Or the other tax system would be to return to a federal/republic system, rather than a public one. Charge the states for being members of the union, then let them collect the union membership dues however they see fit. Abolish all personal taxes from the feds. The feds have no relationship with the citizens anyway, just the states.
I'm not sure that'd be better, but it'd certainly be more interesting.
The worst of the "pay for incarceration" systems were that many were slavery. You pay to be there, then have to work while there to earn enough to buy your way out of slavery, though, since the fees were set, you'd never be able to make enough to get out.
The tax should only be charged on the final use. The store you buy the TV from doesn't pay tax when they buy it, but collects tax when they sell it.
Well, and there are discussions of charging tax at all points, but you get to claim-back anything you don't use. So the store would pay 30% on the TV they buy for $300, paying ~$230 for the TV and ~$70 tax. Then when they sell it to you, they charge you $500 for the $384 TV and $116 tax. They then claim back the $70 already paid from the government.
The reason to claim tax at all points is it prevents the tax evasion of the last-seller buying for resale, then selling black-market with no tax. This is especially important when the tax rates get higher, and Fair Tax would need to be about 30% to balance. So for the house, you could not pay tax on the sale of a liveable house for occupation, but there'd still be tax "included" in the construction materials used to build it. Charging sales tax on it would be a form of capital gains tax, as you should be able to claim back what you paid, then have to pay out what you collected. So maybe it isn't such a bad idea, so long as you can claim back what you paid when you sell it.
The other thing that a sales tax doesn't handle well is very very large unusual purchases. A number of countries with sales taxes (GST/VAT) exempt things like houses. Do you charge tax on a house? If not, wouldn't that artificially inflate the housing market, as $1 spent to buy housing buys more than $1 for food or transport?
No, a bank robber doesn't get to keep the money because it is proceeds from a crime. He's going to jail anyway for the crime with a definite sentence, so it's not a debtor's prison. Naturally, he can forget about parole if he makes no restitution.
But by that, even in your debtor's prison free utopia, the amount the robber pays affects his sentence. That makes it arguably a debtor's prison.
Since you have your basic needs met while in prison, would you get your basic income in prison, as a head start when out, or lose it as payment for the incarceration?
The fundamental issue I (and some economists have with it, though for other reasons) is that it rewards savings. Savings isn't a good thing. No debt is a good thing. The economy works most optimally when everyone has a $0 balance at the end of the month. Saving because all income is tax free but spending is taxed would pull money out of the money supply and slow the economy (the economists argument). And the "fairest" tax is taxing wealth. Income is a proxy for that. spending is almost unrelated to wealth, though hopefully correlated.
The questions around it are how would it affect the US if the people that came here to work didn't pay income tax, but left with bags of cash at the end of their visas? That'd drain the economy more than help it, but extracting the taxes before they leave works better. Or would the reverse effect be better? Or would luxury yachts in the US all be sold in Bermuda? You fly to Bermuda and yacht back with a tax-free yacht. Or would there be import duties high enough to compensate? I can think of piles of loopholes, but until it's in place, we won't know which people would try most.
But, as you imply, it could still be pretty bad and still be better than what we have now.
Contractual, not legal. Like the museums where they ban photography of any kind, even in their "old" wing where nothing is newer than 1000+ years old. Protecting your work more like a "trade secret" is possible even when there are no legal copyright protections. Just because it's not legally protected anymore doesn't mean you are required by law to allow others to photograph it. So yes, an owner could try to prevent others from taking a picture of it. And most terms of loan include such wording. You should learn more about contract law and art before you try to incorrectly correct others.
Sounds like Fair Tax. I actually like Fair Tax, but only if the prebate was the entire poverty line, not the tax that would have been on it. Then the sales tax would have to increase some, but it would generate a guaranteed income. The next step would be to setup national health care to be paid out of the guaranteed income directly, and increase it as necessary to remain liveable.
Now, all I need is 200,000,000 others to agree with me, and I can do something about it.
He wasn't deported to Alaska. He was held in the Carolinas until his parents paid, then he was released. The Carolinas took a cut, then sent the money to Alaska. Alaska took their cut, then the person who was supposed to get the money got less than half the amount. But that was his goal. Minimize the benefit to the end person, even if it increased his own suffering.
