ACCOUNTING FOR THE SHARING OF THE ECONOMIC PIE 1
Kelly Erb at Tax Girl wrote on religion and taxes and started a discussion.
Kirk T. Berlenbach made a long commentary which included:
…as individuals, we all have an obligation to try to make sure that our government creates policies that allow for equity, justice and opportunity for all… IOW policies that are moral and good. Naturally, there will be a wide range of opinion as to how best to create that environment and even over what defines “moral” and “good.”
So what exactly do you feel can be done? I see a lot of discussion about what result we want, but I’m not sure I understand how you think it could potentially be accomplished. In other words, how can people meet the obligation you describe? (You discuss sharing abundance, but that doesn’t have an impact on legislation per se.)
Then, Kirk replied:
You get right to the heart of the matter which is, of course, the most challenging part of any debate. How do we put this into practice? Well I am not a tax person nor a law person so I don’t know how any particular legislation ought to be constructed but what I do feel is that any and all tax law needs to recognize the truth and respond appropriately; namely that we have a collective obligation to care for the vulnerable members of our society.
The system of income taxes, where the higher income brackets (whether personal or corporate) are levied a higher percentage, is a form of sharing abundance. The government sort of re-distributes the economic pie to give those in the lower income brackets their fair share.
The inequity (which brings to mind iniquity) happens when the sales of basic necessities (i.e., food, clothing, shelter) are taxed. Consider: a $10 tax on a basic necessity is 10% of the income of a person who earns only $100, while it is only 1% of the income of a person who earns $1000. Indirect taxes tend to be unfair to the lower income brackets.
image from Microsoft Clipart
