Is Tax a neccesary evil ?

[renovator]

I got audited by the tax department recently and now owe them money

I dont see it as unfair though, it was actually my mistake. And the people I spoke to at the ATO were patient while explaining the situation and helpful in coming to a resolution.

While I do believe in Australia we pay too much tax for often pointless programs, I dont see tax itself as inherently bad. Even as someone who has libertarian leanings I can see the value in some essential services being publically funded.

This financial year I will be a non resident for tax purposes, and in Thailand I am completely tax exempt for the next two years... so I get to trial the no taxes (but also no free services). Lets see how it goes

Me too they were really helpful & the problem was sorted in no time . I think they are hard on bullshit artists who try to scam the system but small oversights & mistakes are dealt with fairly . When i first got the letter from them i was thinking this is going to be a shit fight & it wasnt ..

 

[Auspm]

Probably a jab at Auspm.

And I'm not taking the obvious troll bait.

I've said my peace on it, if he's that keen to know he can search for it.

Not going to get dragged into another pointless shitfight for his amusement.

That's all I'll say on it.

 

[renovator]

Thats how i feel its better to have the service than not . There needs to be an excess of taxes to have progress & fund things for others not just yourself .

This is why i find people who would like to have a user pays system a bit selfish . Admittedly taxes are a bit high but i feel without them the majority would be far worse off

What are you on about Willis? That is nonsensical. We need to tax you more than the cost of the inefficient services we provide but you don't want so that we have excess taxes to fund a further bunch of inefficient services that you don't want either because it generates "progress". How does this generate progress? Buying a product from Apple instead of Samsung or Nokia funds the best product for the best price and encourages Samsung and Nokia to progress their products to better levels of service for a better price.

Who would pay for the bridges ? the schools in small communities ? the roads where heres not enough users to pay for it ? . Thats progress . Progressing far faster than if you had to collect the money from each individual as they use it . In some cases it would take decades & sometimes not at all because it isnt feasible . .

Better to have an inefficient service than no service at all

 

[Jislizard]

Who would pay for the bridges ? the schools in small communities ? the roads where heres not enough users to pay for it ? . Thats progress . Progressing far faster than if you had to collect the money from each individual as they use it . In some cases it would take decades & sometimes not at all because it isnt feasible . .

Better to have an inefficient service than no service at all

Maybe the people who chose to live in small communities do so because they don't want to suffer the interference of outsiders telling them how they should do things. If you want the public transport system and the overcrowded schools you move to the big city, if you want peace and quiet you move to the country.

If a secluded mining community wants to get the product in an out they need to build their own road.

Schooling is overrated anyway.

 

[hawkeye]

Tax is one of those things that is seen OK because it is a tradition. I've mentioned this before that argument from tradition is a logical fallacy.

It was tradition and seen as OK that men were superior to women.

You have to look at the mechanics of tax and ask the question. Clearly it is taken by force and is wrong. The question at the point is, how should we as a society deal with this fact? In the same way that instead of accepting the subjugation of women, we needed to ask, how are we going to deal with this?

For any particular thing though, whether it be slavery, subjugation of women or whatever it is only a minority in society who will ask the questions initially. The majority just want to go along with how things are regardless as to the morality of them.

Humans come from a dark history and we have to accept that and change things for the better.

 

[bordsilver]

Thats how i feel its better to have the service than not . There needs to be an excess of taxes to have progress & fund things for others not just yourself .

This is why i find people who would like to have a user pays system a bit selfish . Admittedly taxes are a bit high but i feel without them the majority would be far worse off

What are you on about Willis? That is nonsensical. We need to tax you more than the cost of the inefficient services we provide but you don't want so that we have excess taxes to fund a further bunch of inefficient services that you don't want either because it generates "progress". How does this generate progress? Buying a product from Apple instead of Samsung or Nokia funds the best product for the best price and encourages Samsung and Nokia to progress their products to better levels of service for a better price.

Who would pay for the bridges ? the schools in small communities ? the roads where heres not enough users to pay for it ? . Thats progress . Progressing far faster than if you had to collect the money from each individual as they use it . In some cases it would take decades & sometimes not at all because it isnt feasible . .

