[DontBreakAlex]

I think he meant that you'd have the brackets apply to types of consumption instead of income level, so no tax on food, low tax on restaurants, medium tax on high-end electronics, insane tax on planes and yachts. I mean it sounds like it would be easier to maintain/enforce such tiering system than constantly fight with people trying to not technically be wealthy. Downside of course is that some people's luxuries are other's basic needs, but I wonder if there's been serious research on the implications of such system.

[SoftTalker]

Easiest thing would be to not have any tiers of consumption. The stuff people "need" to spend money on such as food and housing would be handled by an automatic rebate, effectively a UBI. No other welfare, assistance, etc. What you earn you keep, unless you spend it, then you pay tax.

[frmersdog]

Boy, that's going to suck for people whose credit situation has shut them out of most traditional housing situations. Or people who rely on what other people don't consider food for sustenance, for whatever reason (protein powder? multivitamins? supplies to grow/produce your own foodstuffs?). Just as examples.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Boy, that's going to suck for people whose credit situation has shut them out of most traditional housing situations.

There are lots of apartments available with no credit check. They're more often of lower quality, but if your situation is such that you want to spend less on rent and have more left for something else (like paying off your debts), why is it a problem for people to be able to choose that?

It's the status quo that screws them, because the government often pays out $1000/month or more in housing assistance but it's required to go directly to the landlord, and then if you have money problems but could live with family or are willing to take in a crappy low-rent studio apartment for a while, you can't take that money and use it to fix your situation instead because if you tried to do that the government takes it away.

> Or people who rely on what other people don't consider food for sustenance, for whatever reason (protein powder? multivitamins? supplies to grow/produce your own foodstuffs?).

Isn't this the opposite? If you give them a UBI then they can buy whatever they want. If you give them paternalistic micromanaged benefits like SNAP then they can buy carbonated high fructose corn syrup in a can but not vitamins or farming supplies.

[frmersdog]

You don't know what you're talking about. The corporate takeover of most rentals (apartments and homes alike) near the roadways and transit these people need to get to their jobs (let alone in areas where they wouldn't have to commute) has made those rentals inaccessible. They use little-known credit reporting companies specific to the rental industry that have basically no regulatory oversight, and which allow landlords to deny applications in an opaque way without liability. Housing voucher wait lists are years long; they're basically impossible to get on. The only housing assistance that was available to most people were pandemic-era emergency eviction grants, and those are gone.

Van life, couch surfing, living in hotels: these are the options available to them. And it's obviously not so simple as "roughing it" for a few months, as they're essentially forced to sell or abandon most of their personal property.

What you're talking about it taking people in those dire straits and forcing them to pay MORE money just to keep a roof over their heads, while millions of wealthier Americans own multiple properties where they and their family are the only residents. It's ridiculous.

>Isn't this the opposite? If you give them a UBI then they can buy whatever they want. If you give them paternalistic micromanaged benefits like SNAP then they can buy carbonated high fructose corn syrup in a can but not vitamins or farming supplies.

I am, once again, going to state that you don't seem to understand the topic at hand.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The corporate takeover of most rentals (apartments and homes alike) near the roadways and transit these people need to get to their jobs (let alone in areas where they wouldn't have to commute) has made those rentals inaccessible.

No they haven't:

https://econofact.org/factbrief/do-private-equity-firms-own-...

> They use little-known credit reporting companies specific to the rental industry that have basically no regulatory oversight, and which allow landlords to deny applications in an opaque way without liability.

And then you rent from someone else because in reality large corporations own only a small percentage of rental units.

> Housing voucher wait lists are years long; they're basically impossible to get on.

You're again only making the argument for getting rid of those grants people can't get anyway in favor of a UBI that everyone gets automatically.

> What you're talking about it taking people in those dire straits and forcing them to pay MORE money just to keep a roof over their heads

How are they paying more money for anything to receive $1000 in cash instead of a $1000 payment that can only go to a landlord?

> I am, once again, going to state that you don't seem to understand the topic at hand.

[frmersdog]

>No they haven't:

I said corporate, not PE.

>And then you rent from someone else because in reality large corporations own only a small percentage of rental units.

Most of the rest are owned by medium-sized corporations that use the same services.

>You're again only making the argument for getting rid of those grants people can't get anyway in favor of a UBI that everyone gets automatically.

UBI within the tax regime described above doesn't abolish the paternalism you're attacking, it just shifts it.

>How are they paying more money for anything to receive $1000 in cash instead of a $1000 payment that can only go to a landlord?

I am, once again, going to state that you don't seem to understand the topic at hand.

Or maybe you do, and pivoted to UBI because you realized that the tax issue was indefensible.

[Manuel_D]

What "high end electronics" would be taxed at a medium rate? Do billionaires not just use iPhones? Most high end private planes are the same models as regional jets (e.g. Embraer ERJ line), so a tax on them would still be mostly impacting normal folks' plane tickets.

The core problem remains the same: consumption does not scale with wealth. If we limit taxes go a handful of goods and services, then demand is just going to shift to something else. Consumption taxes give billionaires the option to drastically reduce their tax burden by consuming less. The lifestyle of someone with a $20 million net worth is not that much worse than someone with a $2 billion net worth.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Most high end private planes are the same models as regional jets (e.g. Embraer ERJ line), so a tax on them would still be mostly impacting normal folks' plane tickets.

Planes are the things airlines buy, not the things economy passengers buy. If you're conceding that taxes corporations pay get passed on to consumers then what does that imply about corporate income tax?

Also, poor people don't generally buy a lot of air travel.

> Consumption taxes give billionaires the option to drastically reduce their tax burden by consuming less.

Isn't that what we want? An incentive for the money to go to creating jobs or charitable donations rather than private jets and third mansions?

[Manuel_D]

Correct, corporate tax rates are generally regressive in their effect.

Building jets and houses creates jobs though. A more likely outcome of a consumption tax is that wealthy people simply spend less.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Correct, corporate tax rates are generally regressive in their effect.

Corporations can be shell companies. Whatever rate or tax you want to be applied to "the rich" has to be at least that high on corporations or "the rich" would just put their money inside a corporation and pay the lower tax. So it turns out all taxes are "regressive" at which point you might as well use the the simple, uniform, less distortionary ones (e.g. VAT) and then achieve different effective rates via transfer payments, the most efficient of which is a UBI.

> Building jets and houses creates jobs though.

That's assuming they're building houses instead of buying up the existing stock while restrictive zoning prevents more from being built. Moreover, jobs building private jets or satisfying other hedonistic consumption are less helpful than jobs building battery factories or growing food, even if they did employ the same number of people.

> A more likely outcome of a consumption tax is that wealthy people simply spend less.

The reason wealthy people don't spend most of their income is that they already buy whatever they want and then still have money left over. Bill Gates isn't going to buy an economy car instead of a luxury car over a sales tax.