Taxes

Apr 16, 2010 12:31

Prompted by election thought and discussion ( Read more... )

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Comments 27

gedhrel April 16 2010, 13:40:42 UTC
I'm mostly in favour of (d). Jack's derived enjoyment and therefore utility from a win.

I think taxation should be proportional, but by utility, which leads to a progressive scheme. "Good fortune" monetarily mostly comes down to luck, and whilst good luck is something to be celebrated, I'd personally be happy with the luck and don't look to benefit beyond that. I'm also quite prepared to impose that worldview on others.

Incidentally, (b) doesn't seem particularly unfair to me, but I'd typically plump for (d).

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gigolohitman April 16 2010, 13:51:44 UTC
Cool.

Does your answer change if Jack is there a week, playing 24/7, and Dave turns up and plays for an afternoon?

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gedhrel April 16 2010, 14:00:23 UTC
Yes, but having had a lazy lunch in the sun with a larger cider than I'd anticipated it would be, I'm not sure how to compute it. So, possibly not ( ... )

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gigolohitman April 16 2010, 14:08:09 UTC
Yes :-).

We don't live in a world of people who think like you though. If we did, there would be much fewer flatscreen TVs, posh restaurants, and parks would be much busier on sunny weekday afternoons.

That kind of sounds lovely, but I think I like my tech too much to stop rewarding people who work hard making new tech so much.

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moussaka_thief April 16 2010, 14:22:06 UTC
b. you are taxing his success, but not in a way that makes success undesirable - you still win when you win, but you have to share a little.

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moussaka_thief April 16 2010, 14:25:23 UTC
I must add that, while I do believe in proportional taxation, I also believe that introducing certain flat rate taxes would play a massive part in reducing government. Which I support.

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gedhrel April 16 2010, 14:38:18 UTC
(If our society requires us to pointlessly employ people, I don't have much of an issue whether it's the government or private enterprise doing so.)

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moussaka_thief April 16 2010, 14:44:17 UTC
Wouldn't say that people 'have' to be employed.

And good for you.

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moussaka_thief April 16 2010, 15:27:24 UTC
And Tris, we're either going to stop by Bristol on the 27 or the 28th - tues or weds. Would we have a place to stay? Adam and Sara would let us use their bed if you don't have room. I think we should have dinner at the very least.

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gigolohitman April 16 2010, 16:49:24 UTC
I want to get you, Jan, and a bottle of whiskey to myself for the night :-D

But failing that, yes, we have a spare room, with a bet :-)

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moussaka_thief April 16 2010, 22:03:56 UTC
Who is Jan? Do I get any of the whiskey? These are important questions.

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invisigoth51 April 17 2010, 09:10:49 UTC
Things i've discovered since i started working.
a) Life isn't fair
b) Tax certainly aren't
c) I wouldn't mind at all if there were fewer freeloaders. I don't mind that i pay 6x as much tax as our trainee nurses and we get the same services, because we both work as hard as we can to the best of our own ability. I DO mind that the layabout chavs come in with their staffies, don't pay their bills and get handouts for doing f*all.

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trailingvortex April 17 2010, 09:14:20 UTC
On an ethical level, I am quite happy curving taxes extremely. However, on a practical, economically maximising level, I would not go for (D) as I do believe a certain amount of incentive is necessary to get maximum productivity and variety of achievement - witness the inefficiency of communist systems where reward an individual obtains is almost completely disconnected from his productivity and/or ingenuity ( ... )

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