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regressive tax.
Tax will always be a hot topic.
Broadly I'm in favour of progressive taxation, but this idea that all taxes must be progressive rather than based on use it not necessarily more fair.
Ultimately people do make choices, and charging them for their use of something can be perfectly reasonable.
Also VAT is a massive earner. There's a reason why only the smallest countries with limited options tend to have 0% sales tax.
hugo7-
Totally. Income taxes are progressive. Other taxes should really reflect costs.
Food packaging is a good example. The work of collection and recycling of the food packaging is done through our council. Currently we pay a council tax (not proportional to volume of food packaging used). I suggest the ‘cost’ here (processing in the best way to mitigate environmental damage) should to be covered at purchase.
It’s more responsible consumption. It would change habits.
miro_o
Building-in a rough environmental cost at purchase seems to me to be a good way of is being more ‘honest’ about our environmental impact.
It would be a bit like VAT and face much the same criticism I imagine. I don’t buy the argument that VAT is a regressive tax. The argument goes ... we all buy houses, furniture, cars, holidays, fashion items etc and those with twice the means don’t buy two houses, two cars, twice the furniture etc but I’d love to see the data. It sounds like an argument from a previous phase of capitalism to me because that’s exactly what the middle classes do now (and exactly what the 14 million in poverty dream of). Admittedly any eco taxes (again like VAT) are not a progressive, ok, but that’s an aside - we’re not short of mechanisms for wealth redistribution (only the political will to do so). Spend the revenue on eco social housing maybe? Being non-progressive is also helpful in communicating simply and directly why the tax exists (it’s purely to steer consumption, not for ideologically loaded wealth-distribution, not a Marxist plot etc). And unlike income tax ... at least these taxes would get paid by the rich.