Perhaps, Arthur, war is a public good to which our taxes contribute. People can be trusted to contribute to public improvements that they want. Seems to me that the dry sidewalks and plank roads that replaced the muddy streets in the old western towns stemmed from agreements of the populace and were not coercive.
Obviously, infrastructure and public services such as police and fire may be effectively carried out by local government using revenue from taxes. However we should note that there are more private security personnel (Rent-a-Cops) than there are police in the US. Also there are thousands of jurisdictions who use private fire services rather than public. (These are extremely successful and are often at the forefront in new ways to fight outbreaks of fire.) More and more, taxes which once were directed to a specific need have become general. Anything that moves is taxed and the proceeds disappear into general funds. This is particularly noticeable with regard to sales taxes. The murmurings in Washington about adopting a VAT is an example of the tax that bears no relation to a quid pro quo. VAT is a pretty good tax for governments, for it can start low (for easy acceptance) and then move up slowly but steadily. I think that VAT in Britain has now reached 20%. In California, the decriminalization of marijuana is likely in a couple of weeks. An important pro argument is "Let us make it legal so we can tax it!" Whatever technical arguments for taxes may appear in economics texts, the reality is that taxation is a coercive method of extracting wages from a reluctant citizenry. Harry ******************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 9104 818 352-4141 ******************************** -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 9:42 AM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax" Taxes are generally needed to provide public goods. Those goods that everyone wants or can enjoy but is no one's interest to provide since the returns can't be privately appropriated by any one person and the benefits can usually be enjoyed by all. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 11:56 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax" What a peculiar statement from Oliver. I think it could be argued that a civilized society wouldn't need taxes. Harry ******************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 9104 818 352-4141 ******************************** -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 3:25 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax" Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 3:48 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax" Once we were taxed to provide funds for something related to the tax. I the RAF we had a saying, "If it moves salute it, if it doesn't, paint it". Now the saying is, "Can we tax it?" with no attempt to relate revenue to a specific activity. It sucks. Harry ******************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 9104 818 352-4141 ******************************** -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Christoph Reuss Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 7:45 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax" Arthur replied: > I suggest you take a look at the following. > > http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/jibc/9702-05.htm Unfortunately, this 13-years-old article hardly answers any of the questions. You even ask some of these questions (e.g. whether the bit tax should be progressive) yourself, i.e. you haven't made up your mind yet. And when you write about a "new tax", it is not clear whether this should replace the old (income) tax or add to it. If it replaces it, it won't be sufficient in the first decades; if it gets added, it won't be accepted. There's much unclarity in that article. E.g. when you write that "The bit tax would not be a user pay tax.", who if not the users should pay it? Even if it will be collected at the ISP level, of course the users (ISP customers) will end up paying this tax. But not to maximize excertion, that won't happen on a Bit basis... There also seems to be a lack of technical background, e.g. when you note that "Collected by the telecom carriers, satellite networks and cable systems the revenues would flow directly to the national revenue service of the respective country." Did you know that when emails etc. are sent from A to B (even if they are in the same neighborhood!), these bits pass through many other countries, some quite distant from A and B, sometimes around the planet? Why should countries around the world collect taxes for a communication between neighbors who have nothing to do with these countries? (This would also mean that if the transfer happens to pass thru 22 countries, the tax will be twice as much than if the same amount of data passes thru 11 countries -- note that the number of countries crossed is not even within the power of the users!) And in satellite communications, talking of countries is pretty moot. And it's ironic to stress the possibilities of tax evasion in the old economy, when these possibilities would be even greater in bit-taxed (wireless) global communications. > http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/9806-08.htm The concrete part about the bit tax is mostly a copy-paste job from the first article. Has there been any development of the Bit Tax concept in the last 12 years? (An eternity in the digital age!) Or was it buried ~10 years ago...? Maybe because nobody knew the answers to all those questions... 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