Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!ALMSA-1.ARPA!wmartin From: wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA Newsgroups: mod.politics Subject: Re: taxes Message-ID: <12232430192.54.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Wed, 20-Aug-86 20:25:56 EDT Article-I.D.: RED.12232430192.54.MCGREW Posted: Wed Aug 20 20:25:56 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 21-Aug-86 19:04:21 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 74 Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu > From: Lynn Gazis > Subject: taxes > ... All taxes would be collected together. The > government would send out with the tax forms some sort of chart of > where your taxes were going ... This leads me to mention a desire I have had for several decades (ever since I began paying property [real estate] taxes). At least around here, and I would assume in many other localities, the real estate tax bill does contain a breakdown somewhat similar to the above -- it shows the taxing rate for each category and the amount you are being charged for it, and then a sum total which is what you owe. This shows clearly that you are paying x dollars for the public school system, y for the library, z for the zoo-museum district, and so on. I have never objected to paying this sum total amount which I have been billed. What I DO object to is paying for some of the sub-categories. For example, I simply do not believe in public education, which is what well over half of the total tax bill goes to. I believe that I should have the right to specify, when I pay the total amount, that my tax money is to NOT go to that category. If the sum total is, say, $500, and $300 of that is for public schools while $15 is for the library system, I should be able to pay my $500 but specify that the library gets $315 and the public schools $0, or any other modification of the default breakout I choose. When I do this, it is important that the amounts really get debited from the "losing" categories and credited to the "gaining" ones. For example, suppose that the yearly budget for the library system is $20,000,000 (derived from applying their tax rate against the total amount of taxable property). Because I assigned that $300 on my tax bill to them, they actually get $20,000,300 and the school system gets $300 less than they would have gotten. Now, of course, everybody else is doing this too, and I'm sure there are those out there who love public education, and assign all their tax money to it, while there are others who cut off the library and put it all into "interest on outstanding bonds" because they own a bunch of municipal bonds, and so forth. However, as is universally true, the vast majority will do absolutely nothing and let the default amounts get applied to each sub-category just like the bill shows. So maybe the public schools would lose or maybe they would gain. Maybe the library would get a windfall or maybe they would barely eke by. The point is that it allows people to vote with their dollars in a very real and effective manner. And, since everyone is still liable for owing that full sum-total amount, it's not a matter of just cutting parts off to save yourself money -- you still pay the same amount regardless of what breakout you ascribe to it. So this is "ideologically pure" -- you are not able to reduce what you owe by doing this, just specify where YOUR dollars are going. This would not have been possible before the advent of computerized accounting, since the manual processing of thousands of variant assignments would have been impossible, but an automated implementation should be relatively simple. A few other touches could be added, such as late payments lose the option of making such reassignments, and the like. It would introduce an element of chaos into municipal government, but I think this would be a good thing -- it would force elements of this system to become more responsive to the actual needs of individuals, as opposed to vague committments to the "public good", because action by individuals could actually affect the funding those elements receive. Looking at the theoretical versus actual budgets after the first of the year, when all these tax bills have come due and any of these reassignments are applied to the funding available for the next fiscal period, will be a clear indication of what segments of the municipal government people value and what they dislike or want to reduce. I have no expectations that this could ever become reality, of course. Will Martin -------