Your methods imply a level of reasonable or fair acting that isn't always seen in the wild. When someone is willing to hurt themselves and those around them to "punish" a 3rd party, then there's nothing the system can do to eliminate that. So a "reasonable" effort would seem to be reasonable.
For one, surely the Carolina judge could ask Alaska for more information.
That's illegal and unconstitutional (not to ask, but to act on any information received through asking). The legal document, an arrest warrant with terms on it, is a binding legal document that the Carolinas would be breaking the Constitution and federal law to ignore, even if the Carolinas judge were to hear some information that was persuasive. At "best" the judge *might* be able to ask the Alaskan judge to take another look, while holding the criminal. But then, you have a lack of due process because where's the arrested's say in whether he pays and gets out, or waits for an answer from Alaska?
Finally, if he was living in the state, it shouldn't have been too hard for the local court to find out (with help from the sheriff perhaps) if he was living in poverty or not.
By the time it gets to an arrest warrant, his living situation at the time is irrelevant to whether he broke the law previously and had a judgement against him. So I'm not sure why that would matter. If I rob a bank and spend it fast enough before being caught, I shouldn't be ordered to pay reparations?
I suggest basic income rather than a dole to eliminate the noted failure in the welfare system where at some point you perversely become less able to make ends meet if you increase your earnings or save money to otherwise improve your situation.
How does basic income differ from a dole? Wouldn't welfare with a few minor rule changes be a basic income? Or would a basic income be paid even to the 1%, with the implication that it's paid back in taxes many times over?
Hi AC stalker. Why do you hate so much? Because you think you are smart, but end up still poor? If you were as smart as you think you are, you'd be richer than me. Instead you are a dumb as a rock. And a dumb rock doesn't make much money. When's the last time you saw a rock driving a Bugatti? Go join a rock band. That's all you are qualified for, but only the poor ones that play in a garage. Just hope your parents don't kick you out.
Yeah, someone else mentioned that the only "reasonable" reason is staged porno (like the plants of porn stars in a frat party, and filming it as a specialty movie).
There's obviously something missing from the question. Why would you want to ban selfies? Do you have a Monet in the limo and don't want to violate the copyright of the owner you are renting it from? Or are you just a giant prick who wants to force everyone else to do what you want, regardless of the reasonability of it?
But the answer is in the question. He has his own cameras in there. Put two people up front, not just the driver, and have the second person watching the back. Stop the limo and have him go back and confiscate any cameras used. That's what they do at the porno shoots. They don't just plant porn stars, but also security. The level of discrimination needed doesn't exist today. It's a human job, and you have to hire an additional person, or drop the fascism.
Tax avoidance is legal and encouraged by the IRS. That you don't know the difference between avoiding and evading doesn't make me wrong. You lying, stalking coward. Just because you are too stupid to save $10 and make it out of the bottom 1%, there's no need to try and drag the rest of us down. 1%? I said I'm in the top 10% (barely), of wage earners. You don't even understand what the 1% is. They don't earn "wages". Wages are taxed at 38%, but capital gains are taxed at 15%. The "studies" that show how much tax the 1% pay are showing how much the top 1% of wage earners pay. If you looked at the *wealth* not the wages, you'd see that you don't even understand what the 1% is (you don't understand anything). Top 10% of wage earners isn't hard. That's right about $100k.
Do you hate everyone that makes 100k per year? Why?
My $100 is worth $105 after gains in the year that the fed increases the supply. That you can't understand what interest is doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
In one case I'm aware of (the same aforementioned one), when he was finally arrested, he was in one of the Carolinas, and the warrant was issued in Alaska. Alaska was sure that he violated conditions by not sending the appropriate amount of money, and failed to keep his address up to date, and other things that raised it to "criminal" status, but could not investigate further without speaking to him, and the Carolinas had no direct knowledge, just that he had a court order in Alaska that he was in violation of, and what Alaska indicated was the "fine" for transgressions against the State of Alaska. How would a Carolina judge verify anything about the original case, or the 5 years where he was moving every few months, living on cash only jobs, and refusing to use his social security number for anything, knowing it would reveal his presence to "the man" who would take "his money" and send it to his offspring he abandoned? It was more than $10k for is first arrest. I hear it's back up to more than that again, but no idea if a warrant has been issued.
