lower tax = more revenue => lowest tax = highest revenue?

can we have negative taxation please?

Orathaic, at a certain point taxes become so high that they discourage production/consumption. Sales tax for example. At a certain point, the tax will be so high that people will stop buying goods. Thus the higher rate will decrease revenue because less quantity will be purchased. Lowering the tax rate would therefore increase total tax revenues. However, the reverse is also true. If you have a 1% sales tax, increasing it to 2% will not have a noticeable effect on consumption in the economy, so the gains from increasing revenue per unit will outpace the losses from the lower quantity bought. Thus for low tax rates, increasing the tax rate will increase total tax revenue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Zls2AReVI

Funniest Video about Socialism...

It takes awhile...but they do talk about it..just watch it.

And sorry for the shit quality...not my video..

@goldfinger, thus there must be some golden ratio, where maximum revenue is taken in.

i think differentiating the relationship should given the rate of change, and letting that equal 0 should give you the maximum. Yet i don't think you have specified the relationship to such a degree that this is possible.

@Orathaic - you are exactly right, there is that golden ratio. However, I don't have the knowledge to find out what exactly it is, but the big idea is that it exists, and cutting or raising taxes will not always be the answer.

It's also difficult because at least in the American tax system, we provide incentives for certain types of activities, taxing them at lower rates (401k's, college funds, etc.) Our tax code needs to be re-written

yeah, instead of incentivising 'certain' activities, you could directly fund them and create a simple tax progressive tax code.

Income tax is involuntary servitude. There is only one fair tax rate, 0%. In the modern global economy if America got rid of its corporate tax and income tax, including capital gains and estate taxes. You would see the resurgence of American global economic dominance. Jobs would flood back to the States but, of course before that could happen Americans have let go of Global Empire and return to its roots; a constitutional republic living on the gold standard and/or other commodity based real valued currencies.

Ha living on the gold standard. Living on the Gold Standard restricted growth and led to intermittent recessions in the late 19th century. What do you think it will do now. And good luck with the infrastructure that makes our modern lives possible (and our economy competitive) without taxes. Are you really ignorant or do you just play that part?

Is ANYONE still on the gold standard? Pretty sure no one is.

i approve of taxation, thus i must support involuntary servitude. Perhaps we could build an entire economy on that basis.

You have to do half your working day, 3-5 hours community service each day.

This will allow the community to provide teaching, policing, medicine and many other services without need to apply any income tax to the corporations or the individuals.

I think you've finally set me free!

Just a simple thought experiment around the lower taxes = more revenue point.

0% tax = 0 revenue
100% tax = 0 revenue (no incentive to earn)

So the tax rate that gets the most revenue is somewhere in the middle, and probably changing all the time depending on other variables.

To always argue for lower (or higher) taxes no matter what displays a lack of depth in understanding the issue.

@SantaClausowitz You don't get it, do you. It has been a shell game all along. Incremental socialism started in infect America when they created the Federal Reserve and created the involuntary servitude tax. Sure those things created the biggest boom in American history but for whom really? Who wins when the shell game is over and there is not anything left under any shell? Figure out who wins and you figure out who has been planning the New World Order for generations. The growth and natural corrections under the gold standard were sustainable and represented REAL growth. In fact it was precisely in that period when America went from a backwater poor nothing to the strongest industrial country in the world. What has been happening for the last 80 years is the biggest scam in world history. And by the way all judgment is self judgment, so I suggest you focus on your own obvious ignorance.

Government created mandates is a form of "use of force" and is unconstitutional for it violates the Bill of Rights.

@grenv
Zero revenue for the government equals maximum revenue and wealth growth opportunities for you and I. The government sucks a spending money well. The government sucks at EVERYTHING it does except blowing things up. So let it run the national defense and we good to go. The less they can screw up the better. And the reality is the the government made revenue before income taxes on taxing imports and luxury items. Tax cigarettes, alcohol, pot, and other drugs tax the toxic toys that come from China and the sweatshop Nikes made in Indonesia. Basically the more money the people have the richer a nation is. The more money the government has the poorer the nation is. And the government will spend much less efficiently that you and I will. Think about it. If you paid no income tax you could afford to by health insurance and if it was in a free market you would be able to buy great health care at great prices. That is just one example.

