Awhile back, we talked about the striking parallels between the behavior of
automatic control systems and the business cycle. Robin pointed out,
correctly, that automatic control theory is an application of single-agent
decision theory.
He also pointed out that economics is basically a
Once upon a time income taxes were difficult to collect, because
income was hard to cheaply monitor. So governments used less
efficient taxes, and arguably this was a reason the size of
government was lower. Today it seems that we can cheaply monitor
the act of paying wages, and so income taxes
--- Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Once upon a time income taxes were difficult to collect, because
income was hard to cheaply monitor. So governments used less
efficient taxes,
Not necessarily. Real-estate taxes were not that difficult to collect, and
rather efficient. Land has
Howdy,
Instead of surveillance schemes that sound a bit
Big-Brotheresque, no offense, why not just take the
forms already extant and merely switch hours worked
for income earned?
Question: Would such a program necessarily imply flat
taxation, instead of progressive, since income will
not be
Fred Foldvary wrote:
Real-estate taxes were not that difficult to collect, and rather efficient.
I won't argue that here, as it isn't central to this discussion.
And as the technology of
surveillance improves, it should get easier to monitor this.
The technology would need to keep ahead
At 11:33 AM 4/25/02 -0700, john hull wrote:
Instead of surveillance schemes that sound a bit
Big-Brotheresque, no offense, why not just take the
forms already extant and merely switch hours worked
for income earned?
We know how to audit returns to check on the income
earned. The question is how
Why would you want to tax leisure?
Wouldn't this promote less intense (i.e. more leisurely) and thus, less
productive work?
Gustavo
- Original Message -
From: Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 11:36 AM
Subject: Tax Leisure via Time
On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 11:36:31AM -0400, Robin Hanson wrote:
Once upon a time income taxes were difficult to collect, because
income was hard to cheaply monitor. So governments used less
efficient taxes, and arguably this was a reason the size of
government was lower. Today it seems that
