KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (08/21/86)
From: Lynn Gazis <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
The advantage of this system over only relying on donations is
that people wouldn't not pay because they had been too lazy to get
around to it or because they had underestimated their share, but
because they didn't believe they should be paying.
Sounds good to me, except for the privacy issue. I don't think
there is much chance people will just forget. As for how much they
'owe', suggested tax tables could be published.
I don't see why it is an invasion of privacy for the government to
know which of its programs I object to. How else can it not put
my money there?
Donations could be anonymous.
... But then there would be no way to know which people are lying
about their income on the allocation form.
Why should government know my income? If taxes were voluntary, they
wouldn't need to.
...Keith
-------SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA (08/22/86)
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU I think you misunderstood my remark about people lying about their income on the allocation form. Let me phrase it another way. I was considering a modification of the tax scheme you mentioned in which people pay the same taxes they do now but get to allocate them as they will (in which case the government would already have information about every individual's income, as it does now). The modification would be that instead of allocating the money on their tax forms (where the government could know what each individual's preferences were), they could fill out separate, anonymous allocation forms. This would preserve anonymity, at the price of making it easy for people to lie on their allocation forms by saying they were allocating more money than they had actually given, in effect stealing a little of everyone else's money. So the question of whether the government has the right to know anyone's income is really a separate issue from what I was discussing, which was whether a certain method of keeping donations anonymous would be workable. Lynn Gazis sappho@sri-nic ------- -------