Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!grand!rwwetmore
From: rwwetmore@grand.waterloo.edu (Ross Wetmore)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Flat-Rate Tax
Message-ID: <28702@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: 27 Aug 89 05:18:56 GMT
References: <1989Aug24.150811.14764@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <16123@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1989Aug26.214344.24140@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: daemon@watmath.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: rwwetmore@grand.waterloo.edu (Ross Wetmore)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 45

>>>Ideally, business
>>>income should be untaxed.  You can tax business income by
>>>taxing the dividend and capital gains incomes of individuals.
>>So that someone earning a lot of money in a business can just leave
>>it there earning more money and delay paying any taxes for as long
>>as he likes.  Make the poor pay! :-)
>Yup.  Clearly, creating jobs and investing in our economy is evil and
>should be discouraged by taxing it.  Or rather, by taxing people who
>are *successful* at it and therefore make money.
>And people wonder why our economy is steadily sliding downward...
>"Your deep seated resentment of people who make profits is showing."
>								-J. DeArmond

  While my first reaction is to applaud the latter sentiments, at least 
for their tone, this seems to be degenerating into a business vs average 
(downtrodden) man kind of serial.

  Has anyone considered the position that tax laws and the various wrinkles
in the rates and definitions of taxable income are a valid form of government
economic control?

  Certainly, a graded rate provides a disincentive to shelter money for
significant periods of time if it all has to come out in a lump at the end.
On the otherhand encouraging people to keep money in a business, rather than 
sucking it all out does not seem too wild a suggestion.

  Many 'tax breaks' are designed to further strategic areas of the economy
where otherwise no one would invest and hence there would be not only no
jobs and economic benefits, but no taxes as well. Is the government really
'paying' for such things and hence spending money that it could use elsewhere?

  Where is the dividing line between a simple, fair and easy to administer
tax system, and one which provides a legitimate measure of government control
over the economy? Where is the dividing line between a legitimate measure of
economic control, and a system that is an engine of social reform? Or so 
complex that it just becomes a milk cow for those that can find the bugs 
faster than Revenue Canada can write their tax programs?

  Or is their a legitimate region of overlap that provides a little bit of 
everything for everybody?

Ross W. Wetmore                 | rwwetmore@water.NetNorth
University of Waterloo          | rwwetmore@math.Uwaterloo.ca
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