What would you expect an Alaska judge to do when the person in question fled the state after having a judgment against him? How about the Carolinas where they are Constitutionally bound to honor Alaska's ruling, and no other direct knowledge?
Well, we have a problem with lots of poor that "refuse" to be productive. Same as England in Dickens' time. What do you see as the solution for people with nothing, and no ability to fix that?
I'm fairly sure any judge that actually cared for justice could distinguish that situation from sending someone to jail over a $20 video tape.
The judges I've spoken to about it indicate that they don't get any say in the matter. They hear only what's presented, and there's a line of cases after. How many hours do you want the judge to personally spend investigating? You had previously pointed out the stupidity of spending more holding people than received from them. Yet here you are advocating the same thing, spending more on investigating the problem than the problem is worth.
I don't think there is an easy answer. The question comes down to do you want to reward the deadbeats, or punish them? Does it matter if punishing them harms their family and friends?
How long would that have lasted if a creative sheriff grabbed the cash from his hand as he went to pay for his beer and announced so everyone could hear that deadbeat dads don't deserve beer?
If you are trying to enter a country you don't hold a passport for, you'll be denied entry and deported. After that, every other country will harass you, as you don't get deported without reason.
If you aren't holding a passport to the country you are entering, that'll get you deported, and having the deportation on your record will keep you from traveling internationally without hassle for a very long time.
I "own" a house owned by a family trust. My family also owns part of it. If the family trust furnishes the house, then I can live there, and taking my TV is stealing from my children. Others have done that, but more complicated (off-shore holding companies, and leasing from themsleves in a way that it can't necessarily be proved they are leasing to themselves). They control sufficient wealth to live comfortably, but their ownership of it can't be identified or extracted without harming others.
In general though, it's really not hard to tell who is really broke and who has money.
Yeah, like one deadbeat dad I know that worked for free for his parents in a cafe. $0 taxes, $0 payment for working. But he'd get an "allowance" at random times, keeping a $0 bank account and living comfortably, though like a teenager with his parents in his 30s. He "owns" nothing, but lives comfortably enough I think he's planning on doing it for 18 years. He's one whose parents were "extorted" for money for his arrest because he didn't make minimum payments (that are the minimum payments assigned for an unemployed person, less than he probably drinks in beer). Of course, his parents came to his rescue and got him out of jail with "their" money. He would have had the money in his pocket at the time to bail himself out, if he wasn't conspiring with his parents to hide his income and protect his lifestyle.
Then YouTube isn't DMCA compliant, and is openeing themselves up to liability, even if the content was "illegal". I'd heard it described as DMCA compliant, and don't host anything questionable enough to find out on my own. DMCA doesn't allow a counter-claim to be evaluated. The reason it takes 14 days for a counter-claim to re-instate a work is to give the complaintant time to file a restraining order. If YouTube doesn't follow that, they can be successfully sued by a poster, even if the poster posted illegal works.
When unemployment is high enough, they make sense. If they were brought in for times of high unemployment, then as unemployment dropped, they no longer worked as intended, they were shut down (sending the poor to America was the solution, not abolishment of them, but moving them).
The solution would be universal employment. England moved to a more socialist mechanism. Welfare is the new debtors prisons. We (USA) are closer to Dickens' dystopian past than England, so they seem oddly appropriate now. Some politicians campaign on the poor being poor because they deserve it, and other taglines used in Dickens' time.
Fundamentally they are tossing someone in jail indefinitely for being too poor to pay the fine.
Having known a number of people who lie and commit fraud and tax evasion to hide money to prevent others from collecting from them, and the relatives "extorted" were illegally holding cash for the criminal, so the "extortion victims" were criminals themselves, and the money lost was not theirs, I don't think it's as clear and explicit as you say.
