Tax

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mr533473
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Joined: July 1st, 2018, 8:12 am

Tax

Post by mr533473 »

Where in the world do you live?

Do you pay tax?

Say you were given the chance in you tax return to allocate how your contribution is spent. Give each category a percentage and feel free to give as much or little reason as to what you base you decisions on.

- Social security and welfare
- Health
- Education
- Defense
- Public services
- Transport and communication
- Fuel and Energy
- Housing and community amenities
- Public order and safety
- Mining manufacturing and construction
- Recreation and culture
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing
- Other (specify)
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Tax

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Government spending is not paid for by taxation.
Government spending is paid with invented money.
This spending allows taxation to occur, not the other way round.
Taxation is a means of social & economic control, justified by public spending. Tax collections are destroyed.

Democracy is the means by which you get to control the direction of public spending.
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mr533473
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Joined: July 1st, 2018, 8:12 am

Re: Tax

Post by mr533473 »

ThomasHobbes wrote: July 3rd, 2018, 6:16 pm Government spending is not paid for by taxation.
Government spending is paid with invented money.
This spending allows taxation to occur, not the other way round.
Taxation is a means of social & economic control, justified by public spending. Tax collections are destroyed.

Democracy is the means by which you get to control the direction of public spending.
Congratulations!, you successfully answered nothing of which was asked. It's like you have responded purely to the word "tax". You understand that is just the subject title, right?
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LuckyR
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Re: Tax

Post by LuckyR »

mr533473 wrote: July 3rd, 2018, 3:21 am Where in the world do you live?

Do you pay tax?

Say you were given the chance in you tax return to allocate how your contribution is spent. Give each category a percentage and feel free to give as much or little reason as to what you base you decisions on.

- Social security and welfare
- Health
- Education
- Defense
- Public services
- Transport and communication
- Fuel and Energy
- Housing and community amenities
- Public order and safety
- Mining manufacturing and construction
- Recreation and culture
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing
- Other (specify)
You are mixing discretionary and mandated spending items. The percentage of total spending that can be changed is shrinking every cycle.
"As usual... it depends."
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mr533473
Posts: 59
Joined: July 1st, 2018, 8:12 am

Re: Tax

Post by mr533473 »

LuckyR wrote: You are mixing discretionary and mandated spending items. The percentage of total spending that can be changed is shrinking every cycle.
You will have to accept the second place prize for successfully answering nothing of which was asked as ThomasHobbes beat you to the punch.

This is a hypothetical scenario where you get to allocate whatever you pay in tax among these groups by way of percentage, I have the data for how Australia spent the money in 2015-16 (these are the categories it's broken down into) and want to compare it to what people's individual decisions would be to see the difference. I'm not sure that anything said in your comment would keep you from being able to participate in the hypothetical scenario.

If you feel like one category ought not to be there, put zero, if you feel something is missing then put it in the 'other' category and specify.. if you feel like you want to do something entirely different, create your own thread so as not to derail this one (not that it's got any traction just yet).
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Tax

Post by ThomasHobbes »

mr533473 wrote: July 3rd, 2018, 10:54 pm
ThomasHobbes wrote: July 3rd, 2018, 6:16 pm Government spending is not paid for by taxation.
Government spending is paid with invented money.
This spending allows taxation to occur, not the other way round.
Taxation is a means of social & economic control, justified by public spending. Tax collections are destroyed.

Democracy is the means by which you get to control the direction of public spending.
Congratulations!, you successfully answered nothing of which was asked. It's like you have responded purely to the word "tax". You understand that is just the subject title, right?
You don't know what tax is, otherwise you'd not have asked such a stupid question.
If you take the trouble to read what I said you might learn something.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Tax

Post by ThomasHobbes »

LuckyR wrote: July 4th, 2018, 2:31 am
mr533473 wrote: July 3rd, 2018, 3:21 am Where in the world do you live?

Do you pay tax?

Say you were given the chance in you tax return to allocate how your contribution is spent. Give each category a percentage and feel free to give as much or little reason as to what you base you decisions on.

- Social security and welfare
- Health
- Education
- Defense
- Public services
- Transport and communication
- Fuel and Energy
- Housing and community amenities
- Public order and safety
- Mining manufacturing and construction
- Recreation and culture
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing
- Other (specify)
You are mixing discretionary and mandated spending items. The percentage of total spending that can be changed is shrinking every cycle.
Lower spending means the economy contracts. This leads to lower tax receipts. This is called austerity and it results in higher inequality.
Steve3007
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Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Re: Tax

Post by Steve3007 »

ThomasHobbes wrote:Government spending is not paid for by taxation.
Government spending is paid with invented money.
What do you mean by the term "invented money"? How does this type of money differ from the money with which I am more familiar?