Better to have an inefficient service than no service at all

That's not progress. That's spending money on a bureaucrats wet dream in the hope of progress but without an objective measure of whether it was worth it and should be continued or whether it was totally pointless and should be abandoned.

Apple funded its creations and progress in the hope they create true progress (and hence make money in the process). Scarce funds for creations that didn't or couldn't generate sales were cut off and moved to far better opportunities thereby spurring true progress faster.

There are thousands of examples around the world, but the roads, buildings, bridges, water supply, electricity etc in Dampier and Jabiru were principally built by private companies.

 

[doomsday surprise]

One tax at a flat rate - consumption tax. Just having such a simple tax alone will get rid of 95% of the ATO.
The more you consume the more you pay. Simple.

 

[Clawhammer]

( apart from the roads, bridges ,sewerage ,stromwater drainage, hospitals ,parks, streetlights, footpaths .,the police service , the army ,customs

...and the aquaduct.... what have the bloody Romans...er... taxman, ever done for us?

 

[fishball]

Any examples of a workable private police force anywhere in the world?

 

[Jislizard]

Any examples of a workable private police force anywhere in the world?

America has plenty of Militias, do they count?

 

[fishball]

Haliburton doesn't count

 

[renovator]

What are you on about Willis? That is nonsensical. We need to tax you more than the cost of the inefficient services we provide but you don't want so that we have excess taxes to fund a further bunch of inefficient services that you don't want either because it generates "progress". How does this generate progress? Buying a product from Apple instead of Samsung or Nokia funds the best product for the best price and encourages Samsung and Nokia to progress their products to better levels of service for a better price.

Who would pay for the bridges ? the schools in small communities ? the roads where heres not enough users to pay for it ? . Thats progress . Progressing far faster than if you had to collect the money from each individual as they use it . In some cases it would take decades & sometimes not at all because it isnt feasible . .

Better to have an inefficient service than no service at all

That's not progress. That's spending money on a bureaucrats wet dream in the hope of progress but without an objective measure of whether it was worth it and should be continued or whether it was totally pointless and should be abandoned.

Apple funded its creations and progress in the hope they create true progress (and hence make money in the process). Scarce funds for creations that didn't or couldn't generate sales were cut off and moved to far better opportunities thereby spurring true progress faster.

There are thousands of examples around the world, but the roads, buildings, bridges, water supply, electricity etc in Dampier and Jabiru were principally built by private companies.

So people who live in small towns dont deserve to have a school or doctor or a bridge to connect the further outlying towns to the services they might need .?

Yeah that sounds good everyone that doesnt live within 50klms of a major city can fend for themselves.

Some things cannot be based on monetary value alone .

 

[doomsday surprise]

Any examples of a workable private police force anywhere in the world?

No. Why anyone would want to privatise the police force is beyond me. Unless of course, you're a dictator.

 

[bordsilver]

Any examples of a workable private police force anywhere in the world?

From the font of all (mis)information

Private police are law enforcement bodies that are owned and/or controlled by non-governmental entities.

These can be firms to which the government contracts out police work (e.g. the 19751977 Oro Valley, Arizona-Rural/Metro contract, the 1980 Reminderville, Ohio-Corporate Security contract, the 1976 Indian Springs, Florida-Guardsmark contract, and the 1976 Buffalo Creek, West Virginia-Guardsmark contract), or they can be officers who contract with various firms to patrol the area, as in the case of the San Francisco Patrol Specials.

A specific type of private police is company police, such as the specialized railroad police or mall security. In some cases, private police are sworn in as government employees in order to ensure compliance with the law, as in the Kalamazoo, Michigan-Charles Services contract, which lasted 3 years. Private police services are sometimes called "Subscription-Based Patrol."[1]

Private security firms in the U.S. employ more security guards, patrol personnel and detectives than the U.S. federal, state and local governments combined, fulfilling many of the beat-patrol functions once thought central to the mission of public police. It has been argued that the private police market furnishes tangible evidence about what people want but are not receiving from public police.[2] The growth of private policing is a phenomenon that is occurring all over the world.[3] In Australia, private and public police have conventionally been considered parallel systems, with private security as very much the lesser or junior entity.[4]

Private police typically focus on loss instead of crime; preventive methods rather than punishment; private justice (such as firing embezzlers or issuing no trespassing warnings to shoplifters) rather than public court proceedings; and private property rather than public property.[5] Most do not have the ability to arrest civilians, unless they are also peace officers.

