Read on: The clip below is from a newspaper article of some years ago.Â
=====================
SHOULD GOVERNMENTS PUT A TAX ON DIGITAL TRAFFIC?
>
>Walter Truett Anderson
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â A Canadian economist, Dr.
Arthur Cordell, has come up with an
>intriguing idea about how governments may be able to survive the
>Information Age, and perhaps deal with some of the massive problems --
>such as mounting deficits and huge numbers of people thrown out of work
>by automation -- that seem to come with the
territory of this brave new high-tech world.
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Cordell calls it a bit
tax. He proposes that every digital bit
>of information flowing along the electronic highways be taxed at an
>amount of, say, .000001 cents per bit -- that's five zeros, meaning
>one-millionth of a cent. Since all information is rapidly becoming
>digitalized, the tax would take a miniscule chunk of revenue out of
>every piece of data, every voice message, every visual image that
>passes through the system. The tax would be automatically calculated
>by the trunk carriers and remitted to the
appropriate national tax-collecting agency.
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Cordell is a well-known expert on information-communications
>technology (commonly known these days as ICT or IT). He edits a
>newsletter on information society trends, and describes himself as an
>"unabashed technophile."Â So his proposal isn't a Luddite effort to
>slow or reverse technological change. On the contrary, he declares
>that ICT is "wonderful, liberating and amazingly productive," but that
>we can't manage it with the ideas and theories of the Industrial Age --
>definitely not with the standard ideas about
how to raise public funds and finance social services.
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â He says:Â "We have to think about a world where, as a
>vice-president of Microsoft put it, ICT has made routine tasks
>automatic and complex tasks routine. The quality and quantity of work
>has changed, and the new wealth of nations is to be found in the
>digital information pulsing through the global information networks,
>where fewer and fewer people are needed to create more and more wealth.Â
>Only by getting at the productivity that is now in the networks -- all
>those displaced bank clerks, gas attendants and store clerks -- can we
>maintain the social and physical infrastructure and develop new ways of
>gaining revenues to pay for all the new jobs
that will be needed in teaching and caring areas."
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Cordell says the idea originated out of a number of
>conversations with T. Ran Ide, a communications specialist, in which
>the two wrestled with the question of what is
going wrong, economically, in the Information Age.
>They were particularly puzzled by the twin problems of chronic
>unemployment and high deficits that bedevil so
many advanced industrial countries.
>"Information technology was supposed to make us all wealthier, and we
>seem to be be getting poorer. We kept asking ourselves, what happened
>to all the wealth? We began batting that around, and we realized that
>a lot of the productivity of information technology is kind of
>evaporating, or going into networks."
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Using the popular "information highway" metaphor, Cordell
>compares the bit tax to "a gasoline tax or a toll on a bridge or toll
>road or licence plates on a car. These payments, which are really
>taxes, apply by the weight of the truck or the amount of gas used."Â
>And although a millionth of a cent per bit may not sound like much,
>economists who have taken a preliminary look at the bit tax idea agree
>on one thing:Â It would generate a huge amount of money.
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Cordell admits to feeling "a
certain missionary zeal" about his
>idea, but at this point the zeal is aimed at getting it discussed and
>evaluated rather than getting it passed into law. He floated it at a
>recent economic conference in Belgium, and is currently shopping it
>around in on-line computer conferences -- giving it a test drive, so to
>speak, on the information highway.
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The first responses to the idea
have been guardedly favorable
>from various economists and tekkies who have had a look at the idea,
>but at this point there has been nothing like the huge public debate
>that generally accompanies new tax proposals. Cordell plans to convene
>a roundtable of fiscal types to go into the proposal in greater depth,
>think about how it might work in practice, and begin to "tease out the
>salient issues" that need to be explored.
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â One of those salient issues is likely to the question of
>whether the tax will simply get "passed along" to end users -- people
>paying for cable TV services, for example -- and thus be vulnerable to
>the charge that it is really a "user pay" tax. Cordell thinks it
>won't, or that the amount that does get passed
along will be so diffused as to prove more or less painless.
> But he acknowledges the possibility that certain affected interest
>groups
>-- such as telephone and cable companies -- may take a strong dislike
>to the proposal.
>
>Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Another question is what would be done with the revenues.Â
>Since the bit tax idea grew out of a concern about the employment
>impacts of ICT, Cordell hopes that any revenues it generates will be
>used in that area -- not just for the conventional public-works and
>job-training programs that are routinely proposed, but for a radically
>new exploration of how to "plan for a new world of work and working,"
>moving from "an educational system where people are trained to make a
>living to one where people are trained to cope with living."
>---################
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 3:26 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; Harry Pollard
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Progressive taxation -- what a concept!
Harry,
Good to see you emerging from the woodwork. I
totally agree with what you have written. The
more "progressive" a tax system is the more it
will be successfully evaded by the rich because
they can always employ cleverer people than politicians or civil servants.
