A carbon/ poullution basically would fall directly on about a
thousand corporate and government utilities and refenries, easier to
collect from 1,000 entities than 10 million merchants or 100 million
households.
Now I'm not sure the US constitution allows Congress to
regulate poullution but can Congress tax negative externalities?---
In [email protected], Jon Roland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> It is ancient rule of tax policy that for maximum revenue and
compliance
> taxes should not fall too heavily on any one point in the economy.
By
> that rule taxes should be collected at small rates at many points,
so
> that at no point is it worth it for the taxpayer to evade. When the
rate
> is excessive at a point, evasion occurs.
>
> Another ancient rule is that taxes should be imposed on things that
> can't evade by moving away or concealing themselves. A corollary of
this
> rule is to avoid imposing taxes on small players in small amounts
that
> it doesn't pay to enforce collection of. That favors taxing things
like
> resource extraction, thus leading many to support a "carbon" tax on
> fossil fuels at or near the point of production or import, rather
than
> at the point of use. That is also why my proposed purchase tax
would not
> be collected from the ultimate purchasers, as well as because it is
at
> that point a direct tax that is in conflict with the constitutional
> apportionment clause.
>
> One problem here, of course, is that if taxes are imposed on
domestic
> producers and not also on imports, those imports have an unfair
> advantage over domestic producers. That brings us into conflict
with the
> rule that free trade, that is, no tariffs, is better for global
economic
> performance, unless tariff rates are set equal for all countries.
> Coordinating that is tough, and while in principle exchange rates
should
> offset tariff imbalances, that requires floating exchange rates,
which
> results in price instability.
>
> -- Jon
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Constitution Society 7793 Burnet Road #37, Austin, TX 78757
> 512/374-9585 www.constitution.org [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
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