Thomas Lunde wrote: > Well, Chris, you got me - sloppy analogy. Let me try a different one. We > have a benefit for children called the Child Tax Benefit. Depending on the > age of the child and the number of children in the family - every parent is > eligible and I would say there is a 99% participation rate. Now note that > their is no income eligibility. The millionaire's child is as eligible as > the pauper's child. However, this has to be declared as income on the > yearly income tax filing and for low income families they get to keep all > the benefit of about $2000 per child while the affluent having to add this > to their income find that the benefit is taxed back. The end result is the > poor get the benefit and the rich - while they are rich and it is not always > a permanent state, end up not getting the benefit.
The BI Canada website (recommended by Sally) says: "Income tax would be paid from the first pound, dollar, franc or mark of extra income, but the basic income itself would not be taxable." This sounds like everyone, rich or poor, can fully keep the BI (untaxed). > I see a way for a Basic Income to work in which everyone gets a monthly > cheque or weekly and for the poor, they get to keep the Basic Income, while > the more affluent find that it is revenue neutral in the sense they get the > benefit on a monthly/weekly basis to use but at the end of the year, they > would repay the benefit while paying there taxes But even if you change the rules as described above, this system ends up penalizing work (taxing work but not the BI). How can you solve the production problem --and keep it solved-- with a society of non-workers ? Worse: who, if not workers, is supposed to pay the taxes to fund the BI ? > I think a Basic Income does represent going to the root of the problem which > is an adequate redistribution of wealth so that all citizens benefit from > the wealth of the country - not just the successful capitalists or overpaid > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ executives. Now I understand why you said it's a Canadian solution... "The wealth of the country" probably refers to timber, oil&gas, and in the sell-out of natural resources, you want to distribute it to all Canadians instead of just a few managers of the sell-out. However, plundering forests and fossil fuels is not a sustainable solution, and it offers no model for countries who lack natural resources to plunder. > > Going back to school or building a house with a GBI ?? How many thousand > > dollars per month are you thinking of ? > > If you follow the Basic Income web addresses that Sally posted a few days > ago and went to the United States web site, you will see them talking > $25,000 a year. A few years ago, I worked out a Basic Income based on the > governments budget with a figure of $10,000 per person per year. For Canada, that would be over $300 billion (about 5 Bill Gateses worth -- how many Bill Gateses does Canada have, btw?), that is ~80 % of present tax revenues. (So I guess the schools, hospitals, roads, sewage system, army etc. will have to be maintained by unpaid volunteers then.) But since the BI would be an incentive not to work, the tax revenues would fall significantly. Bye bye Canadian forests and gas reserves... > I know the average knee jerk reaction to the family of eight in that many > women would opt for 8 children and $80,000 a year. So what? It is damn > hard work to raise eight children and I have read statistics that each child > costs the parent $250,000 to raise a child in a middle class environment and > through University. Including through University, i.e. you're talking about the first 25 years of life, times the BI of $10,000/year gives exactly $250,000 ! But who said that they'll send all children to University, especially if the kids can live on the BI without working anyway ? So you'll end up with an incentive to breed like rabbits and produce school drop-outs with no incentive or desire to work or go to University. In a society of uneducated mostly non-working people, plundering the country's natural resources is indeed the only option that remains... Canada the Saudi-Arabia of the North ? Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