I'm sure electricity, steam power and railroads had nothing to do with industrial growth. You also might want to mention that the period was a time of abject corruption and poverty in America as well. Guess that doesn't phase you at all. And great, the gold standard definitely will address your "New World Order." By of course bringing back the old order of robber barons and impoverished masses who simply have no way to pay back their mounting debt for lack of any fluidity. Brave new world you have the Baba, at least we both know it will never come to pass.

@orathiac
When you say "community" that is actually a euphemism for the State. Who choses what the "optimal" tax is? You? The politicians? Who? The local people? Please! Governments are inherently corruptible and the larger and more powerful it is the more susceptible it is to these influences of corruption. A weak government with strong independent people is the least corruptible form of government for there are plenty of eyes watching to store, so to speak. How about let the local people keep their money and they will help each other locally. Return the concept giving to your neighbor as a virtue to be valued by all instead of forced redistribution of money which turns the giving into a bad thing and something to attempt to evade. We have destroyed the values of independence, self-reliance, charity, and generosity; and replaced them with tax evasion, cheating, living for the loophole and worst of all, entitlement. We have turned virtues into vices and vices into virtues. This is the disease of socialism. And it has been very skillfully created little by little over the course of the last 80 years or so. America is a socialist police empire its candle has burned the brightest and is now about to be extinguished in one of the shortest amounts of time in history, as all empires fall. That was the point of the founders setting up a constitutional republic to try to keep exactly what is happening today from happening.

@Santa
Look around you! Wake up! You are describing exactly what is happening today. The shell game is coming to an end. Open your eyes the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer faster than ever before. Pretty soon there will only be Masters and Servants. This technology we have will be used against us. 1984 is coming, it is already here. Wake up from your fantasy. I live in the Real World. I am immune to the toxicity that is the American culture of narcissism and self-delusion. I see clearly for I have taken myself out of it. I am free. Whether it comes to pass is not so important as being prepared for what is coming to pass RIGHT NOW!

LOL @ people building roads just to help each other out if we tell them it's a good thing to do. Keep dreaming.

@Sacred
Look at the very words you have just written. "if we tell them it's a good thing to do". Who is we? You are so in-programed with socialism you can't even escape its vocabulary. Local people will build local roads because it increases local trade to increase local prosperity. They will figure it out for themselves. If it is not advantageous, i.e. prosperity increasing to build a road, then guess what? It won't be built.

Who are the people responsible for reintroducing values in your vision? They come back organically?

So you agree that societal values have been destroyed by taxation and socialism. Excellent that is a start. And yes, nature is the most successful system of life, liberty, and prosperity on the planet.

"If it is not advantageous, i.e. prosperity increasing to build a road, then guess what? It won't be built"

Right, lots of necessary goods which have a prohibitive private cost will just not be built. The market is a piss poor coordinating mechanism because it relies on exchange. Massive forcible reallocation of resources is very often necessary for economic growth. For example, the Meiji Restoration would not have been possible without state-led land reform.

Funny listening to libertarians talk about 'societal values', since they think 'community' itself is a socialist concept and a myth. There are no values in your libertopia, societal values require a society which is another socialist concept. You're a bunch of greedy individuals who can't coordinate difficult tasks because of the prohibitive cost.

The individual is nothing without the community. From birth, you are stamped with the imprint of your community. You cannot even think without language. Where do you think language comes from? Individuals? Language doesn't exist in a vacuum.

I'm wondering though, which "values" markets preserve. Maybe the 'value' of stealing from pensioners, taking out life insurance policies on old employees and pocketing the benefits. Maybe it's the value of exploitation/reality tv, in which vulnerable people get attacked, insulted, and degraded for people's entertainment. Maybe's the value of turning human beings in human chattel. Great values, all of those.

