Quote from: PhydeauxLeChien on March 31, 2014, 04:44:17 PM

Quote from: Khadaji on March 31, 2014, 04:14:53 PM

This was already dealt with. Most countries have sales tax. The bureaucracy needed for property tax wouldn't be dramatically different from that needed for sales tax.

This is true. While sales taxes are inherently unenforceable at a very low level (think farmers' markets, cash-in-hand food stalls etc.) they don't require a huge amount of bureaucracy to implement in most cases, and a major benefit of a sales tax is that larger companies find it almost impossible (and not worth it) to avoid.

There's always going to be an 'underground' movement, you'll never collect taxes perfectly. But it's just silly to assert that you need a police state to utilize a sales tax.

I saw one country that has a 50% sales tax... ouch!

Quote from: PhydeauxLeChien on March 31, 2014, 04:44:17 PM

Quote from: Khadaji on March 31, 2014, 04:14:53 PM

And, as sales tax is more equally divided between people, it would present less of a burden.

This is a false inference. Equal liability =/= equal burden. A drawback of a sales tax is that the poor pay the same proportion as the rich, unless you exempt basics like cheap food and clothing.

I don't consider this a problem. I'm in favor of fair taxation. I think that everyone should pay an equal percentage of taxes. Doing anything other than this is not fair, and indeed, is simply an attempt to punish people for wealth creation.

It's a false notion that if you are wealthy, that I must have less.

Quote from: PhydeauxLeChien on March 31, 2014, 04:44:17 PM

Quote from: Khadaji on March 29, 2014, 05:37:03 PM

Nope. Untrue. You're now stating that people will be taxed even if they DON'T own property.

Quote from: Khadaji on March 31, 2014, 04:19:34 PM

Of COURSE the renter pays more to cover all costs. It's hardly 'pendantic,' it's merely the truth. Why would you argue with the facts?

Because your argument was that a property tax pushes people into renting which it clearly doesn't. It doesn't matter who is 'taxed' if the renter ends up paying the landlord extra for the tax that the landlord owes.

Taxes always affects the behavior of those who are taxed, regardless of their ability to pay. I reject your implied argument otherwise. This has been studied by economists: "It is show that the property tax has a strong effect on the decision to invest in housing; an increase of one percentage point in the full-value tax rate will lower applications for investment by 90 milliion dollars" - http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/143107?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103772294207

Quote from: PhydeauxLeChien on March 31, 2014, 04:44:17 PM

Quote from: Khadaji on March 31, 2014, 04:19:34 PM

Sound's suspiciously like you wish to discourage wealth.

Not really. I want the human race to acquire as much wealth as it possibly can. Wealth improves people's lives. If you mean that I want to discourage individuals from having a disproportionate share of humanity's wealth, then yeah, pretty much.

An idea based on a false understanding of the pie. That is, what you think wealth is... a pie. And when one person has a big chunk of that pie, you think that you have less of a chunk.

Wealth doesn't work that way.

If I take a plot of land, some building materials, and the labor costs to build a house, the resulting house is worth more than all my preceding costs. I've created wealth.