If you’re looking for what to tax instead of income, the best things are: land, pollution and consumption.
Land is great because people will not use less of it, no matter how high the tax. Pollution is great to tax, because we want to produce less of it. Consumption (or purchases or spending) is good to tax because economic growth is good and this tax encourages investment rather than spending your wealth. The most common consumption taxes are the sales tax or VAT tax.
You may have heard of consumption taxes described as “regressive “, but that comes from looking at only part of the policy. For example, a universal basic income funded by a sales or VAT tax would see the poor better off than the rich.
It would likely result in a drop in discretionary consumer spending, but would not necessarily have negative impacts on the economy as a whole. If you tax consumption, investment can become more economically attractive. This destroys consumer surplus in the short run but can lead to economic growth in the long run. Lots of countries in South America are like this; they tax goods like smartphones and video games because they would rather that money be spent or invested domestically.
"Pollution" is not great to tax if you want a functioning society.
Since apparently Carbon Dioxide is considered pollution now you have somehow defined the very action of living and working as taxable. Not going to end well.
Consumption tax leads to LESS investment because it leads to LESS viable companies over all. So unless you goal is More investement into a handful of megacorps you shouldn't do this.
Land tax is horrible because it's already our most abundant untapped resource, maybe in dense urban environments it might be justifiable, but that's it.
Stop trying all this dumb shit just say "suburban tax" if you want to make a tax that targets suburbanites. People appreciate honesty more than BS! Democracies can't function without it! The entire point of having representatives is to taxes that the people don't want, if they can't do that then American democracy has already failed decades before Trump.
If you’re looking for what to tax instead of income, the best things are: land, pollution and consumption.
Land is great because people will not use less of it, no matter how high the tax. Pollution is great to tax, because we want to produce less of it. Consumption (or purchases or spending) is good to tax because economic growth is good and this tax encourages investment rather than spending your wealth. The most common consumption taxes are the sales tax or VAT tax.
You may have heard of consumption taxes described as “regressive “, but that comes from looking at only part of the policy. For example, a universal basic income funded by a sales or VAT tax would see the poor better off than the rich.