No, I was basing my question on your argument. You're obfuscating your answer. Hence why I said, "in your vision."

@Putin
Thank you for bringing up these excellent points.

Local community is not a "socialist value". Neither is society. Look up the definitions in the dictionary. How are they defined? By the individuals that make up said communities and societies. You have it completely backwards. Individuals are not defined by the communities, communities are defined by their individuals. And thus you have helped to conclusively show the inherent fallacy behind socialism. It is a concept based on false premises.

From birth we are born free and powerful individuals who capture the attention of every single person in the room. You know the baby is the controller when everyone starts spontaneously making funny faces and making funny sounds all voluntarily to please the master in the room. People bend over backwards to voluntarily take care of the baby's needs because he/she fills them with inspiration at the miracle of life. These little masters are masters of love. Thinking is secondary to feeling. Feeling is the primary driver of the mind, not thinking. That is why thinking develops later over time whereas we come into this world as fully developed feelers. There is a universal apriori language that is more powerful than any words. It is called love. And it is immediately actionable by newborn babies.

Only free markets preserve real values. For only in a free market is the value allowed to move to its correct place naturally. Contrived markets are socialist creations. Artificial markets that only exist through force of centralized control. The State decides what is good to sell and at what price it should be sold. So the real value is never known much less even looked for. Thus artificial values take hold as is the case today and bubbles are artificially created to pretend to provide accelerated growth and accelerated prosperity. Until they pop, for they always do. When they go, the average individual loses. The winner is always the propagators of the centralized control who then in turn have the control of when the bubble bursts so as to make maximum ill gotten gains off of others suffering. Whereas in free markets, since the real value is always known real growth can take place that increases the real value of the economy. They are certainly natural temporary corrections due to ever changing conditions in life, yet these are small in comparison to the artificially created ones. It is certainly not nearly as fast as the artificial growth induced by central planning which is like putting the market on speed. But the end result of those is always guaranteed to be a crash. Whereas natural corrections are like two steps forward one step back. But steady growth is naturally inherent in the system so long as peace is the state of the society. War always disrupts the natural cycles and that why free individuals are almost always the most peace loving. Socialist love war for they create it in such a way as to gain from both sides and thus always win when there is war.

And finally you help me make another point in that it is the method of the socialist to attempt to devalue liberty and freedom. They always attempt to apply their own virtueless state on the free individual. They decry the free individual as greedy when it is the masters of the socialism that are the true greedy ones for they do want to ever fairly compete as a simple individual they have to seek unfair advantage by seeking to control a group and the larger the better. And to do so they lie, cheat, and steal to dupe others into surrendering their individual control to the group which is really controlled by the socialist. Of course their coup de grace is that they get their now unwitting servants (like you, my friend) to expound the virtues of socialism by show all the benefits the group provides them which were created form the ill gotten gains or forcibly taxed gains scammed from the artificial market boom bust cycles.

Why does one get the feeling Meher Baba is related to Mr. V?

Spoken exactly like someone that has never had a kid. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, they love me, but that's the most candy coated portrayal of childhood I have ever seen. And lots of people would much rather walk away from a baby that isn't theirs than do anything to meet its needs. If my kid poops, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to beat the rush to change his diaper.

@Sacred
Incorrect. I did not mention anything about how values are returned or restored or reintroduced. You did and thus initiated the second step to a first step and thus showed agreement to the first step which is that values are corrupted or destroyed. And you also correctly point out exactly how those values are restored, i.e. naturally. For in the absence of oppression and use of force mandates by a central authority, liberty is the underlying principle of all nature. For it is in the nature of the free individual to love liberty the true principle of attaining real prosperity.

Druagnar, my IP address is originates in Thailand.

Sacred, I have two kids. I have changed many a diaper. And your sad generalizing words sound like a individual corrupted by socialist dehumanizing values.

Humans are not perfect by any means and socialism will always lose out to liberty. For that which is artificial always loses out to natural elements eventually.