[skybrian]

UBI could be done a lot of different ways, but it's a natural fit with progressive taxes. A UBI funded by taxes makes taxes more progressive. It's somewhat like the standard tax deduction, except you still get it if you don't pay any tax.

It keeps the wolf from the door, but you still need to save enough to retire on.

The US standard tax deduction amounts to about $1300 a month. Suppose that were instead paid out automatically? For the employed, the government check and increased paycheck withholding (if the standard deduction were removed) would largely cancel out. But if you lose your job, you still get the government check.

You could also see this as a reworking of unemployment benefits so that everyone always qualifies for them and they don't run out.

[Yizahi]

Making a good progressive tax scale is a task which a freshmen can do in a hour. The problem is not a better tax scale, the problem is how to find actual shit to tax. Doing nothing, we have the modern state of economy, when there are poor people having small to no tax basis, then "middle(lol)" class exposing all their assets and funds fully to the tax office and paying maximum taxes on this planet among everyone because of that, and then passing middle class we have people becoming richer and richer but "somehow" paying fewer and fewer taxes, culminating in billionaires who legally have zero assets, zero saving and zero income. You tax tax such a person 5%, or 50% or over 9000%, the end math will always be zero. Good luck funding UBI from taxing billionaires :) . And salaried people actually paying max bracket taxes already can't fund the whole planet by themselves, math is not mathing here.

[skybrian]

One thing that might help is closing loopholes around unrealized capital gains. Suppose that, as an alternative to taxing capital gains on its stock, a startup could deposit 20% of issued stock into a sovereign wealth fund? For a company with all its growth ahead of it, this is roughly equivalent and can’t be avoided later (not even with buy, borrow, die) because it’s already been paid. And yet, shareholders would probably find it attractive because they don’t pay the tax themselves.

[Aurornis]

Taking 1/5 of every startup from the beginning is a great way to get every entrepreneur to found their company in another country.

[jfengel]

If other countries were that friendly to startups, people would already be doing it.

Startups get done in the US because of the network effect: this is where the other startups are, and where the people who fund startups are. It's hard for them all to de-camp at once to a different country, especially since most of the countries they'd want to go to already have higher taxes than the US.

There's probably some limit beyond which people would leave anyway -- presumably, lower than 100%. I don't know if they'd leave over 20%. But I bet you could demand a 5-10% stake, and get many threats but few actual departures.

[skybrian]

Let’s say it’s voluntary and it only applies to whichever class of stock you designate, which can be non-voting. You use it for employee stock or to sell stock to investors who want a tax-free investment.

I think investors would pay more for the shares.