posted
I thought it might be interesting to create a new tax policy from the ground up. I’d like to accomplish two things with this. First, I’d like to see if we can have a productive discussion on a very complex, very controversial issue. Second, I’d actually like to come up with a Hatrack Tax Resolution, which has the consensus of the participants. Areas where we can’t reach consensus would be couched in terms of 2 or 3 alternatives.
I envision doing this in several steps:
0. Identify the rules and structure of the discussion. This will include agreeing on the subsequent steps. In this step, we will propose amendments to the steps below and modify the list according to consensus. We will also define the range of possibilities to be discussed. For example, do we want to consider tax policies that require constitutional amendments? We also need to decide how we move on to a new step – voting amongst participants, consensus, strict time limit, etc.
1. Identify the different “things” that can be taxed. At this point, we’re coming up with separate areas to be discussed – we will not discuss the pros and cons of each type of tax. For example, there are sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, etc. We will break each of these categories down into as many categories as we need for discussion. For example, income taxes would be broken down into wages, contract earnings, business profits, capital gains, etc.
2. Identify the possible goals of a tax policy. The different goals include generating revenue, discouraging particular types of behavior, encouraging particular types of behavior, and wealth redistribution. I’m sure there are others; this step will identify them and break them down into the topics for future discussion. Again, we’re not talking about pros and cons yet.
3. Match the types of taxes from step 1 to the goals from step 2. In this step we will identify which types of taxes can serve which types of goals. Again, no pros and cons.
4. Cross off “unacceptable” tax/goal pairs. Our first pro-con discussion will try to reach consensus on which pairings identified in step 3 are unacceptable, for whatever reason. Here we can discuss economic effects, the morality of taxation, the efficacy of the tax in meeting the goal, unintended consequences, etc. But each mini-discussion will be in the context of an individual tax/goal pair.
5. Define acceptable ranges for each tax/goal pair. Here we will attempt to define what we consider the maximum and minimum amount acceptable for each tax/goal pair, by percentages or absolute dollars as appropriate. For example, we may easily agree that the highest income tax rate should never reach 100%. This sets the bounds for the assignment of tax rates.
6. Prioritize the tax type within each goal. Here we will attempt to rank each tax type within each goal it is paired with as to suitability, and apply a rough percentage of how much each tax type should contribute to the goal.
7. Allocate each tax/goal pair between state and federal. Here we will try to produce a range of acceptable amounts for allocating the revenues between state and federal. As part of this, we will be deciding what range of differences is acceptable between states.
8. Try to assign rough values to each tax type. Finally, we will be attempting to set the range of rates for each type of tax.
So, anyone game to try this? If you are, begin discussing step 0 now.
posted
Probably the best way to do this is simply to do a different thread for each "step" after the zero step. Some of them will be able to go concurrently. I would suggest about 3 days for each step before moving to the next, in cases where you can't have the threads active at teh same time.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
OK, I like both suggestions so far. In the first post of each subsequent thread, we can write a summary of the decisions made so far to kind of lock things in place. 3 days might not be enough time for each one though.
Does this mean you each are interested in participating, Paul and fil?
posted
Are you planning to have a closed group or open discussions? Is this a consensus of people who sign up to participate or all of Hatrack that cares to comment?
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
It's open for comments, and during early steps people can come and go. Once we're into the steps where we're more likely to have serious disagreement, it would still be open for everyone to comment, but consensus would be sought between those who had participated in the discussion in the earlier steps. I would suspect we would include good input from late-comers, and some might become part of the consensus group if they really get into it.
In other words, there's no "rules" or limits on who participates, but we hope to develop a working rapport amongst a set of regulars.
The key will be having a "moderated" discussion in the sense that the group politely requests out of order posts be kept to a minimum. But I'd think we would err on the side of discussing early rather than late.
posted
Since you're having this discussion on Hatrack, am I right in the understanding that by "Non-partisan" you mean something that appeals to Democrats, Communists, Socialists and Greens?
posted
I mean something in which all participants are working toward a common goal, not trying to advance their own agenda. This will naturally require different people to make cases for their particular opinions later in the process. The key is to see what the real, irreconcilable areas of dispute are and build in the conditional portions in as few places as possible.
posted
Dag, It sounds interesting. I'd be willing to participate, and I like the idea of setting out the values prior to anything else. I don't know though, I feel like we'd need to expand the discussion of values to include background discussions of economics itself. That being said, I'll participate and I'm going to try not to drive the discussion anywhere.
Oh and I'm often not around for three days consecutively, so I'd likely miss some of the steps where that the cutoff. Other people might as well. I think it'd be better not to impose artificial limits on the steps and instead rely on a collective sense of doneness. Of course, I'll probably miss that as well.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I agree with not having a strict time limit on things. I interpreted the 3-day limit as a suggestion; I think we'll be able to tell when discussion is waning. Certainly I don't anticipate us arbitrarily stopping. But I hope participants will pop in to say they've got something significant to add but can't do it for a couple of days so we know if we need to wait.
I also think the discussion will have to deal with external matters such as economics. We can't even discuss the goals without doing that. Hopefully there'll be enough of a center of gravity to pull things back fairly easily.
posted
OK, I'll bump this to get more comments today. Assuming there's no ongoing dispute, I'll post the next thread with the amended steps late tonight or early tomorrow.
quote: by "Non-partisan" you mean something that appeals to Democrats, Communists, Socialists and Greens?
