TMCLELLA@UALTAVM.BITNET (Tim Mclellan) (08/17/89)
As long as we're simplifying the tax system 8{) maybe we could have the
following procedure set up.
Think of a city land owner's property taxes. In cities where there are two
school divisions (eg: Catholic, Protestant), you have a choice on your tax
form as to where your school taxes should be sent.
Why couldn't we send in a form to Ottawa, telling them how to spend my
tax contribution. All the various agencies of the govt could send me junk
mail describing their activities and why I should pick them as a receiver
of some of my tax dollars. We could choose as many or as few as we like,
or it would go somewhere by default (general revenue?).
What a neat concept, to be able to say where your tax dollars are to
be spent 8{) . Let the govt spend _ITS_ money anyway it likes, but let
the tax payer spend their money the way the like.
--
Tim McLellan University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
"Personal shopping only" ( I only work there )
Bitnet: TMCLELLA@UALTAVM.BITNETmart@csri.toronto.edu (Mart Molle) (08/18/89)
In article <645@UALTAVM.BITNET> Tim McLellan, TMCLELLA@UALTAVM.BITNET writes: >Think of a city land owner's property taxes. In cities where there are two >school divisions (eg: Catholic, Protestant), you have a choice on your tax >form as to where your school taxes should be sent. > >Why couldn't we send in a form to Ottawa, telling them how to spend my >tax contribution. All the various agencies of the govt could send me junk >mail describing their activities and why I should pick them as a receiver >of some of my tax dollars. We could choose as many or as few as we like, >or it would go somewhere by default (general revenue?). > >What a neat concept, to be able to say where your tax dollars are to >be spent 8{) . Let the govt spend _ITS_ money anyway it likes, but let >the tax payer spend their money the way the like. Sorry, your analogy between directing school taxes to Protestant vs. Catholic school boards and being able to target your tax money towards a specific cause/agency is not very good. With school taxes, we are told ``You MUST pay school taxes, but you can send it to bureacracy A or B'' [or at least you get the choice if you can prove that you're Catholic...] The analogous situation would be for you to set up a competing unemployment insurance scheme, and we are all given the choice of belonging to your scheme or Ottawa's. Presumably, you'd try to run your scheme efficiently (or humanely, ruthlessly, environmentally aware, or whatever basis you want to market your scheme under), and send us all kinds of junk mail explaining why your scheme is better. This is very different from what you propose, where I could say that I just won the lottery and will never need unemployment benefits so I won't contribute to either of them. BTW, I like your idea of introducing some "free market forces" into the Big Government, but it occurred to me that what you desribe has been there all along, in the form of registered charities. You are free to give money to any and all of them that YOU CHOSE TO SUPPORT. If you donate Y dollars, then you get a tax deduction, which reduces your tax bill by X dollars, right? That X dollars would have been Ottawa's if you hadn't made the donation, so in effect, you're really spending Y-X dollars and forcing Ottawa to make a matching contribution of Y, right? So, you *are* telling Ottawa how to spend (some of) your tax money, but there are some overhead costs involved... Mart L. Molle Computer Systems Research Institute University of Toronto (416)978-4938 mart@csri.toronto.edu
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/18/89)
In article <645@UALTAVM.BITNET> TMCLELLA@UALTAVM.BITNET writes: >What a neat concept, to be able to say where your tax dollars are to >be spent 8{) ... Unfortunately, this means that unpopular agencies (e.g. Revenue Canada!) go broke even if they are important. It also means that funding is awarded on the basis of who has the best advertising; I don't think that is wise. -- V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu