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Bill: Liberal Tax Bill
Details
Submitted by[?]: Democratic National Party
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This bill proposes to change income taxes. It requires more than half of the legislature to vote yes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: October 2367
Description[?]:
| The Conservative Liberal Party propose to adjust the government's income tax policy to better address the economic situation of the Free Republic of Likatonia. We propose to reduce the higher rate of tax to 12% from 21%. Our logic behind this is the jump from the middle to higher tax band was far too high (from 5 to 21). This would discourage people from working more. It is our hope that these tax reductions would encourage people to earn more. The reductions in sales tax will encourage people to spend more. The reduction in corporation tax will encourage more businesses to locate here. This bill is a win win situation for Likaton economics. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Tax percentage of the profit made by corporations.
Old value:: 12
Current: 15
Proposed: 8
Article 2
Proposal[?] to change Sales tax on luxury goods.
Old value:: 10
Current: 12
Proposed: 8
Article 3
Proposal[?] to change Waste disposal responsibility.
Old value:: Private companies are responsible for disposing of their own waste. The government disposes of residential waste.
Current: The government is responsible for waste disposal.
Proposed: Waste disposal is left entirely to the private sector and is unregulated.
Article 4
We propose to alter income tax brackets to the following setup. Information about the current income tax system can be found here.
| Bracket | Tax | Estimated Revenue |
| > 10,000 LIK | 3% | 7,930,000,000 LIK |
| > 20,000 LIK | 5% | 4,871,000,000 LIK |
| > 30,000 LIK | 12% | 4,694,000,000 LIK | Total | 17,495,000,000 LIK |
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 12:28:50, February 28, 2007 CET | From | Democratic National Party | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | It is our hope by the way that soon we will have only two tax bands. |
| Date | 16:02:25, February 28, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | Perhaps the Conservative Liberals would like a pony? A helicopter? If wishing and dreaming is the policy, it might as well be something nice, after all.... |
| Date | 17:53:09, February 28, 2007 CET | From | Democratic National Party | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | Well a helicopter would be nice actually... come to think of it - if we're the advocates for the free market, business people have propobably already donated a couple of helicopters to the party..... But two tax bands is a reality. We want to get rid of this "tax the rich" agenda. Wealthy entrepreneurs bring jobs to the country. We should reward them, not pressure them to leave the country. |
| Date | 19:07:37, February 28, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | Why get rid of a 'tax the rich' agenda? (We in the Axis Mundi Revolution are still not entirely sure that the ConLibs are describing a reality, even). Who is better equipped to pay taxes, those who have money or those who do not? Which is the more likely source of revenue for government spending, those who dwell in poverty, or those who have disposable income? The Conservative Liberals create a picture of a victim society, where the rich are somehow suffering by having to contribute. Even with high taxation, the top wage-earners are in no danger of having the same lifestyle as the poor. We have as much as a quarter of our population that cannot always put food on the table. A third of our population has to make faith payments, or occassionally 'miss' a bill to catch later - because they lack the resources to always have money to spend - even on essentials. To say that those who are driving 8mpg super-SUV's to take their single child to private school, are 'suffering' by taking a greater share of the tax burden, is an insult to the average Likatonian, and a mark of how fisco-centric, biased towards the rich, and simply out of touch, the Conservative Liberals are. |
| Date | 20:17:39, February 28, 2007 CET | From | AM Populist Social Democrats | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | We generally agree with the AMR points, but would simply like to add that unless top rates are extremely high, over 50% levels when people might actually start working less hard and the less patrotic might abandon the country (OOC: The latter something that as an American it's hard for me to fathom), it is always bad for everyone else to cut taxes on the wealthy. Any tax cut for the wealthy involves money that would otherwise be used for the benefit of the middle class and/or poor, whether it's cutting taxes on these classes or improving programs for them. It therefore follows that any tax cuts for the wealthy (unless the tax rate is extremely high) are awful for the majority of society. |
| Date | 20:27:48, February 28, 2007 CET | From | AM Populist Social Democrats | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | Oh, and we also see that with the surplus only 1 billion LIK and you not even taxing the poor to pay for the tax cuts for the rich (not that that would be any better), you would be creating a deficit. |
