What about the idea of no property taxes on RESIDENTIAL parcels? And to make up that lost revenue, a raise in sales tax or sin taxes. (Sales tax can be modified to be very progressive, just don't tax the necessities of life while raising the rate.) Everything else would stay the same in regards to how it's done now, but people owning land strictly for residing on wouldn't be taxed.
Commercial property, such as apartments, stores, renting/leasing out a house, or having an at-home business, or whatever, would stay the same as now. The logic being that since money is being made on the property in some form, it won't necessarily hurt to tax it.
The problem is with out of control interest rates and high interest compounding, everyone is going to end up paying triple (or more) back to the lender, which is in my opinion, really unbalanced.
Property taxes - The problem with property tax is that it doesn't allow true ownership of property if the government can take it away from you if you default. It's regressive cause what if the title owner has a low income, or perhaps no income for a few years due to a lost job?
"Taxing people" - That is one of the worst things someone could do, tax a person so they can remain a citizen. It treats people like cattle. It's like, "Oh, you're too poor, so we're not going to help you."
Education - It definately helps out economy. Better a nation of skilled workers than a nation of "idiots" for the lack of a better term. Here's an idea. 1) Create a pool (and I'd prefer by a 1 cent sales tax). 2) Limited to in-state public colleges. Limited to those who never attended college before (tranfers from community colleges allowed). 3) Limited to those who graduated with a 2.0 GPA. Graduates would send their transcripts into a state organization which would enter their GPA into a database. Everyone's GPA gets added up for a year. 4) Out of the pool, divide up the revenue among all the GPA points. So 0.1 points equals a dollar amount. Then redistrubute to help pay off some of the loans for the students. So if 0.1 points equals $400, then someone with a 3.7 GPA would get $14,800. It may not cover all, but it will help prevent the harshness of debt versus how it's (not) done now.
Sales tax - In my opinion, it's fair cause you essentially opt into how much you wish to pay in taxes. However, to make this progressive rather than regressive, here's what needs to be done. 1) A list of exemptions. 2) Fix the sales tax rate to get the necessary revenue. What will happen is it will allow poor people to feel relief, and allow the rich to aid them.
Health care - Not everyone can afford health care, and it is a drain on society when people are sick and can't get the help they need. It's just a humane thing to help. It may also have a positive effect on the job market. 1) Create a pool of money, perhaps by sales tax like I said previously. 2) Do one of the below options. 2a) Limit it to every resident. 2b) Limit it to minors. 2c) Limit it to minors who are enrolled in school and also those under age 5. 2d) Limit it to anyone who is enrolled in school, whether k-12 or college. 3) Take the pool and divide it among all residents eligible. 4) Send out medical coupons in the form of $10 each. So if it's like $163.72 per person in number 3 above, then that's 16 $10 coupons. The excess $3.73 each stays in the pool. 5) Coupons would work like this. Each pharmacist, clinic, hospital, and anything else I can't think of, would have a special account given to them, with appropriate password/key to log in, in which they could take the special serial-key from the coupon, enter it in the system, and have the money transferred to their bank account. 6) Coupons would expire after like a 2 year period. Expired coupons would add money back into the pool, which very well could raise the amount each person gets the next time around. Probably an annual thing, but coupons would expire every 24 months.
Another idea... - Make it illegal to compound interest during the first seven years of a loan. If someone has a $100k loan with 20% annual interest, here is how it would work. Let's say they pay $10k the first year, so there's $90k on the, principle and 20% of $90k would be $18k for the interest. After year two, the person pays $40k, so the priniple is down to $50k, but the interest would be $18k plus $10k equaling $28k. The next year, the person pays off the $50k owed on the principle. After the seven year mark since the loan began, that $28k in interest will start compounding at 20% per year.
Why should rich people pay more in taxes than poor people? - Do you really want a revolt if the gap between rich and poor becomes so big that the poor people symbolically pick up pitch forks and storm the mansions of their employers? What happens if it gets so worse the poor population decides not to honor the currency the rich people have?
Someone proposed getting rid of Washington State's state portion of property taxes. If my memory serves me, that would have been $4 billion in lost revenue. The idea was to replace it with a state income tax. However, that doesn't help my point.
Nonetheless, removing state property taxes could have the revenue replaced by an increase in state sales taxes. To offset the regressiveness of it, an additional increase in state sales tax to immitate the Alaska Permanent Fund in nature would have to be done.
While searching for how much the state portion of property taxes equals in Washington State, I found http://www.taxcap.org/ which indicates Alaska does have property taxes. And I give up finding how much property tax revenue Washington State gets at the state level.
Washington State has no state income tax, but does have business tax, B&O tax, high sales tax, and high property tax.
Oregon has income tax, but no sales tax I believe.
Anyone care to discuss this issue? Specifically, when someone crosses the boarder to buy from another state, AND the prices reflected in goods due to the hidden cost of income taxes.
But isn't the state providing services to the business? Don't businesses deserve police protect, fire service, etc.?