I can't wait to see how we manage that comprimise. Although I'm never sure what the difference is between the Communists and the Socialists, anyway.
I assume we'll be basing our tax code on the US and it's capitalism? I'm not real up on the economies of foreign countries.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Yes, this is assumed to be an American tax code. We do need to decide if we're limiting this to taxes which require no constiutional amendment. It would be a way of limiting discussion.
posted
I will comment as time allows. I like the idea very much. It may go far, if people actually listen to what other sides are saying, to wipe out some of the fanatical claims made by opponents.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I think there are too many assumptions in the proposed steps, and that its too rigid a structure for effective problem solving (it strongly discourages back-tracking, which is a key element of effective problem solving).
I'd suggest a series of steps more along the lines of the following:
1. Brainstorm what we want out of a tax code.
2. Write a problem statement.
3. Figure out the best direction to go next (should be a more specific form of "formulate possible solutions", quite possibly broken into some steps).
The very most critical part of problem solving, one which I feel isn't concrete enough in the proposed steps, is coming up with a problem statement.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Eliminate the Income Tax (it was implemented as a temporary tax anyways).
or
Allow those who pay their taxes to decide where they go.
I don't want any of my tax dollars going towards abortions or AIDS research since none of those will affect me if I play my cards right. Let those affected by such pay for it themselves.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Brainstorming would work best could we ensure at least three or four people were on at once, so ideas could bounce around.
Other ways to adapt it to a forum setting are to have a more formalized format for brainstorming posts -- such as, list at least six ideas for what we want out of the tax policy, two of which must be in agreement with "your position", two of which must be in agreement with what you consider another (existing) side's position, and two of which must be off the wall (each pair labeled as appropriate, of course).
(btw, anyone reading what I wrote who's familiar with the field should recognize it as a simplified version of formal problem solving theory).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
OK, let me think on this for a while. I having trouble envisioning it, at least partly because it's such a change from what I've been thinking about for a long time. I need to take some time to give it a fair shake.
posted
Just saw this thread. Looks like an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I'll have a ton of time to contribute. I'll certainly be checking in periodically, though.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
The one key to brainstorming that I have used is to NOT contest people's ideas at the time of brainstorming. If I say a controversial bit like, oh, everyone should have to pay taxes by hand delivering it to the Capital we don't argue that point at the time of brainstorming. So maybe a set limit on time to just throw out ideas for a certain piece we are trying to agreeing on. Then collect all of them and post them as a whole. Then we would go through pointing out things we can't live with. Whatever is left is something that EVERYONE can agree on.
Brainstorm ideas would need to be positive and actionable not "thou shall nots" but "thou shalls" because you can't do a negative. NOt talk about what the tax code ISN'T but what it IS and what it will DO and how it will be DONE. Talking in negatives will cause circular discussions that are the forte of internet arguments.
Just a thought on the brainstorming bit. Once a list of actions or assumptions or ideas are collected then we can go from there on how to implement them. Maybe propose a statement that incorporates all those ideas and see if it works. Once we get a statement of what the Tax code should be for, for example, we can then talk about brainstorming how to get taxes. Or brainstorm what can be taxed. And so on.
But the key, no matter what we do with brainstorming, is to NOT argue each individual point as they come up. And when we talk about what we can't live with when we look at the final list we don't argue it, we accept it when folks can't live with stuff. We are looking for something EVERYONE can live with on here.
Maybe one other ground rule should be that if folks are completely opposed to taxation in any form, this is not the discussion for them. Because in the end, there would be NOTHING accepted because they would poopoo every thing that is said...because at its core, they don't agree on taxation.
Maybe in addition to some ground rules and format that Dag suggested he or someone could propose a basic assumption that we are working under. Maybe simply stating the assumption that we will in some what have to pay for services provided by the Federal government. If you can't live with that, go talk about Abortion or Hugs or Pirates! Otherwise the discussion won't leave the infant stages.
The only other thing I wouldn't support would be waiting until people are on at the same time. That would exclude folks and that isn't cool. Maybe for brainstorming setting a time limit like 24 hours to post X amount of ideas to be collected. At 24 hours, we collect the ideas and post as one message. Then we do another 24 hours to say what we can't live with. As it gets whittled down at the end of 24 hours we have the ideas that we can move forward with. And so on. I think reasonable time limits will still have vigrorous discussion but it won't limit it to a few that happen to have the same schedule online.
posted
I think for this to be productive, we have to, as fil suggested, assume there will be taxes. If we took the current state of Constitutional law as the starting point, we'd have a pretty good framework to work in.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Yeah, you're right dkw. That's actually what I meant, but I definitely worded it badly.
Dag, I'll be the first to say it; I'm not all that up on what the current state of Constitutional Law regarding taxation is. If we talking about just the framework laid out in the Constitution, I'm ok, but if there is supplemental rulings and such, then I'd be in over my head.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
This is just to avoid things like someone claiming income tax is unconstitutional, or that it's OK to tax exports or put tarrifs on interstate commerce. There's nothing really new on this, and we can probably use it as you stated.
posted
I think we're fine as to the point . I do suggest a format for the answers, though, something as simple as that for every idea of yours you must have an idea for "the other side" and/or an "off the wall" idea.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
OK, I'll post the new starter thread based on dkw's suggested question and fugu's idea on brainstorming tomorrow, and carry it through at least tuesday.
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