| Date | 20:46:54, February 28, 2007 CET | From | Democratic National Party | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | We respect the AMR's point of view. They represent a particular part of Likaton society. I would hope that they would respect the views on the ConLibs on the issue. We make no secret of the fact that we are an economically neo-liberal minded party. Our concern is to attract wealthy, intelligent businesspeople and to reward all those who take great risks to earn profits and provide jobs to the society. The PopLibs are just deluded souls who believe they can tax tax tax the rich and not one of them will leave the country. Not one of them will evade tax by changing citizenship. |
| Date | 22:31:03, February 28, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | The Conservative Liberals are capitalists in liberal clothing. They are libertarians laying down with the lamb. Capitalism is sanctioned selfishness. Libertarianism is capitalism wihout a conscience. We oppose, with every fibre of our being. The ConLibs are right - we do represent part of the population. We represent the 80% of Likatonians that share 20% of the national economy. The ConLibs on the other hand, have sold their souls to the rich few. This is fine in the short term - after all, that 20% are enough to elect - but The People will not stomach it for long. |
| Date | 23:36:19, February 28, 2007 CET | From | Democratic National Party | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | I think the people will clearly recognise that the right, by creating jobs and managing the economy correctly have done an awful lot more than the left can ever hope to do for the poorer people in our society. Some people in this Convocation look down their nose at the rich. They feel that the rich should be punished for risking every penny they have to set up a business, creating jobs and stimulating economic growth. We feel differently. We think they should be rewarded for their innovation. There seems to be a lot of class racists in this parliament. |
| Date | 23:45:01, February 28, 2007 CET | From | Democratic National Party | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | "The Conservative Liberals are capitalists in liberal clothing. They are libertarians laying down with the lamb." It is your slant on our manifesto. |
| Date | 02:23:36, March 01, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | The ConLibs are deluded. You say "by creating jobs and managing the economy", but the reality is that you have shipped jobs overseas to the lowest bid. You say "have done an awful lot... for the poorer people ", but the reality is that you have rewarded those who already had money, and paid short shrift to the needs of the poor. You say "Some people in this Convocation look down their nose at the rich", but the reality is that you have made the rich a protected class, and destroyed class mobility. You say "the rich... [are] ...risking every penny they have to set up a business, creating jobs and stimulating economic growth", but the reality is that education initiatives have created a workforce with skills and a drive to succeed, and that 'economic growth' is a product of the Likatonian people, not some rightist manifesto or policy. As for the 'rish' risking every penny - that becomes a moot point when ONLY the rich HAVE anything to invest. You say "We think... [the rich] ...should be rewarded for their innovation", but the reality is that ConLib policy rewards those are born into wealth, for simply being rich. The reality is, the ConLib agenda gives more to those who have, and takes from those who have not. Is it class racism? Perhaps. Perhaps the ConLibs like being part of the privilged set, and want 'their kind' to thrive at the expense of everyone else. If this makes the ConLibs 'class racists', so be it. |
| Date | 02:24:04, March 01, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | Regarding "It is your slant on our manifesto." Yes. Reality has a well-established liberal bias. |
| Date | 02:27:34, March 01, 2007 CET | From | AM Populist Social Democrats | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | "Some people in this Convocation look down their nose at the rich. They feel that the rich should be punished for risking every penny they have to set up a business, creating jobs and stimulating economic growth. We feel differently. We think they should be rewarded for their innovation." We feel the rich are downright, mostly just lucky, and that the fruits of their luck ought to be shared. Being born into a rich family, which greatly increases the chances of ending up wealthy, is pure luck. Being born intelligent, being born attractive or talented, are pure luck. Do we care about those who risk everything to start a business? Absolutely. We want to help those who risked everything and came up short. Those whose risks worked out don't need help from the Convocation. These risks also weren't made because they were good people; they were taken because those who took them wanted to be wealthy. Do we deny there are tax rates that might cause people to leave the country? No, we no longer do, given the case made by the LITP. But we definitely insist that those rates would have to be extraordinarily high. The current rates are not. |
