Many economist wonder should we change the current type of tax that we have which is a graduated progressive income tax. When they wonder this a big question of morality is what does fairness mean to us. Should we replace it with a proportional, national sales, or a value added tax? There are three criteria's to measure the types of taxes: equity, simplicity, efficiency, and controversies.
We have right now is a graduated progressive income tax. This is a high tax rate for higher incomes. The equity of it shifts most of the tax burden to high-income families. The simplicity: it is a very complicated and difficult to understand for taxpayers and tax collectors. The efficiency is that it is very expensive and difficult to collect. The cost of collection and compliance is very high. The controversies are that it hurts economic growth by discouraging peo
ple saving. It taxes away the money of high-income people that could be saving and helping economic growth.
National sales tax is what would be termed a consumption tax, a tax paid on purchase. The equity of it is it's difficult to avoid paying this tax. The simplicity is it is very simple to understand, there are no hard tax laws to learn. The efficiency is it's easy to collect from individuals, no need for tax filing. The controversies are the taxes paid only on money spent. Paying this tax becomes very voluntary. This tax forces people to save and this would help economic growth. This would hurt lower income families. This is a very regressive tax on us.
Value added tax is a tax place on value manufactures add on each stage of production. This tax is similar to the national sales tax; this is another tax on consumption. The equity is that it is hard
All papers and essays are for research and reference purposes only!
Copyright 2002-2009
Direct Essays , LLC. All Rights Reserved. DMCA Webmasters make $$$$