Since the first sentence in the above quotation is clearly and obviously false, if taken at face value, you must mean something different from what you are literally saying. My employer pays me £36000 per year. That's £3000 per month. About £700 of that is taken from me at source, using the PAYE system, as income tax, national insurance and pension contributions. About £2300 goes into my bank account each month. I take that money out and exchange it for goods and services. The income tax goes to the treasury. Some of it then goes from there to the salaries of such people as teachers. They also spend it on goods and services.

Is any of what I have said here false? If so, which part(s)?
Steve3007
Posts: 10339
Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Re: Tax

Post by Steve3007 »

Re the OP:

- Social security and welfare
- Health
- Education
- Defense
- Public services
- Transport and communication
- Fuel and Energy
- Housing and community amenities
- Public order and safety
- Mining manufacturing and construction
- Recreation and culture
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing
- Other (specify)


I tried to provide my percentages but found it impossible because, for example, I don't know what is meant by "public services". I would class education and health as public services, but they're listed separately.

If I do attempt to answer then my answers would in any case be guesses because I don't know in detail how much it costs to fund things. But if I look that up I'll probably end up just more or less quoting the amounts that are actually spent on these things in practice. For example, I was going to say 2% for defence, but only because I've read that figure somewhere.

I think a better question would be a more general one about people's spending priorities or, in fact, whether they believe anything should be funded by taxation at all.
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mr533473
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Joined: July 1st, 2018, 8:12 am

Re: Tax

Post by mr533473 »

ThomasHobbes wrote: July 4th, 2018, 9:12 am You don't know what tax is, otherwise you'd not have asked such a stupid question.
If you take the trouble to read what I said you might learn something.
I read what you wrote, I learned that you most likely have outstanding debt with a taxation office.
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mr533473
Posts: 59
Joined: July 1st, 2018, 8:12 am

Re: Tax

Post by mr533473 »

Steve3007 wrote: July 4th, 2018, 9:50 am
I tried to provide my percentages but found it impossible because, for example, I don't know what is meant by "public services". I would class education and health as public services, but they're listed separately.

If I do attempt to answer then my answers would in any case be guesses because I don't know in detail how much it costs to fund things. But if I look that up I'll probably end up just more or less quoting the amounts that are actually spent on these things in practice. For example, I was going to say 2% for defence, but only because I've read that figure somewhere.

I think a better question would be a more general one about people's spending priorities or, in fact, whether they believe anything should be funded by taxation at all.
I should have known better than to post this in a philosophy forum..
Steve3007
Posts: 10339
Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Re: Tax

Post by Steve3007 »

I should have known better than to post this in a philosophy forum..
I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I'd guess you mean that people on philosophy forums tend to over-analyse things and should relax and try to answer the question, yes?
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mr533473
Posts: 59
Joined: July 1st, 2018, 8:12 am

Re: Tax

Post by mr533473 »

It was probably wrong for me to use the forum in this way. Just saw this https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... your-money and wanted to see if people could choose for themselves individually, how it might differ. Ah well, proceed to discuss tax in any way you see fit.. it's only fair.
Steve3007
Posts: 10339
Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Re: Tax

Post by Steve3007 »

My answer is this:

I believe in spending more of the money raised by taxation on health, education and transport infrastructure than is currently spent by the government of the country in which I live - the UK. Precisely how much more I wouldn't know without studying the subject in more detail than I have time for. One of my reasons for this is that I think those things can be classed as "commons" whose maintenance is best arranged centrally because if left to individual market players in a free market nobody would have enough of an incentive to adequately fund them.
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mr533473
Posts: 59
Joined: July 1st, 2018, 8:12 am

Re: Tax

Post by mr533473 »

Steve3007 wrote: July 4th, 2018, 10:29 am
I should have known better than to post this in a philosophy forum..
I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I'd guess you mean that people on philosophy forums tend to over-analyse things and should relax and try to answer the question, yes?
Yeah that's it. "Over-analyse" sounds like a negative thing but yeah, analyse the hell out of stuff. If you see the last post I just made it says what I was attempting to find out, but that really isn't what the forum is for so it's my own fault.. all power to you analisers.
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