[no subject]

[Mbindnerdc@aol.com]

    Subj:
         
        Fwd: Re: OWNERSHIP: The Single Tax Proposal
    Date:
         
        Wed, 28 Aug 2002 3:23:08 PM Eastern Standard Time
    From:
         
          Mbindnerdc
    To:
         
          social_ins@cog.kent.edu








     Subj:
          
         Re: OWNERSHIP: The Single Tax Proposal
     Date:
          
         Wed, 28 Aug 2002 15:59:31 -0400
     From:
          
         Mbindnerdc
       To:
          
         ownership@cog.kent.edu, social_insurance@cog.kent.edu



  Norm,

  We should likely shift this discussion to the social insurance
  discussion, as per Mr. Bell's request.  Of course, as you and
  everyone else knows, he have had this discussion before.  

  It is not that I disagree with Capital Homesteading entirely,
  although I am not sure that the concept of adding debt will
  appeal to most of the target beneficiaries, it is that it is a
  bigger leap from what is currently being discussed than can be
  digested right now.   My incremental, albeit top-down approach
  is needed first to get unions and the policy community more
  behind ESOPs as an alternative to social security.  Once we get
  them to that point, we can spring capital homesteading on them
  and see if they bite.   By making an enemy of the Federal
  Reserve, and forcing the banking system to serve a population
  it systematically discriminates against, you have made your row
  even harder to hoe.  However, once the fiscal system starts
  going down the ESOP road, it may get in for self preservation.
    Of course, as you know, I would much rather just replace the
  entire banking and debt system with a finance system whereby
  ESOPs provide home and consumer loans (and keep the tax benefit
  as a VAT credit).  

  I also prefer the direct payment of profit to the employee
  portfolio, rather than using that profit to first pay down debt
  and second provide for a gauranteed income.  The tax credit and
  VAT system I describe will also provide that kind of income -
  and has the advantage over the appropriations process of
  institutionalizing the practice of paying a living wage.  
  Instead of having a flat tax whereby everyone sends in the same
  percentage (after exemptions) and the poor receive subsidies
  through entitlements and appropriations, I would keep the money
  at the paycheck level and in effect get employers to pay a
  living wage.   It is my aim to have both the banking and
  welfare systems whither away as ESOPs grow.  I am confident
  that eventually ESOPs will pay a living wage to larger families
  as this becomes the state of the art, as I am sure that ESOPs
  will pay for the education and training of their employees and
  potential employees - assuming the training risk that
  individuals now take. 

  In short, why have a public sector when you can motivate
  employers to eventually do the right thing with regard to both
  the disadvantaged, the customer, the young and the retired?
   Also, the approach I set out migrates to other countries as
  multi-nationals adopt it.   Yours must be enacted country by
  country.  I like the odds better of it spreading through
  globalization.

  As I have said before, we want exactly the same outcome in
  terms of quality of life for every worker.  I would just prefer
  to gaurantee it in a way by which both the banking and
  government sectors go away, except that my method is more of a
  trojan horse than an all out assault, especially in regard to
  taxes.   While many in the radical center favor a flat tax, it
  is not a likely prospect because of the tax, legal, lobbying
  and accounting industry in this town.  If you find a way to, at
  least in the interim, preserve some of the systems this town
  fights for, resistence will be less.   A VAT can do that.  A
  consumption tax or a flat tax won't.  Tax reform has to pass to
  be any good to anyone.

  Best wishes,

  Mike

  In a message dated Wed, 28 Aug 2002 1:29:15 PM Eastern Standard
  Time, "Norman G. Kurland" <thirdway@cesj.org> writes:

  >Mike,
  >
  >I agree with you on the taxing of money transfers is not a
  good idea, for the reasons you mention and because greater
  liquidity is essential for democratizing access to capital
  credit and expanded capital ownership.  In recent years I've
  shifted my thinking on whether credit democratization should
  come from the top-down (as through ESOPs and CICs) to making
  productive credit accessible directly to all citizens through
  Capital Homestead Accounts (CHAs) established at local banks.
   With the safeguards mentioned in my paper, "Saving Social
  Security," I am more than ever convinced that the bottom-up
  approach is the best way to minimize corporate and Wall Street
  corruption.  The bottom-up approach would also force corporate
  executives in ESOP companies to try to persuade their workers
  to purchase newly-issued full dividend payout shares (with
  dividends totally deductible at the corporate level for all
  shareholders) whenever the company needs new capital, shifting
  the power over
  >financing decisions from a non-accountable management elite to
  working people.  A tax on money transfers would therefore raise
  a new barrier to bringing social justice and improved
  management accountability and transparency into the economic
  marketplace.
  >
  >For reasons explained in the paper, "Beyond ESOP: Steps Toward
  Tax Justice" (published as a two-part article in The Tax
  Executive in 1977), however, I think the VAT and other uses of
  the tax system to solve problems that are more appropriately
  solved through the appropriations process complicate what can
  be addressed by simplifying the system, treating all sources of
  consumption incomes equally, allowing capital accumulations for
  all Americans to accumulate tax-free below a "Capital Homestead
  Exemption", and begin to lift people out of today's "wage slave
  system."  The VAT doesn't do that and it allows politicians to
  escape accountability for tokenistic wage-system palliatives.
   Compare that with the radically simple tax policies advocated
  in http://www.cesj.org/homestead/reforms/tax/taxjustice.html.
  >
  >Moreover the Capital Homestead reforms would remove the most
  regressive tax on poor people, the social security and medicare
  tax, while the VAT, which goes right into consumer prices,
  would shackle the poor and middle-class to a permanent status
  of dependency on the political and bureaucratic elite.  The key
  issue, in my opinion, in evaluating any proposed reform is,
  does it bring more economic power directly to the people, and
  especially those at the bottom of the income and wealth ladder?
  >
  >On the inheritance of multi-million dollar estates, we would
  propose no taxes on estates below the Capital Homestead
  Exemption, but taxing recipients on their accumulations above
  the exemption ceiling after the inheritance at a single rate or
  even on a progressive rate.  That way Bill Gates would have an
  incentive to spread out his wealth after he dies to many people
  (like all Microsoft workers or the poorest workers in East St.
  Louis, Bangladesh or Africa, if he so chooses), instead of
  depersonalizing economic power by handing his estate and
  incredible economic power to whatever elite runs his
  foundation.
  >
  >The problem with tax credits is that it is misusing what
  should be a simple system for raising government revenues into
  a pure tax subsidy.  While I would support your objective, I
  think it is better to do it through the appropriations process
  for reasons given in the paper in The Tax Executive.
  >
  >Norm Kurland
  >Center for Economic and Social Justice
  >Web site: http://www.cesj.org
  >
  >
  >
  >
  >
  >Mbindnerdc@aol.com wrote:
  >
  >> I think it would be easier to have a VAT which taxes all
  revenue earned within these borders (including exports) and
  transfers the liability for reporting and paying taxes on labor
  from the employee to the employer (repeal the wage deduction on
  business income taxes).  An advantage to such a scheme is that
  you could then include as a credit a distribution for each
  child, to be paid directly to the employee.  Such a scheme
  would, in effect, gaurantee a living wage to anyone who works,
  no matter how humble the job.
  >>
  >> Taxing the movement of money in dollars will simply cause
  most finance to be denominated in Euro's, destroying our
  financial markets while making Brussells the financial capital
  of the world.
  >>
  >> I do however, believe in a single tax for most people.  I
  just believe it should be a VAT paid by the employer.  Now, as
  long as their is a national debt, I would still maintain
  inheritance and personal income taxes on all income and estate
  cash distributions over $100,000 per year (with graduated rates
  from 5% for $100K - $250K, 10% for $250K - $500K and 15% for
  $500K and up).  I would still have the individual accountable
  for this, if only so that a wealthier individual need not
  inform all of his sources of income of the existence of the
  other income (my employer has no right to know the amount of
  money I make from inheritence or investment).  Inheritence
  would only be taxed when it is liquidated (stocks or property
  sold) and only when the amount raises income over $100 K.
   In-kind distributions, such as food and travel paid by the
  estate but not converted to cash, would also be considered
  income subject to tax.  Imputed rent on the estate's estate
  would not, however.  R!
  >ea!
  >> l property would only be subject to tax when sold.
  >>
  >> Michael Bindner
  >