Comments by "" (@downshift4503) on "Why are the Tories talking about flat taxes again?" video.

  1.  @Darren-i1w  Tax is not a punishment, tax liability exists in order to make people productive.
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  2.  @Darren-i1w  If everyone paid their "share", the rich would be paying £1000s for a tin of tomatoes. The system skews rewards towards those with the most influence. Taxation attempts to flatten that somewhat while retaining the incentive to produce more (ie earn more).
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  3. no because it doesn't deal with outrageous income inequality.
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  4.  @Darren-i1w  The reason tax isn't 100% is because people desire to save money. If the government taxed all the money back that it previously spent, no-one would have any savings.
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  5.  @Darren-i1w  I didn't say taxing more helps you save. I said tax makes you productive. The reason you need money is to pay tax in the first place. Humans existed without money for most of history without any problem, but they can't exist without money if they have tax liabilities. The government has to run a deficit in order for people to have savings, its a matter of logical fact. You can't have savings without surplus money being there to save. Less government spending means less money.
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  6.  @Darren-i1w  No that's incorrect. The purpose of taxation isn't to raise money for the government to spend, it has access to any amount of money via it's central bank, which is where all the money came from in the first place. Look at the money in your wallet, its an IOU from the government.
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  7.  @Darren-i1w  "I get what you mean now by tax and productivity" I don't think you do. Poverty arises out of the lack of goods and services. The government needs people to produce them.
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  8.  @Darren-i1w  "but the gov could just spend less by reducing services it provides" Government services are the result of the government buying from the private sector. It buys teachers, judges, soldiers, nurses, doctors, tarmac, concrete, steel etc. It pays for those things using money. If it buys less, there is less money in the private sector. You keep confusing tax with the money the government spends.
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  9.  @Darren-i1w  "you seem tk think the gov are the only people who spend money" No I don't. People wouldn't have any money to spend at all if the government doesn't provide it in the first place. Where do you think the money comes from?
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  10. Flat tax simply ignores that the purposes of taxation which is induce certain behaviours (use the currency, go to work, don't smoke, etc) and to avoid certain consequences (massive inequality due to compounding effects). Flat tax pretends that such behaviours will emerge all by themselves.
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  11.  @Darren-i1w  Tax is not a punishment for success, tax liabilities exist in order to make people productive, ie it's coercive. What happens in practice is that money by its very nature accumulates to wild inequalities, far beyond what happens in natural processes (eg, no lion could dominate the entire African continent, but a human could do just that using money as a technology).
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  12.  @Darren-i1w  The government spends more money than it taxes back (in effect, it does not tax at 100%, instead it runs a deficit). You are presenting a false dichotomy of either lowering taxes in order to save or raise them to 100% in order to make people super productive. Like I said people desire to save. What that means is that maximum output occurs at a point where people (in aggregate) satisfy their savings desires while being taxed at a level that causes them to be productive. It isn't a linear relationship of taxing more and increasing productivity. However this is in the aggregate. Money is not spread evenly across people - hence different tax rates are required to induce behaviour depending on the distribution.
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  13.  @Darren-i1w  That's just a tautology. deficits are overspending by definition. Without that overspending, there wouldn't be any savings. "it needs to cut spending" you haven't demonstrated why it needs to cut spending or reduce services.
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  14.  @Darren-i1w  "Less tax = more growth" is simply an assertion. If people can pay less tax, then they do not need to work as much in order to have the same stuff. Less work = less stuff being produced = less growth. "A country should live with in its means, no borrowing should be allowed" money is loaned into existence. All the money you have was "borrowed" into existence. No borrowing = no money.
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  15.  @Darren-i1w  "how does less government spending mean less money" where do you think money came from in the first place?
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  16.  @Darren-i1w  Understand that I'm not claiming to support the system, only that I am aware of how it generally works.
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  17. ​ @Darren-i1w  "money issued by the bank of England, the gov borrows from them" I agree. Also the BoE creates that money from nothing. It is simply a record of how much the government has spent and yet to recover in tax.
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  18. You need all the money you can get for healthcare. We don't have that problem in the UK.
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  19. That's completely upside down. In a fiat system, the government is the source of the money. You need it in order to settle tax liabilities. The government doesn't need the money, it needs you to produce output.
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  20. People aren't treated equally though in terms of what they are paid (compared to what they "earn"). Progressive taxes aim to dampen the curve.
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