 

[bordsilver]

So people who live in small towns dont deserve to have a school or doctor or a bridge to connect the further outlying towns to the services they might need .?

Your reasoning isn't sound. You're comparing living under subsidies and claiming that taking away subsidies will increase the cost of living, therefore we need subsidies.

 

[Jislizard]

So people who live in small towns dont deserve to have a school or doctor or a bridge to connect the further outlying towns to the services they might need .?

Yeah that sounds good everyone that doesnt live within 50klms of a major city can fend for themselves.

Some things cannot be based on monetary value alone .

It's a lifestyle choice.

We are planing to move to a very small community, the roads are mostly dirt, the doctor is at the bottom of the mountain in the nearest town and it does get cut off in torrential rain. When you want your bin emptied you take it to the local dump.

We are going there to get away from all the other crap.

The rest of the residents seem to be doing ok.

If you chose to move away from these 'essential' services then you can't expect to complain that they aren't there.

The idea of centralising services is not because we all want to live in the same place but because we can't afford to do it efficiently otherwise. We don't have enough doctors to go around as it is, forcing doctors to go out to rural communities just because a few people want to live there doesn't seem fair to the doctor. If a doctor happens to like the community and the lifestyle then problem solved.

 

[hawkeye]

Any examples of a workable private police force anywhere in the world?

Fishy, if you are interested in how security could work in a non-monopoly situation David Friedman gives a good talk on it here.

I can't do justice by talking about it here but he talks about how they security agencies would interact with each other and what their motivations and incentives would be like and draws on real-world mediation that occurs now and shows how it can be expanded upon.

Well worth it if ou are interested in these ideas.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz0AvdqRVnI[/youtube]

 

[renovator]

So people who live in small towns dont deserve to have a school or doctor or a bridge to connect the further outlying towns to the services they might need .?

Your reasoning isn't sound. You're comparing living under subsidies and claiming that taking away subsidies will increase the cost of living, therefore we need subsidies.

No we need taxes to pay for services that people need regardless of the amount of users

 

[bordsilver]

So people who live in small towns dont deserve to have a school or doctor or a bridge to connect the further outlying towns to the services they might need .?

Your reasoning isn't sound. You're comparing living under subsidies and claiming that taking away subsidies will increase the cost of living, therefore we need subsidies.

No we need taxes to pay for services that people need regardless of the amount of users

People can (and do) pay for services that people need regardless of the amount of users. What you want are taxes to pay for services that people want regardless of the amount of users.

 

[renovator]

So people who live in small towns dont deserve to have a school or doctor or a bridge to connect the further outlying towns to the services they might need .?

Yeah that sounds good everyone that doesnt live within 50klms of a major city can fend for themselves.

Some things cannot be based on monetary value alone .

It's a lifestyle choice.

We are planing to move to a very small community, the roads are mostly dirt, the doctor is at the bottom of the mountain in the nearest town and it does get cut off in torrential rain. When you want your bin emptied you take it to the local dump.

We are going there to get away from all the other crap.

The rest of the residents seem to be doing ok.

If you chose to move away from these 'essential' services then you can't expect to complain that they aren't there.

The idea of centralising services is not because we all want to live in the same place but because we can't afford to do it efficiently otherwise. We don't have enough doctors to go around as it is, forcing doctors to go out to rural communities just because a few people want to live there doesn't seem fair to the doctor. If a doctor happens to like the community and the lifestyle then problem solved.

What if its not choice . You were born there ? bad luck .

For all the shit things the gub does they actually provide some good things for ALL AUSTRALIANS (actually doing what they are supposed to do ) & you guys want to stop that ........unbelievable