I'm sure there are a number of cases on each side, but I've not taken sides. How would you collect money from a person who illegally hid it before a divorce (or after) to change the settlement or refuse to split the estate equitably? How about a deadbeat dad making $60k per year in cash-only construction jobs, with $0 declared income?
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The Post Office is a common carrier, yet can still monitor service and terminate abusive/illegal service.
I think the problem is people don't agree on a definition of "common carrier".
Or the other tax system would be to return to a federal/republic system, rather than a public one. Charge the states for being members of the union, then let them collect the union membership dues however they see fit. Abolish all personal taxes from the feds. The feds have no relationship with the citizens anyway, just the states.
I'm not sure that'd be better, but it'd certainly be more interesting.
The worst of the "pay for incarceration" systems were that many were slavery. You pay to be there, then have to work while there to earn enough to buy your way out of slavery, though, since the fees were set, you'd never be able to make enough to get out.
The tax should only be charged on the final use. The store you buy the TV from doesn't pay tax when they buy it, but collects tax when they sell it.
Well, and there are discussions of charging tax at all points, but you get to claim-back anything you don't use. So the store would pay 30% on the TV they buy for $300, paying ~$230 for the TV and ~$70 tax. Then when they sell it to you, they charge you $500 for the $384 TV and $116 tax. They then claim back the $70 already paid from the government.
The reason to claim tax at all points is it prevents the tax evasion of the last-seller buying for resale, then selling black-market with no tax. This is especially important when the tax rates get higher, and Fair Tax would need to be about 30% to balance. So for the house, you could not pay tax on the sale of a liveable house for occupation, but there'd still be tax "included" in the construction materials used to build it. Charging sales tax on it would be a form of capital gains tax, as you should be able to claim back what you paid, then have to pay out what you collected. So maybe it isn't such a bad idea, so long as you can claim back what you paid when you sell it.
The other thing that a sales tax doesn't handle well is very very large unusual purchases. A number of countries with sales taxes (GST/VAT) exempt things like houses. Do you charge tax on a house? If not, wouldn't that artificially inflate the housing market, as $1 spent to buy housing buys more than $1 for food or transport?
No, a bank robber doesn't get to keep the money because it is proceeds from a crime. He's going to jail anyway for the crime with a definite sentence, so it's not a debtor's prison. Naturally, he can forget about parole if he makes no restitution.
But by that, even in your debtor's prison free utopia, the amount the robber pays affects his sentence. That makes it arguably a debtor's prison.
Since you have your basic needs met while in prison, would you get your basic income in prison, as a head start when out, or lose it as payment for the incarceration?
The fundamental issue I (and some economists have with it, though for other reasons) is that it rewards savings. Savings isn't a good thing. No debt is a good thing. The economy works most optimally when everyone has a $0 balance at the end of the month. Saving because all income is tax free but spending is taxed would pull money out of the money supply and slow the economy (the economists argument). And the "fairest" tax is taxing wealth. Income is a proxy for that. spending is almost unrelated to wealth, though hopefully correlated.
The questions around it are how would it affect the US if the people that came here to work didn't pay income tax, but left with bags of cash at the end of their visas? That'd drain the economy more than help it, but extracting the taxes before they leave works better. Or would the reverse effect be better? Or would luxury yachts in the US all be sold in Bermuda? You fly to Bermuda and yacht back with a tax-free yacht. Or would there be import duties high enough to compensate? I can think of piles of loopholes, but until it's in place, we won't know which people would try most.
But, as you imply, it could still be pretty bad and still be better than what we have now.
Contractual, not legal. Like the museums where they ban photography of any kind, even in their "old" wing where nothing is newer than 1000+ years old. Protecting your work more like a "trade secret" is possible even when there are no legal copyright protections. Just because it's not legally protected anymore doesn't mean you are required by law to allow others to photograph it. So yes, an owner could try to prevent others from taking a picture of it. And most terms of loan include such wording. You should learn more about contract law and art before you try to incorrectly correct others.
Sounds like Fair Tax. I actually like Fair Tax, but only if the prebate was the entire poverty line, not the tax that would have been on it. Then the sales tax would have to increase some, but it would generate a guaranteed income. The next step would be to setup national health care to be paid out of the guaranteed income directly, and increase it as necessary to remain liveable.