| Date | 16:01:30, March 01, 2007 CET | From | Democratic National Party | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | Do you notice that while this bill is on the voitng stage, the revenue from the higher rate of tax keeps going up and up - that's called economic progress. |
| Date | 16:03:55, March 01, 2007 CET | From | Democratic National Party | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | When I submitted this proposal, the total revenue was 20,001,000,000 LIK, it is now 20,042,000,000 LIK and rising. You'll get much more tax revenue in the long-run if we reward the innovation of intelligent wealthy people. |
| Date | 00:06:48, March 02, 2007 CET | From | AM Populist Social Democrats | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | That's called population growth, which we passed proposals to encourage (OOC: I think those actually have an effect in-game, although I'm not sure). |
| Date | 00:16:03, March 02, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | As an OOC note: The seventies UK had (so I'm told, I certainly wasn't feeling it myself) exorbitant tax on it's highest brackets, and yet still 'lost' fairly few people. The argument that people will just start fleeing a nation with high taxation is largely a myth that goes too often unchallenged. |
| Date | 00:35:07, March 02, 2007 CET | From | AM Populist Social Democrats | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | OOC: I originally thought it was a myth, too. It certainly was in the USA, where the top rate in the '50's was 89%, and yet the economy was good and people didn't flee. The top rate was 50% or higher until 1986. In the USA, when the Right pushes for lower taxes for the rich, they use the "people won't work hard" or "people deserve to keep their money" arguments, but never use a "people will just leave" argument. However (still OOC) the LITP stated that there had, in fact, been a significant exodus from Britain due to high tax rates. So now I don't know which side is right, there. I can see how the USA might be different from other countries (We Americans think, regardless of what the rest of the world does, that we're the best nation hands down). |
| Date | 00:50:51, March 02, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | OOC: Continuing the ooc - among some, there was an exodus. Rock stars, that kind of thing. People who had a finite shelf-life predicted, and that were entirely in it for the short-term hit. I don't really think it stretched very far to the average wealthy people, even in the higher brackets. |
| Date | 00:56:19, March 02, 2007 CET | From |  Likaton Coalition of the Willing | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | OOC: The Brain Drain, such as it was, was indeed limited to high earners in both celebrity and business. It coincided with a period of high emmigration, mainly to the Antipodes, which made it seem worse than it was. There was some impact in the medical profession, and at top levels of management, so it isn't a myth, but certainly we didn't wake up one morning to find towns laid empty :-) |
| Date | 01:04:54, March 02, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | OOC: To be honest, I think the Brain Drain phenomenon actually became more pronounced during the lower taxation that followed, with the rise in tech spending, and the loss of a lot of tech, tech-skill and tech-funding to the US. There has always been an exodus of the wealthy to wherever they can find the cushiest haven. I think the 'myth' part is pinning the fairly consistent exodus, to periods ONLY of high taxation. Of course - we could always set Likatonia up as a tax haven, and hope all the wealthy emigrees from other nations come here. The problem is - people who are that devoted to Mammon aren't spending their money anywhere, even in the haven nation. |
| Date | 02:07:52, March 02, 2007 CET | From | Democratic National Party | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | "I certainly wasn't feeling it myself) exorbitant tax on it's highest brackets, and yet still 'lost' fairly few people. The argument that people will just start fleeing a nation with high taxation is largely a myth that goes too often unchallenged." A lot of rich left the UK. The economy went into recession. It wasn't till Thatcher tookm power that things changed - learn your national history. |
| Date | 02:32:55, March 02, 2007 CET | From | Commonwealth Workers Army | To | Debating the Liberal Tax Bill |
| Message | OOC: no, 'a lot' didn't. Some did. Some always do. And if you seriously think the recession was caused by fleeing millionaires, I might as well agree to not debate ooc with you now. (On the subject of learning national history, you'd probably gain better advantage from looking at things like the attempt to shorten the work week). |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||||
| yes | Total Seats: 58 | ||||||
| no |
Total Seats: 115 | ||||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 26 |
| Random fact: In cases where a party has no seat, the default presumption should be that the party is able to contribute to debates in the legislature due to one of its members winning a seat at a by-election. However, players may collectively improvise arrangements of their own to provide a satisfying explanation for how parties with no seats in the legislature can speak and vote there. |
| Random quote: "Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." - Plato |