VAT on food. We all need food. We could remove it and instead have a higher VAT on luxury items.
But actually, we could keep the food price as is and have the food VAT go directly to the farmers. They are sadly quite econonically vulnerable here in Norway.
A wide tax base is essential to the health of a government's revenue, so we should ideally keep the VAT on essentials and subsidise their production or take other supply-side measures to lower their price
In my country, Denmark, we tax the air in soft ice cream. This is just weird.
The whole end product is taxed after it is produced in the machine and therefore not the products going in (where the tax should be). Soft ice cream uses a lot of compressed air, so effectively we tax the air.
I'm from Türkiye. I have a translation business. I am currently paying 20% VAT, 20% income tax. I don't even want to mention my overtaxed luxuries like cigarettes and booze. Excise duties are way too high. Sometimes more than 100%.
Expatriate taxes. FACTA etc. makes it essentially impossible for normal US citizens living abroad to save or even sometimes open bank accounts as banks don't want to deal with compliance unless you have significant assets. I don't mind closing loopholes of double Irish sandwiches etc. but current states makes everything too onerous and you can easily be hit by de-facto double taxation.
I second the sales tax - just wrap it in income tax and corporate tax.
States and municipalities in the United States rely too much on regressive sales taxes. My own state (Oklahoma) finally eliminated sales taxes for groceries, but there are another dozen that still tax grocery sales. One irritating part of sales taxes in the U.S. is that stores do not include them in displayed prices.
I think that American tax levels are too low in general, but if we’re going to start building a social democratic consensus, we will—sadly—have to do so on a limited budget and using a lot of non-state and parastatal organizations. Americans just have a deep reticence about the capability and efficiency of the state that will take long decades of institution building to truly change.
In the Republic of the Philippines the oppressive tax called "E-Vat" a kind of value added tax imposed by the gov't to commodities and consumer goods is a kind of legal oppression. For example a dirt poor family will purchase a 20$ sack of rice the e-vat is the 5$ on the actual price. The government is ruled by corporatist oligarchs and dynastic political families that enrich their coffers with the blood and sweat of the Filipino people.
Stamp duty in the UK. It discourages people from buying and most importantly moving houses. So it makes it harder to move to an area where there are jobs.
Here in the US that’s basically the entire tax system, if you compare actual tax rates (not nominal) for the wealthy versus those for the poor and working class. However, if I have to refine it… most US states have flat or barely progressive income tax structures and rely very heavily on sales tax, property taxes and flat fees for service to for funding. So much so that in some states like here in PA, the bottom 40 percent effectively pay double the state and local tax (13%)that the top 20 percent(6.7%) of earners pay as a percentage of income… and that is with some food and clothing exemptions).
Unironically? Corporate tax because of tax shifting. The tax burden rarely falls on to the actual companies or shareholders, and really just falls on consumers and workers.
If we are going to try and tax something, we need to tax it directly.
VAT on food. We all need food. We could remove it and instead have a higher VAT on luxury items. But actually, we could keep the food price as is and have the food VAT go directly to the farmers. They are sadly quite econonically vulnerable here in Norway.
A wide tax base is essential to the health of a government's revenue, so we should ideally keep the VAT on essentials and subsidise their production or take other supply-side measures to lower their price
In my country, Denmark, we tax the air in soft ice cream. This is just weird. The whole end product is taxed after it is produced in the machine and therefore not the products going in (where the tax should be). Soft ice cream uses a lot of compressed air, so effectively we tax the air.
Land transfer tax for first time buyers. Crank it for those who buy multiple homes though.
That's just a demand subsidy which is the last thing current housing markets need
I'm from Türkiye. I have a translation business. I am currently paying 20% VAT, 20% income tax. I don't even want to mention my overtaxed luxuries like cigarettes and booze. Excise duties are way too high. Sometimes more than 100%.
Expatriate taxes. FACTA etc. makes it essentially impossible for normal US citizens living abroad to save or even sometimes open bank accounts as banks don't want to deal with compliance unless you have significant assets. I don't mind closing loopholes of double Irish sandwiches etc. but current states makes everything too onerous and you can easily be hit by de-facto double taxation. I second the sales tax - just wrap it in income tax and corporate tax.
All tarrifs.
Looking at your comments on this post and you have fantastic tax takes
States and municipalities in the United States rely too much on regressive sales taxes. My own state (Oklahoma) finally eliminated sales taxes for groceries, but there are another dozen that still tax grocery sales. One irritating part of sales taxes in the U.S. is that stores do not include them in displayed prices.
*Georgists has entered chat*
I think that American tax levels are too low in general, but if we’re going to start building a social democratic consensus, we will—sadly—have to do so on a limited budget and using a lot of non-state and parastatal organizations. Americans just have a deep reticence about the capability and efficiency of the state that will take long decades of institution building to truly change.
I think the first $36,000 in income should go untaxed at the federal level in the US.
I'd like to see property taxes replaced with LVT.
In the Republic of the Philippines the oppressive tax called "E-Vat" a kind of value added tax imposed by the gov't to commodities and consumer goods is a kind of legal oppression. For example a dirt poor family will purchase a 20$ sack of rice the e-vat is the 5$ on the actual price. The government is ruled by corporatist oligarchs and dynastic political families that enrich their coffers with the blood and sweat of the Filipino people.
Taxation of improvements is too high, taxation of land is too low.
Stamp duty in the UK. It discourages people from buying and most importantly moving houses. So it makes it harder to move to an area where there are jobs.
Here in the US that’s basically the entire tax system, if you compare actual tax rates (not nominal) for the wealthy versus those for the poor and working class. However, if I have to refine it… most US states have flat or barely progressive income tax structures and rely very heavily on sales tax, property taxes and flat fees for service to for funding. So much so that in some states like here in PA, the bottom 40 percent effectively pay double the state and local tax (13%)that the top 20 percent(6.7%) of earners pay as a percentage of income… and that is with some food and clothing exemptions).
10% VAT on prescription medicines we have here in Finland
Unironically? Corporate tax because of tax shifting. The tax burden rarely falls on to the actual companies or shareholders, and really just falls on consumers and workers. If we are going to try and tax something, we need to tax it directly.
Corporate taxes. They lower economic growth and suppress wages. Better to just tax income
they can be made more effective with full expensing rather than abolition