Ummm yes but..... @Tim
"Transactions taxes are a bad idea because:
1) Bad efficacy, too easy to dodge."
If they are taken automatically with every payment and are very small (0.35 %). How are they easy to dodge? Why would anyone bother dodging them ?
"2) Bad efficiency, they have higher deadweight costs than other taxes."
See above. If you don't have to spend your valuable time and tax money collecting these taxes, declaring them, chasing them, avoiding them, administering them etc. where does the deadweight lie?
"3) Bad equity. As we can't track the incidence we don't know who is really carrying the burden. so we've no idea whether the rich are paying a higher portion of their income than the poor."
I think Piketty makes it pretty clear who is carrying the burden and who will continue to do so if some changes are not made.
Today, if I make or lose a 1 million a day on the stockmarket I will pay no taxes as long as the money stays in play. If I liquidate my assets, I will pay a little tax depending on how good my accountant is.
If I am a bricklayer, waitress, maid or low salaried office worker, I will pay a significant part of my income every year at tax time and everytime I buy something. Until I can't afford to buy anything, that is. How is that equitable ?
As long as the transaction taxes cover the bills and everyone pays the same percentage, I fail to see what difference visible incidence will make to anyone. The government number crunchers who might care can be replaced with software anyway. In fact, I suspect long term, anonymized statistics generated from electronic transactions would provide the best economic data ever seen in the history of record keeping.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
