Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
I'd like to thank Rob Long for not stealing my idea - as he'll be the first to tell you, that's a rare thing for a Hollywood guy. He said he’d post this if I didn’t, but apparently not. So:
During today's Ricochet podcast, we were talking taxes and revenue with Jonah Goldberg, and I suggested we adopt the ideas of those who want to tax wealth as well as income. The Moneybags set - you know, the ones whose forebears made a pile in Consolidated Monocle or cornered the sassafras market way back when - have piles of money that just sits there, unmolested, and we need to get at it to fund tomorrow's great ideas. (Or, more likely, fund yesterday's underfunded bad ideas.) That's the argument, anyway. But why stop there?
Why not treat tenure as wealth, and tax it accordingly? Take a college professor. (Please.) Calculate how much they'll make until retirement from their permanent job. Declare it wealth. Hoover up a chunk. Write in a provision that says they'll get 47% of the amount paid (with no interest, over ten years) if they ever quit, with the remainder going to a fund to pay for college tuitions for the poor. Sit back; make popcorn; enjoy the reactions.
Obviously not going to happen, but it brings up an idea: if you wanted to irritate the raise-taxes folks with tax-hiking proposals designed to nettle and sting their tender flanks, what would you do?
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To hear more from James Lileks, be sure and check out this week's Ricochet Podcast (with Rob Long and Jonah Goldberg).
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May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
In order to raise money for important social programs from the folks who care the most about important social programs, I propose we quadruple the taxes on all hippy paraphernalia. Those neo hippies, who are such rebels, that rather than actually rebelling against their parents they choose to imitate the rebellion of their parents, would obviously be willing to pay a little extra tax (for important social programs) on things like: hash pipes, sandals, rolling papers, anti-Bush merchandise, smokes, Che Guevara shirts etc...
Jun '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
Put a tax on pharmaceuticals that treat erectile dysfunction. We can call it a pole tax.
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
How 'bout we just tax erectile dysfunction directly. We'd therefore get less of it, and as such, we'd be providing a cure and generating revenue.
Jun '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
James, I may be wrong, but I think that using "hoover" as a verb is something that a native Minneapolitan (of your age) would not do, or at least not a second-generation Minneapolitan. "Vacuum" only, as far as I'm aware of. I know, you're from Fargo. Just something I noticed. You've revealed your foreign origins. :) And on the creative new taxes, libs will have a hard time believing that you're just pulling their leg. Collecting revenue is too scared a topic (for them) to joke about like that. "Great Spirit forgive you."
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
Tim Sweeney: Those neo hippies, who are such rebels, that rather than actually rebelling against their parents they choose to imitate the rebellion of their parents, would obviously be willing to pay a little extra tax (for important social programs) on things like: hash pipes, sandals, rolling papers, anti-Bush merchandise, smokes, Che Guevara shirts etc... · Aug 11 at 4:20pm
Along the same lines -- What about an extra "carbon tax" for the ultra-polluting 1980's Volvos and Vanagons?
Jun '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
ooops, make that sacred, not scared.
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
I was trying to think of a way to tax arrogance, since that they have in limitless supply, and came up with this:
Announce a new tax on "intelligence and importance". The tax is paid in public, or at least the results to be published. The amount of tax paid is scaled to the importance and intelligence of the payer, to be determined by the payer (being the best and brightest, who else could determine it?)
Just make the announcement and them enjoy the spectacle as people bankrupt themselves in a rush to be the top payer.
Jul '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
College professors with tenure never quit. Emeritus forever.
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
G.A. Dean: I was trying to think of a way to tax arrogance, since that they have in limitless supply, and came up with this:
Announce a new tax on "intelligence and importance". [....etc.] · Aug 11 at 4:54pm
Brilliant. Really, that's clever.
Aug '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
Maybe proposing taxes like this can get leftists to see the dangers of abusive taxation... Nah, probably not.
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
I propose a tax on the wealth generated by phony predictions. Global warming, global cooling, nuclear winter, natural resource exhaustion, overpopulation, mass pandemics: All these have generated untold billions in wealth for the Al Gores of the world. We should have a special tax rate for all income created by scaring people, working them up into a frenzy, and inducing lemming-like behavior such as "going green." Add a surtax on "carbon credits" and the like, and we're starting to talk real revenue here.
