PrimeNumber

Wow $500 a month all utilities included is incredibly cheap in this country. I don't think there is a city over 35,000 people in Western Canada that has $500/month rent. but that's still $6000/year just for rent. Leaving you with ~ $4,000 for the year. I probably spend $3000 alone on groceries in a year, not including eating out. That's incredible. Heck my utility payments alone between a BC property and a SK rental are over $5000/year

I think in terms of a Basic Guaranteed Income a lump sum transfer is really really bad. A monthly, bi-weekly or weekly direct deposit is without a doubt a better idea.

Here's an article by Vice about mass shootings in the US, specifically this one. And trying to figure out why over 60% of them are commited by young white males. http://www.vice.com/read/why-are-so-many-mass-shootings-committed-by-young-white-men-623

How do you manage that? I know people who live in barebone one/two bedroom apartments whose rent alone is higher than $10,000/year not to mention food, clothing, transportation and utilities. Furthermore having any disposable income for entertainment, leisure and relaxation purposes. Heck $25,000/yer might not even cut it in many cities.

If it lowers wages but in turn allows for more jobs than it would be worth giving a shot. Though you can't expect companies to automatically give more jobs, as the bottom line is typically to fill shareholders pockets. You may have to encourage them to do so along with the new system. The ability to opt out of the basic income should also be allowed, as some at the top of the income scale may opt out for the sake of being good people. Almost like a box on your tax return that when checked allows you to opt out of the GI for the next year. Though do we only have a flat tax + GI, or is this coupled with many other excise taxes? I mean we still need some way to fund healthcare and other government services. An option might be to leave healthcare entirely up to the Provinces at this point. Drop many other Federal Taxes and have the Provinces tax their own population to come up with their own healthcare budgets.

I think I read somwhere that a basic income would have to be at least $25,000/year to be considered liveable. So does everyone recieve $25,000/year or just those below a certain threshold? I imagine if this was implemented you would see a lowering of wages across the board over time. Which in turn means less government revenue coming in. Unless you tax the crap out of corporations.

I could get behind that depending on how the basic income works out relative to the flat tax. The big question is does this net the government more or less revenue than the current system?

If I'm not mistaken exit tax only refers to residents of this country who wish to take their millions or billions eslewhere when a tax system changes. Keeping them from doing so. I don't think it would affect foreign investment. Or you could work it not too.

Why can't they get any money out of Canada?

So you're talking about a basic guaranteed income to go along with a flat tax?

I was refering to my original tax post. After we lower corporate taxes even more from this point while raising many others. At that point we would have the lowest in the developed World by a wide margin.

Could you imagine the police roll up to a crowded busy area with suspsicion that someone will commit a crime. And are able to pinpoint anyone in the crowd with a firearm? If you had a gun registry to go along with it, you could effectively track every single firearm from manufacturing to possession. If a GPS goes offline, we know exactly who to call to ask about it. If they did it on purpose it would be a felony offence. We can even track these guns overseas and in Mexico. The amendment only says people have the right to bear arms. It says nothing about their right not to have those arms tracked. I could imagine the hysteria that would cause. They wanna take er guns! Nope we don't want to take them, we just want to know exactly where they are.

A single rate charged to everyone no matter their income. But once you increase the tax rate on any other portion of income, does it not effectively become a progressive tax system?

Only sounds bitter to those at the top.

Coupled with some of the lowest corprate tax rates in the world, sure they would. You can come enjoy our low tax rates, especially for clean companies. But if you leave, you gonna pay. Maybe some of the auto manufacturers would have thought twice about leaving after Harper gave them all that bailout money that still hasnt been repaid.

You also can't arguably say he worked harder because he may have just gotten lucky. The fisherman that made less may well have worked far harder and caught nothing, while the fisherman that remained average worked very little and just managed to find one good spot. That's why flat taxes are dumb. Just because you make more money doesn't mean you work harder. It just means you have more money to throw around at other people that work harder.

Incredibly steep exit taxes. In fact we should have exit taxes on corporations too. You want to leave, pony up.

Sorry I meant a lump rate. How can the end result be revenue netural if both are getting taxed different amounts with the same rate?

Americans loose plenty of sleep over things that happen overseas.

Which basically puts more money in the pockets of those already at the top anyways as they still don't pay taxes on their initial $24,000 either?

How much less complicated would it be to provide lump sums back to everyone? If you're aim is to cut beurocracy I have doubts a flat tax would do so. You're fisherman example can't just stop after two years. Was the second fisherman given a raise or a promotion? Will he continue to make $150,000 for his 3rd year and so on? You're not really accounting for the fact that the 2nd fisherman may now be in the higher tax bracket for the remainder of each of their careers. Are they being paid based on how many fish they catch? Then your example still falls apart. Because fisherman 2 may have caught less fish in his second year, which means fisherman 1 caught more. Leading him to be taxed more on the fish he caught. If fisherman 1 had two average years and fisherman 2 had one great and one bad year, then the progressive tax system can work. If they're both charged a lump sum than whomever has a bad year, effectively has an even worse year after taxes.

I'm not worried, my country has gun controls and our gun crime is relative to those controls. We don't have infants shooting themselves in grocery stores with their mothers handguns. We just don't have anything else to talk about, so we talk about your problems. it's a longstanding Canadian tradition.

That's right BC. You can always count on a mass shooting every other month in the good ol' US of A! GUNS GUNS GUNS!

It's stupid for the person making $24,001. Sure they could go get a better job, but in a Capitalist system you absolutely need there to be someone on the bottom, so someone has to make bare minimun for society to function. Unless of course you want to bring in a higher minimum wage with a flat tax. Anyone making $24,001 that has to pay a flat tax, might as well just be jobless and feed of the system because that what it will encourage.

The Civil War was fought for a variety of reasons, much like any war, one of them being slavery. To say it wasn't fought over slavery is to say the Iraq war wasn't fought over oil. It may not be the primary reason, or it may be. But nevertheless it was a reason.