There's only one tax that's fair and which can't
be evaded. This is a flat tax on the value of
possessions which are publicly exhibited for
status reasons -- house, personal jewellery,
car, airplane, etc. This would even catch those
who have no provable income but are suspected of
being major criminals. If a very rich person
(e.g. Warren Buffet) wants to avoid heavy
taxation by living simply, well, that's fine. If
he isn't spending his money personally then it's
either being invested (giving jobs to others) or
it's going to a charity (for public benefit). If
someone who derives his wealth from the citizens
of country A wants to avoid taxation by living
and enjoying his personal possessions in country
B for all or part of the year, well, that's
fine, too. If X is the number of days he spends
abroad then Government A simply requisitions his
corporate possessions in country A for that
financial year (and receives income therefrom) in the ratio X/365.
Keith
At 16:37 10/04/2012, you wrote:
Progressive taxation is a terrible concept.
If you are rich because governmental actions
give you a special privilege you should pay it
all back - in other words the special deal should be removed.
If you are rich because you produce things - or
provide services - that people want, you shouldn't pay anything.
There is an economic argument that if taxation
reduces the income of someone who is needed in
the system, then taxing him, thereby reducing
his take, will make his occupation less
attractive to new prospects, thus producing a
shortage. To induce more people to undergo the
training and devote the time needed to join this
occupation, wages will rise, perhaps to a point
where after tax income will be at the required
level to keep the occupation manned (or womanned)!
In other words, the tax payment is avoided by the intended target.
So, who pays the tax? Well, the customer always
pays. This result can be noted when it is
suggested that instead of taxing the common
people, taxes on business will be increased.
(They are trying to do this in Los Angeles now.)
So, business pays the tax and promptly passes it on to their customers.
So the idiots who support a "business tax" pay it themselves.
Harry
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 2:12 AM, michael gurstein
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From:
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
[ mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sid Shniad
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 4:18 PM
Subject: Progressive taxation -- what a concept!
*
<http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1149981--walkom-these-high-income-docs-want-the-rich-to-pay>http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1149981--walkom-these-high-income-docs-want-the-rich-to-pay
Toronto
Star
March 21, 2012
These high-income docs want the rich to pay
Thomas Walkom*
Hereâs a novel idea. A new ew organization of
well-paid doctors thinks that they ââ and
other high-income earners ââ should pay more in taxes.
âWho knows?â sp; physician Michael
Rachlis, one of the founders of Doctors for Fair
Taxation, told me Wednesday. âMaybe e
weâll start a trend. Maybe be weâll see a
Lawyers for Fair Taxation start rt up.â
Iâm not going to hold my breath. h. Still,
itâs refreshing to see someone stand up up
for a more progressive tax system.
The conventional wisdom these days is that
progressivity in taxation ââ the notion that
people should pay proportionally more as their
incomes rise ââ is counterproductive.
Most governments donât have the he nerve to
scrap progressive taxation entirely. So
theyâve been doing it gradually by reducing
the he number of income-tax brackets and by
raising more money through user fees and consumption levies like the HST.
Theyâve have been aided and nd abetted in
this by mainstream economists who argue, usually
without any proof, that taxes on income discourage people from working.
The upshot of this, as a recent study from the
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
demonstrates, is that the poor in Canada now pay
a greater share of their income to government in
the form of taxes than do the ultra rich.
Which is the antithesis of the bargain made when
governments first began to levy income taxes almost 100 years ago.
Doctors for Fair Taxation argues that a more
progressive tax system would be good for human health.
First thereâs the obvious point. t.
Governments almost invariably deal with their
fiscal problems by cutting back spending on
health care. Both Prime Minister Stephen
Harperâs federal Conservatives and Ontario io
Premier Dalton McGuintyâs Liberals are heading ng down this path.
The second point, well-known since the 1970s, is
that poverty breeds poor health. The uber-rich
may not like sharing their money with the very
poor. But doing so increases the overall health
of Canadian society and, in the end, is both
cheaper and more efficient than allowing an underclass to fester.
The third point, demonstrated by history, is
that society as a whole does better when there
are fewer income extremes. Such stolidly
middle-class societies tend to be more stable,
less violent and more productive.
The suggestions by Doctors for Fair Taxation are
modest. The group recommends that the federal
and provincial governments create four new tax
brackets for those earning more than $100,000.
Someone with a taxable income of $170,000 would
pay an extra $1,400. But someone earning $7
million would pay an extra $787,400.
Rachlis figures the scheme would net Ottawa an
extra $3.5 billion a year and Ontario an additional $1.7 billion.
Thatâs not enough to wipe out the he deficit
for either level of government. But it would go partway along the path.
More to the point, it would preclude the need for drastic spending cuts.
Up to now, the anti-tax movement has held centre
stage. Even leftish politicians are reluctant to
talk of taxing the wealthy. In Ontario, New
Democratic Party Leader Andrea Horwath focuses
instead on taxing anonymous corporations, in the
hope that this wonât spook voters.
Yet, thereâs nothing wrong with th having the
well-to-do pay more. Itâs fair. It It works.
Weâve done it it successfully.
So kudos to this new pro-tax bunch. Usually,
when people talk of taxing the rich, they
exclude themselves. This group may be quixotic.
But at least it doesnât employ that at dodge.
The average gross income for Ontario physicians
is about $325,000. Doctors for Fair Taxation
reckon people making that kind of money can pay
a little more. Theyâre re right.
Thomas Walkomâs column appears rs Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.
_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
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https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/>http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
