Quote:
Originally Posted by giver99
I would love to see this kind of a tax system:
In order to raise the same amount of revenue as our current tax system, a "revenue neutral" APT tax would impose a single tiny tax rate on each and every transaction in the economy. All deductions and exemptions would be eliminated. By declaring a "zero tolerance" policy for any exemption, we wipe out every special interest loophole that now riddles our overly complex tax code. Since the volume of all transactions is estimated to be 100 times larger than the current tax base, the flat tax rate needed to raise the same amount of revenues is just a hundredth of the current average tax rate of roughly 30%. So if transactions stayed at their current level, the APT tax rate would be three tenths of one percent (0.3%) on each transaction. Even if total transactions fell by 50%, the revenue neutral APT tax rate would only be six tenths of one percent (0.6%) split equally between the buyer and seller in each transaction so each would pay 0.3%. Feige details how the replacement of our current tax system with an APT tax could save the government and its citizens as much as $500 billion annually by eliminating the compliance, collection, enforcement and inefficiency costs of our current tax system.
http://www.apttax.com/ |
That sounds terrible. First of, it would have the same artificial favouring of vertically integrated companies (i.e., the rich get richer) that a straight sales tax does (as opposed to a value-added tax).
There's such thing as an optimal tax mix. It's hard to determine exactly, but generally, it's higher consumption taxes and lower income taxes (hence why Harper's GST cut was absolutely assinine).
The tax you support may be simple, but it isn't optimal.