Now, all I need is 200,000,000 others to agree with me, and I can do something about it.
Your methods imply a level of reasonable or fair acting that isn't always seen in the wild. When someone is willing to hurt themselves and those around them to "punish" a 3rd party, then there's nothing the system can do to eliminate that. So a "reasonable" effort would seem to be reasonable.
For one, surely the Carolina judge could ask Alaska for more information.
That's illegal and unconstitutional (not to ask, but to act on any information received through asking). The legal document, an arrest warrant with terms on it, is a binding legal document that the Carolinas would be breaking the Constitution and federal law to ignore, even if the Carolinas judge were to hear some information that was persuasive. At "best" the judge *might* be able to ask the Alaskan judge to take another look, while holding the criminal. But then, you have a lack of due process because where's the arrested's say in whether he pays and gets out, or waits for an answer from Alaska?
Finally, if he was living in the state, it shouldn't have been too hard for the local court to find out (with help from the sheriff perhaps) if he was living in poverty or not.
By the time it gets to an arrest warrant, his living situation at the time is irrelevant to whether he broke the law previously and had a judgement against him. So I'm not sure why that would matter. If I rob a bank and spend it fast enough before being caught, I shouldn't be ordered to pay reparations?
I suggest basic income rather than a dole to eliminate the noted failure in the welfare system where at some point you perversely become less able to make ends meet if you increase your earnings or save money to otherwise improve your situation.
How does basic income differ from a dole? Wouldn't welfare with a few minor rule changes be a basic income? Or would a basic income be paid even to the 1%, with the implication that it's paid back in taxes many times over?
Hi AC stalker. Why do you hate so much? Because you think you are smart, but end up still poor? If you were as smart as you think you are, you'd be richer than me. Instead you are a dumb as a rock. And a dumb rock doesn't make much money. When's the last time you saw a rock driving a Bugatti? Go join a rock band. That's all you are qualified for, but only the poor ones that play in a garage. Just hope your parents don't kick you out.
Yeah, someone else mentioned that the only "reasonable" reason is staged porno (like the plants of porn stars in a frat party, and filming it as a specialty movie).
There's obviously something missing from the question. Why would you want to ban selfies? Do you have a Monet in the limo and don't want to violate the copyright of the owner you are renting it from? Or are you just a giant prick who wants to force everyone else to do what you want, regardless of the reasonability of it?
But the answer is in the question. He has his own cameras in there. Put two people up front, not just the driver, and have the second person watching the back. Stop the limo and have him go back and confiscate any cameras used. That's what they do at the porno shoots. They don't just plant porn stars, but also security. The level of discrimination needed doesn't exist today. It's a human job, and you have to hire an additional person, or drop the fascism.
Tax avoidance is legal and encouraged by the IRS. That you don't know the difference between avoiding and evading doesn't make me wrong. You lying, stalking coward. Just because you are too stupid to save $10 and make it out of the bottom 1%, there's no need to try and drag the rest of us down. 1%? I said I'm in the top 10% (barely), of wage earners. You don't even understand what the 1% is. They don't earn "wages". Wages are taxed at 38%, but capital gains are taxed at 15%. The "studies" that show how much tax the 1% pay are showing how much the top 1% of wage earners pay. If you looked at the *wealth* not the wages, you'd see that you don't even understand what the 1% is (you don't understand anything). Top 10% of wage earners isn't hard. That's right about $100k.
Do you hate everyone that makes 100k per year? Why?
My $100 is worth $105 after gains in the year that the fed increases the supply. That you can't understand what interest is doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
In one case I'm aware of (the same aforementioned one), when he was finally arrested, he was in one of the Carolinas, and the warrant was issued in Alaska. Alaska was sure that he violated conditions by not sending the appropriate amount of money, and failed to keep his address up to date, and other things that raised it to "criminal" status, but could not investigate further without speaking to him, and the Carolinas had no direct knowledge, just that he had a court order in Alaska that he was in violation of, and what Alaska indicated was the "fine" for transgressions against the State of Alaska. How would a Carolina judge verify anything about the original case, or the 5 years where he was moving every few months, living on cash only jobs, and refusing to use his social security number for anything, knowing it would reveal his presence to "the man" who would take "his money" and send it to his offspring he abandoned? It was more than $10k for is first arrest. I hear it's back up to more than that again, but no idea if a warrant has been issued.
