Taxes and inequality

mattn — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 09:52:42 -0800

The comparative experience thus suggests that for inequality reduction, it is the quantity of taxes rather than the progressivity of the tax system that matters most. Affluent countries that achieve substantial inequality reduction do so with tax systems that are large but no more progressive than ours [America's]. As The Economist's Democracy in America blogger argues, the question that this raises is as follows: "if, as a matter of fact, high American inequality is a consequence not so much of rigged rules that benefit the rich, but because of a general failure to tax the middle-class at a level sufficient to finance significantly equalising progressive transfers, then ultra-rich rule-rigging would seem to be orthogonal to the real question: why the middle-class median voter won't support higher taxes to fund a more egalitarian welfare state. I think part of the answer is that huge numbers of middle-class Americans think downward redistribution from the middle to lower class is unfair precisely because the relatively poor are not perceived to be pulling their weight in the collaborative endeavour of American society."

Luxury Tax

latkes — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:56:33 -0800

Let us tax Gwyneth Paltrow's infected brain. Via zunguzungu.

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Taxes and inequality

Luxury Tax