How to avoid taxing accurate predictions, such as, "When you raise taxes and create terrifying uncertainty in the business climate, you'll end up with massive unemployment and economic stagnation"? Simply tax all money made on predictions and put the proceeds into a special escrow fund -- call, it, say, a "lockbox." Then in ten years you evaluate each prediction. For the ones that came true, pay the money back to the authors with interest. Keep all the money taken from those whose predictions failed, as reasonable compensation to the citizens for all the damage they caused.
Don't they say if you tax something, you get less of it?
Aug '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
etoiledunord: ooops, make that sacred, not scared. · Aug 11 at 4:30
Freudian slip. We should be scared.
Aug '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
Scott Reusser
G.A. Dean: I was trying to think of a way to tax arrogance, since that they have in limitless supply, and came up with this:
Announce a new tax on "intelligence and importance". [....etc.] · Aug 11 at 4:54pm
Brilliant. Really, that's clever. · Aug 11 at 5:00pm
I'm sorry I couldn't like this twice.
Jun '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
MFR, we should index social-security benefits to reproduction and childrearing. Couples earn their social-security benefits: 50% benefits for having 1 child, full benefits for at least 2, no benefits at all for childless adults (by not reproducing they worsen the entitlement crisis; besides, without the expense of children they can afford to retire on their own dime).
Benefits are surrendered if the parents divorce, to charge them for the cost their children will likely cause society.
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
Here's another. Let's tax congressional votes. The representatives and senators to pay a fee based on the number of words in the bill. A simple bill like "Cut taxes" would cost very little. Something like the Health-Care reform bill would raise a lot of revenue. Or perhaps this would be a good test case for the Laffer Curve.
Jun '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
The real money is in evaluating and taxing all the non-directly-financial benefits that accrue to people who 'don't care about money' and 'want to make a difference' in taxpayer-funded sinecures. Is a government employee nearly impossible to fire? Treat this like tenure: calculate his likelihood of termination if he were in the private sector, credit him with that percentage as income, and tax him on it. So if 10% of private-sector accountants are fired annually, and a government accountant cannot be fired, credit him with 10% higher income for tax purposes.
-Also, we can monetize and tax the 'benefit' of not working. Does a UAW factory hand receive mandatory 20-minute tax breaks? Value them as income,1/3-hrs wages per break, and tax him on it.
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
I'm not sure if my peeve belongs here, but speaking of taxes and liberals makes me think of a recent column (on Ricochet? Can't recall.) I saw about how there are, for instance, all these liberals from Massachusetts (state pols, in particular) who vote for high taxes and then travel to NH to make tax-free purchases (esp. liquor). So, they really believe in all those taxes-- especially for everyone else! Think Charlie Rangel. Then you have the dyed in the wool liberals who move to great low tax conservative states (NH, TX, FL, etc.) where freedom reigns and life is good-- and immediately they all band together to destroy all that and turn it into a blue state, post haste. It's a strange transition from hypocritical wisdom to a sort of lefty death-wish. Is it not odd? But then you have conservative dolts like me who live in California, so go figure.
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
Treat the subsidies that rich liberals will be receiving for buying Volts as income.
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
I like this idea. A direct correlation to congressional action. As some state legislatures are essentially part time, perhaps an addition tax on each congress-critter for each day that Congress is in session. The less they work, the more take home pay they will get. Sounds like an incentive to me....
And of course the fewer days that Congress is in session, the fewer inane laws we might get....though I am sure they would find a way...
May '10
Re: Let's invent new vindictive forms of taxation for fun
Organic foods. By eschewing pesticides, genetic modifications, herbicides, and preservatives, organic farming's crop losses are higher both in the field and during distribution. This deprives The Planet of sustenance -- think of the children! -- and wastes fuel, resulting in comparatively more carbon choking (cough, cough) our fragile environment.
Besides, they can afford it. Tax 'em to bejeezus.