Is there some sort of compromise? Imagine what would happen if all businesses were in one state, and all persons lived in another state, and all telecommuted. Both states would need taxes.
iTunes is like $1 per song, meaning it would cost $10,000 to fill an iPod.
Napster charges $15/month for unlimited downloads, right?
Do the math. Find out if you really download more than 15 songs per month, and that will indicate which one is the better deal. Cause who would pay $15/month for a service when you only download perhaps once a week?
You mean automatically destroy the computer when running the copyrighted material? Whatever happened to due process? That's punishment/sentencing before even being found guilty.
This is censorship and just right out violates the concept of liberty. Hopefully it doesn't pass, and it's awful that I have to even hope it doesn't pass in the first place. Politicians shouldn't even be proposing this kind of stuff. It's the parents responsibility to protect their children from anything that may be harmful to them. Nonetheless, smart kids will find work-a-rounds.
It would be a huge violation of free speech. I'd rather see less rules and regulations than the government trying to control every aspect of our lives. But a better question is, how would they enforce it?
Although this doesn't have to do with the article exactly, the article did encourage me to news.google.com search John Gilmore to find out more about him.
What caught my attention in the above article is the below. My comment is that poor people are going to go for the supermarket loyalty cards because it's cheaper to pay 50% of the price rather than the full price for certain items. Why pay $6 per gallon of milk when you can get it for $3? One word of advice, if you can, leave your last name and house number off the form you fill out. At least that way, you remain a bit anonymous and the store gets their demographical information still, assuming that's what it's for.
From article I found: The popularity of supermarket club cards that collate permanent records of your grocery spending just so you can get 12-packs of Diet 7-Up on the cheap.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me ask you something.
What about the idea of no property taxes on RESIDENTIAL parcels? And to make up that lost revenue, a raise in sales tax or sin taxes. (Sales tax can be modified to be very progressive, just don't tax the necessities of life while raising the rate.) Everything else would stay the same in regards to how it's done now, but people owning land strictly for residing on wouldn't be taxed.
Commercial property, such as apartments, stores, renting/leasing out a house, or having an at-home business, or whatever, would stay the same as now. The logic being that since money is being made on the property in some form, it won't necessarily hurt to tax it.
Is it fair to compare property taxes to a school bully making a student pay for protection against another bully?
Cause a lot of people argue in favour that property taxes pay for military defense in order to protect what we own.
(Just focus on the military defense issue.)
The problem is with out of control interest rates and high interest compounding, everyone is going to end up paying triple (or more) back to the lender, which is in my opinion, really unbalanced.
Putting nearly everyone and everything in debt is a bad thing.
High interest rates and compounding it leads to trillions in debt everywhere.
And how is trillions of dollars in debt a good thing?
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (right of property) if you know the John Locke thing with Thomas Jefferson.
Rich people shouldn't be getting more in government services. That doesn't make sense.
In addition to the no compound interest within the first seven years thing, make it illegal to have interest over like 15% annually.
Property taxes
-
The problem with property tax is that it doesn't allow true ownership of property if the government can take it away from you if you default. It's regressive cause what if the title owner has a low income, or perhaps no income for a few years due to a lost job?
"Taxing people"
-
That is one of the worst things someone could do, tax a person so they can remain a citizen. It treats people like cattle. It's like, "Oh, you're too poor, so we're not going to help you."
Education
-
It definately helps out economy. Better a nation of skilled workers than a nation of "idiots" for the lack of a better term.
Here's an idea.
1) Create a pool (and I'd prefer by a 1 cent sales tax).
2) Limited to in-state public colleges. Limited to those who never attended college before (tranfers from community colleges allowed).
3) Limited to those who graduated with a 2.0 GPA. Graduates would send their transcripts into a state organization which would enter their GPA into a database. Everyone's GPA gets added up for a year.
4) Out of the pool, divide up the revenue among all the GPA points. So 0.1 points equals a dollar amount. Then redistrubute to help pay off some of the loans for the students. So if 0.1 points equals $400, then someone with a 3.7 GPA would get $14,800. It may not cover all, but it will help prevent the harshness of debt versus how it's (not) done now.
Sales tax
-
In my opinion, it's fair cause you essentially opt into how much you wish to pay in taxes. However, to make this progressive rather than regressive, here's what needs to be done.
1) A list of exemptions.
2) Fix the sales tax rate to get the necessary revenue.
What will happen is it will allow poor people to feel relief, and allow the rich to aid them.
Health care
-
Not everyone can afford health care, and it is a drain on society when people are sick and can't get the help they need. It's just a humane thing to help. It may also have a positive effect on the job market.
1) Create a pool of money, perhaps by sales tax like I said previously.
2) Do one of the below options.
2a) Limit it to every resident.
2b) Limit it to minors.
2c) Limit it to minors who are enrolled in school and also those under age 5.
2d) Limit it to anyone who is enrolled in school, whether k-12 or college.
3) Take the pool and divide it among all residents eligible.
4) Send out medical coupons in the form of $10 each. So if it's like $163.72 per person in number 3 above, then that's 16 $10 coupons. The excess $3.73 each stays in the pool.
