[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Taxing the "poor" is really the last bastion where you could actually make enough revenue to make a difference in the public coffers.

The middle and upper middle classes are tapped out. There's not enough multi-millionaires to tax that makes a difference in terms of paying teachers and doctors.

How are you rationalizing that the “poor” can pay more but the middle and upper classes can’t?

Adding a PST will actually help. All of the necessities of life are already exempt from sales taxes anyways.

I suppose we could debate the definition of necessities but in any event wouldn’t a PST still have a pretty big impact on the middle and upper classes who you claim are already tapped out?

I mean “poor” people generally don’t buy new cars, build new homes and are probably more likely to buy things like cell phones(taxed necessity in my view, TVs, furniture, electronics, clothing(taxed necessity to a degree) second hand rather than new. They also typically own less efficient vehicles without warranties that cost more to fuel and maintain(tax tax tax). Same goes for their home heating and electricity costs.

I do think though that lower income earners would probably be happy to pay more income tax as a natural result of having a higher income. Maybe doing things like increasing the minimum wage and making it a little easier for workers that want to unionize to do so would be a better solution.

The first cookie cutter argument against that will be that things will get more expensive as a result but the same would apply with a PST. The tax revenue gains made through lower income earners making more would likely outweigh that though.

Especially when you consider the indirect benefits that the upward pressure it would create to increase the earnings of middle to upper middle incomes who would also naturally pay taxes on those gains. The resulting reduced expenses for social programs and assistance would also allow for existing tax revenue to be diverted to either reducing the debt of funding.

Many businesses would also see a direct benefit because they could then stop funding campaigns and special interest groups who oppose anything that sees lower income earners make a little bit more money. But we’ll probably end up with a PST since that’s what the people with the pull(money) want.