already have something similar with their carbon taxes. IIRC, tax is collected all year and returned at the end based on income rather than consumption.

Not sure if it would technically be considered a negative tax, but the effect is similar.

[StreetChief]

I was thinking more along the lines of my purchase price is x + y tax + -z tax. A return eventually isn't quite the same, but maybe it's effectively the same.

[abdullahkhalids]

A negative tax is a subsidy, no?

In Pakistan, electricity rates are slabbed. 0-100 units are charged very little - often below cost of providing the electricity. 100-200 units more, etc. So ultimately, high consumption users subsidize low consumption users. It makes sense because low consumption users are 'using' cheap electricity from hydropower/gas, but high consumption users are forcing the state to turn on expensive oil based power plants.

[StreetChief]

Well I was thinking more along the lines of the price of a good is x, plus y taxes, reduced by -z tax. Subsidys might effectively be similar, but it won't be calculated the way "positive" taxes are.

[abdullahkhalids]

Hmmm. Don't know about the electricity market.

But, again in Pakistan's Punjab province, at restaurants, if you pay by cash, sales tax is 19% and if you pay by card, sales tax is 5%.

It's a method by the state to increase the size of the formal economy.