5) Coupons would work like this. Each pharmacist, clinic, hospital, and anything else I can't think of, would have a special account given to them, with appropriate password/key to log in, in which they could take the special serial-key from the coupon, enter it in the system, and have the money transferred to their bank account.
6) Coupons would expire after like a 2 year period. Expired coupons would add money back into the pool, which very well could raise the amount each person gets the next time around. Probably an annual thing, but coupons would expire every 24 months.
Another idea...
-
Make it illegal to compound interest during the first seven years of a loan. If someone has a $100k loan with 20% annual interest, here is how it would work. Let's say they pay $10k the first year, so there's $90k on the, principle and 20% of $90k would be $18k for the interest. After year two, the person pays $40k, so the priniple is down to $50k, but the interest would be $18k plus $10k equaling $28k. The next year, the person pays off the $50k owed on the principle. After the seven year mark since the loan began, that $28k in interest will start compounding at 20% per year.
Why should rich people pay more in taxes than poor people?
-
Do you really want a revolt if the gap between rich and poor becomes so big that the poor people symbolically pick up pitch forks and storm the mansions of their employers?
What happens if it gets so worse the poor population decides not to honor the currency the rich people have?
Someone proposed getting rid of Washington State's state portion of property taxes. If my memory serves me, that would have been $4 billion in lost revenue. The idea was to replace it with a state income tax. However, that doesn't help my point.
Nonetheless, removing state property taxes could have the revenue replaced by an increase in state sales taxes. To offset the regressiveness of it, an additional increase in state sales tax to immitate the Alaska Permanent Fund in nature would have to be done.
While searching for how much the state portion of property taxes equals in Washington State, I found http://www.taxcap.org/ which indicates Alaska does have property taxes. And I give up finding how much property tax revenue Washington State gets at the state level.
I'd like to discuss this more if you wish.
What about places without property taxes?
Washington State has no state income tax, but does have business tax, B&O tax, high sales tax, and high property tax.
Oregon has income tax, but no sales tax I believe.
Anyone care to discuss this issue? Specifically, when someone crosses the boarder to buy from another state, AND the prices reflected in goods due to the hidden cost of income taxes.
But isn't the state providing services to the business? Don't businesses deserve police protect, fire service, etc.?
Is there some sort of compromise? Imagine what would happen if all businesses were in one state, and all persons lived in another state, and all telecommuted. Both states would need taxes.
The information about someone can be found out via other methods. I'm not going to go into details, but I'll say simply the Net.
So it's really not true ownership, is it? It's more like renting the music for $15 per month.
Are you serious they stop working once the subscription ends? How does that work?
iTunes is like $1 per song, meaning it would cost $10,000 to fill an iPod.
Napster charges $15/month for unlimited downloads, right?
Do the math. Find out if you really download more than 15 songs per month, and that will indicate which one is the better deal. Cause who would pay $15/month for a service when you only download perhaps once a week?
You mean automatically destroy the computer when running the copyrighted material? Whatever happened to due process? That's punishment/sentencing before even being found guilty.
Best to do checks every 21 days. Falls evenly on the same day of the week, but also gives a nine day buffer incase something happens.
I'm sticking with Hotmail. I personally like Hotmail more than GMail. The look, the feel, and just everything. But that's my personal preference.
Remember way back when, when GMail had a way to opt in to be notified when it became public? You entered your e-mail address.
Anyone wonder what they're going to do with that list after all this is done?
...text messages too. You know, text messages from cell phones that costs 25 cents.
By the way, I think it's a bad idea. Communication/information, since it's intangible, shouldn't be taxed.
In Australia, is it illegal to go up to someone and incite them to commit suicide?
This is censorship and just right out violates the concept of liberty. Hopefully it doesn't pass, and it's awful that I have to even hope it doesn't pass in the first place. Politicians shouldn't even be proposing this kind of stuff. It's the parents responsibility to protect their children from anything that may be harmful to them. Nonetheless, smart kids will find work-a-rounds.
It would be a huge violation of free speech. I'd rather see less rules and regulations than the government trying to control every aspect of our lives. But a better question is, how would they enforce it?
Although this doesn't have to do with the article exactly, the article did encourage me to news.google.com search John Gilmore to find out more about him.
I came across something that led me to http://www.reason.com/0308/fe.bd.suspected.shtml.
What caught my attention in the above article is the below. My comment is that poor people are going to go for the supermarket loyalty cards because it's cheaper to pay 50% of the price rather than the full price for certain items. Why pay $6 per gallon of milk when you can get it for $3? One word of advice, if you can, leave your last name and house number off the form you fill out. At least that way, you remain a bit anonymous and the store gets their demographical information still, assuming that's what it's for.
From article I found: The popularity of supermarket club cards that collate permanent records of your grocery spending just so you can get 12-packs of Diet 7-Up on the cheap.
Are stereotypes really that bad that it's scaring some people away from some professions? (I'm not sure if I worded that correctly.)
s px?id=idgml-e40631b2-274b-45d5-8254-cf2348b75056&f ormat=Print might work better for going to the page.
http://www.itworldcanada.com/Mobile/ViewArticle.a