What would you expect an Alaska judge to do when the person in question fled the state after having a judgment against him? How about the Carolinas where they are Constitutionally bound to honor Alaska's ruling, and no other direct knowledge?
Well, we have a problem with lots of poor that "refuse" to be productive. Same as England in Dickens' time. What do you see as the solution for people with nothing, and no ability to fix that?
I'm fairly sure any judge that actually cared for justice could distinguish that situation from sending someone to jail over a $20 video tape.
The judges I've spoken to about it indicate that they don't get any say in the matter. They hear only what's presented, and there's a line of cases after. How many hours do you want the judge to personally spend investigating? You had previously pointed out the stupidity of spending more holding people than received from them. Yet here you are advocating the same thing, spending more on investigating the problem than the problem is worth.
I don't think there is an easy answer. The question comes down to do you want to reward the deadbeats, or punish them? Does it matter if punishing them harms their family and friends?
How long would that have lasted if a creative sheriff grabbed the cash from his hand as he went to pay for his beer and announced so everyone could hear that deadbeat dads don't deserve beer?
Or just make him wear a big scarlet "D".
If you are trying to enter a country you don't hold a passport for, you'll be denied entry and deported. After that, every other country will harass you, as you don't get deported without reason.
If you aren't holding a passport to the country you are entering, that'll get you deported, and having the deportation on your record will keep you from traveling internationally without hassle for a very long time.
In general though, it's really not hard to tell who is really broke and who has money.
Yeah, like one deadbeat dad I know that worked for free for his parents in a cafe. $0 taxes, $0 payment for working. But he'd get an "allowance" at random times, keeping a $0 bank account and living comfortably, though like a teenager with his parents in his 30s. He "owns" nothing, but lives comfortably enough I think he's planning on doing it for 18 years. He's one whose parents were "extorted" for money for his arrest because he didn't make minimum payments (that are the minimum payments assigned for an unemployed person, less than he probably drinks in beer). Of course, his parents came to his rescue and got him out of jail with "their" money. He would have had the money in his pocket at the time to bail himself out, if he wasn't conspiring with his parents to hide his income and protect his lifestyle.
Then YouTube isn't DMCA compliant, and is openeing themselves up to liability, even if the content was "illegal". I'd heard it described as DMCA compliant, and don't host anything questionable enough to find out on my own. DMCA doesn't allow a counter-claim to be evaluated. The reason it takes 14 days for a counter-claim to re-instate a work is to give the complaintant time to file a restraining order. If YouTube doesn't follow that, they can be successfully sued by a poster, even if the poster posted illegal works.
I know. They can sue me if they don't like it. It's still WWF for me, and always will be. Get off my lawn!
When unemployment is high enough, they make sense. If they were brought in for times of high unemployment, then as unemployment dropped, they no longer worked as intended, they were shut down (sending the poor to America was the solution, not abolishment of them, but moving them).
The solution would be universal employment. England moved to a more socialist mechanism. Welfare is the new debtors prisons. We (USA) are closer to Dickens' dystopian past than England, so they seem oddly appropriate now. Some politicians campaign on the poor being poor because they deserve it, and other taglines used in Dickens' time.
Fundamentally they are tossing someone in jail indefinitely for being too poor to pay the fine.
Having known a number of people who lie and commit fraud and tax evasion to hide money to prevent others from collecting from them, and the relatives "extorted" were illegally holding cash for the criminal, so the "extortion victims" were criminals themselves, and the money lost was not theirs, I don't think it's as clear and explicit as you say.
I'm sure there are a number of cases on each side, but I've not taken sides. How would you collect money from a person who illegally hid it before a divorce (or after) to change the settlement or refuse to split the estate equitably? How about a deadbeat dad making $60k per year in cash-only construction jobs, with $0 declared income?