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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.taxes
Subject: Re: Abuse of social contracts. (tax system)
Message-ID: <119@styx.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Feb-85 17:45:01 EST
Article-I.D.: styx.119
Posted: Wed Feb 20 17:45:01 1985
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Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore, CA
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> Consider the arguement that the person making 5 times as much income has
> 5 times as much to loose if his house burnt down (no fire department), if he
> was robbed (no police), or if the country was overtaken by a foreign power
> (no defense).  Besides, taking your arguement to an extreme, we would have to
> abolish all public welfare/service programs, since the family getting 
> $10K/year in public assistance "owes" that much to the governmnet.

No. We are talking about INCOME taxes, not PROPERTY taxes. Local
property taxes that fund property-based services are quite correctly 
ad valorem, though to be completely correct there should be a
per capita portion to fund per capita items like local hospital
services, police protection of public events, and suchlike, and
an ad valorem portion to fund services that increase in cost
along with real or personal property, such as fire protection.

The ad valorem portion should probably also be regressive,
but it is (in California at least) essentially flat, e.g., 
"$X per $100 of assessed valuation". I say "essentially" since
properties are assessed when transferred (and upon certain other
events) since the enactment of Art. XIIIa of the Calif.
Constitution ("Prop. 13"), leading to varying taxes among similar
properties.

--
Michael C. Berch
mcb@lll-tis.ARPA
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