[roenxi]

> There was even discussion of literally taxing individuals for using the sun to generate their own power.

In fairness, that is a weak point among several strong ones. All taxes are arbitrary. Eg, taxing the people who are earning an income is a bit crazy, because to earn an income you basically have to put yourself at someone else's beck and call and try to benefit them. Then taxes get added on top of that to make sure the pain really gets rubbed in. If that sort of taxing makes sense, then it also makes about as much sense to tax people for their property being exposed to sunlight; the incentives might be better than an income tax. It is actually part-way to a land tax which seems like a pretty good idea.

[s1artibartfast]

I think it is one of the strongest points, but am pretty strongly against the stronger embodiments of land tax. I think most people would find the sun tax outrageous, and put it in a similar category to taxing people for the work they dont do, or for the air they breathe.

The common factor here is common expectation that taxes are applied to profit in the commercial sphere, or barring that, they are use taxes for public infrastructure.

[roenxi]

> I think most people would find the sun tax outrageous...

Probably. There is an effect where, like clockwork, people are outraged by any tax that they can't fob off onto someone else. It is an suspicious coincidence how the tax burden sits the most heavily on a group with very few votes. People being outraged doesn't relate to whether a tax is a good idea or not (at least, relative to other taxes).

> The common factor here is common expectation that taxes are applied to profit in the commercial sphere

With the advent of the Chinese getting good at solar we're moving to a world where people have free energy falling on them from the sky. A sun tax would be surprisingly consistent with the idea that people are taxed on their profits. Sun-exposed land is a whisper away from being an active, profit-producing asset. I have no doubt that California could manage to screw it up but in-principle a sun tax sounds like it'd probably be a good idea. I'd rather people be taxed for loafing under the shade of a solar panel than for working their hands to the bone. They aren't that expensive to install.

[s1artibartfast]

Im having trouble constructing a charitable mental model of where you are coming from. I think the part I'm missing is WHY you think taking non-commercial work or benefit is good.

To me, it seems like serfdom to extract taxes just because it can be done, or to make people work harder. If someone grows potatoes in their back yard and labor, should they have pay for it just so that they have to work harder? Is the purpose of the state to be a torture machine?

[roenxi]

I don't think it is good, I'm strongly anti-tax. If I was in charge there'd probably be a $-per-capita tax large enough to fund a reasonable military and that'd be that. Maybe some other nominal spending.

But if we're going to go beyond that, which we are, a "sunlight tax" sounds like it'd be roughly equivalent to a land tax (or corporate tax, or what have you), and a land tax is broadly superior to an income tax for any metric I care about. So it sounds good to me. There is an asset (sunlight on land), it doesn't require investment to maintain it. There isn't any complexity to measuring the amount of sun that I can think of. It is reasonable to tax the owner; they are getting free wealth [0] so it doesn't discourage them from doing anything. They owner worse off, but that is the nature of taxes and if we're levying a tax that isn't in principle something that we are too worried about because we can't escape that without a small-government strategy.

> If someone grows potatoes in their back yard and labor, should they have pay for it just so that they have to work harder?

That is how tax systems are broadly set up. I don't think it is reasonable to come from a position that an income tax is ok but that sort of tax isn't. The only reason that specific activity doesn't get taxed is the enforcement is too tricky to implement in practice [1] but there isn't a theoretical reason not to beyond that. If I grow potatoes for you I'd get taxed, so I don't see why me growing potatoes for me would be above taxation. It is the same amount and nature of work.

And, again, California's implementation might be terrible - but just pointing out they are talking about taxing solar generation doesn't seem like a strong point. There is an idea there that makes a lot of sense.

[0] Which is important and what separates this from a typical wealth tax. The annual sunlight is a renewable resource they are getting - a sort of natural rent on the land.

[1] Ie, how does the tax office detect if you have a pirate potato operation, and if they do how is it done cost-effectively so the tax take is higher than the enforcement cost.

[s1artibartfast]

Im pretty fervently anti-Georgist, so it is hard for me to relate.

In my moral-political framework use taxes are superior to income taxes which are superior to wealth taxes. In my mind, any just theory taxation is based payment to the state for state services provided.

Use taxes are best because there is a clear quid pro quo, it enables consent (via using the service or not), and can be leveed reasonably proportional to use costs.

Income taxes are next, because they can be framed as a use of the public market space and institutions. Again, there there is a clear quid pro quo, and people can choose to work more or less, and pay more or less taxes.

Wealth taxes are worst because there is no quid pro quo or consent. The taxed gets no new exchange for the payment.

I think solar tax is even worse than this, because there is no underlying profit or wealth. Im not making money with solar, just losing money more slowly.

I think this is equivalent to sending a collector through the serfs to collect taxes for breathing the kings air. The kind didnt make the air any more than the state made the sun.

With respect to Georgism, I think it was amoral to begin with, and economically outdated today. Simply put, a significant portion of value today does not arise from the land. The material inputs for some code are trivial, but that code created may be worth more than a thousand acres of farmland. The material inputs to make a billion dollar stock trade are a few watts to send electrons down a wire.

[roenxi]

People typically come up with some moral justification from taxes that happens to align with their lifestyle not being taxed particularly heavily and someone else picking up the tab. The facts on the ground are that if California spends a billion dollars, it is either going to need to get someone to donate a billion dollars - realistically by deception - or raise a billion dollars in taxes. If the existing taxes don't cover the spending then there will need to be new taxes that do.

I'm more than happy to agree that a sun tax is like serfs paying tax for breathing the kings air. But any tax is equivalent to a serf breathing the kings air - the state didn't put in anywhere near the level of support that it is taking away. The people who control the army point out that their army can get the taxpayer, nobody else will save them and ergo they must donate money to the cause. When taxes are involved inevitably the people paying the most tax will have moral objections to picking up the heaviest burden and their moral sensibilities will be overruled by suspiciously more moral and less taxed individuals [0].

The people who pay for the spending aren't doing it willingly, or there wouldn't be any need to engage the tax system to make them pay. Pretending that there is some sort of consent or a quid pro quo involved is just that - pretence. If the taxpayers called your morals, in practice, it will be discovered that the governing bodies were bluffing and some other method of extracting money will be found that is then decided to be most moral by people not paying for the spending. And from that frame there is no difference between taxing solar panels or taxing any other form of wealth generation - except that the people with solar panels are already getting a free ride from the sun so it is a less economically distortive burden for the taxman to take a cut.

I suppose to put it in short, we will have to agree to disagree.

[0] Although there would be a really interesting to run an experiment where votes in an election were proportionally weighted by how much tax the voter had paid in the last financial year.