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Bill: Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation
Details
Submitted by[?]: Liberale Partij (L)
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This bill is a resolution. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: April 2580
Description[?]:
| A loose coalition of entrepreneurs, economists, liberal political activists and students has been engaging in a vivid debate about the nature of a post-war Hutori. Although the participants in the debate hail from different political directions, they've agreed on a number of basic principles behind taxation in post-war Hutori. -The budget should be balanced: revenue and spending should be roughly equal. -The first 20,000 Hutori Lira (HLR) anyone makes, ought to be exempt from taxation. (Tax free base) -The taxation system should be simple, consisting of no more than three income brackets. -The top rate of taxation ought not exceed 50% The political parties in the Kingdom and the Confederacy are asked for their opinions, and to commit themselves to a common agenda. ((I am hoping to get the finance ministry some time, and propose a tax reform that will balance the budget. While I know this is not the ideal system any particular party has in mind, I'm hoping that there can be a broad majority of parties that is willing to commit to these principles. Currently the budget is a mess, but if we all only insist on our own perfect system (i.e. commie taxation of flat tax) than it will never ever be changed. )) |
Proposals
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 17:44:10, May 20, 2008 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation |
| Message | Our opinion on taxes is clear. If you look at the taxes currently in place, they were installed by the Confederation, and we stand by those. |
| Date | 17:46:03, May 20, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation |
| Message | Yes, yes, but would you be willing to support a proposal based on these principles? The tax levels right now ought to be adjusted to levels of spending. |
| Date | 18:11:32, May 20, 2008 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation |
| Message | No, it's better to have a surplus, to save up for when it is needed. |
| Date | 18:15:49, May 20, 2008 CET | From | Groene ArbeidersPartij | To | Debating the Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation |
| Message | IMO, these for principles seem reasonable. I might even add that a 50% rate as maximum tax is even a bit high. But the FGGP doesn't care much for economics actually.. All we want is that the people have enough freedom to do what they want with their money. For this we wouldn't want high taxes such as the PRCP proposed. |
| Date | 07:13:39, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation |
| Message | For starters, we want to see spending cuts in several areas that we believe are currently over-funded, such as education, health and social services, transport, and various others. As we are against any form of progressive income tax, we would like to eventually see a flat-rate income tax of around 10 percent, as we proposed and passed several years ago. At that point in time we held the ministry of finance, and so we proposed several budget cuts and a flat-rate tax - the result was a finely balanced budget, with a moderate surplus, but certainly not a rediculous surplus the size of the one the communists raised in recent times - this is absolutely excessive. The income tax is essentially a form of organized, legalized robbery. But it is argueably a necessary evil, as well. Having said this, the government has one MAJOR responsibility in taxation, and that should be to make sure that only the very, very mininum amount of taxation required for only the absolute necessities of public spending should be collected, and that, if taxes have been raised excessively and irresponsibly by the government for wasteful spending, that tax revenue should be given back to the people, rather than kept as an unnecessarily large surplus. A large surplus denotes wasteful taxation, just as a deficit denotes wasteful spending. Both are equally unfair to the tax-payers of this country, and the hard-earned fruits of their labour. We believe, first and foremost, that taxation should be kept to an asolute minimum, REGARDLESS of what the government believes is a necessary area for spending. It is more important that citizens be allowed to keep the fruits of their labour than it is for the government to spend it on what they believe to be a 'collective' good. As such, in spite of any justifications that any party may have for large spending budgets, we will never, ever support a progressive income tax, or an excessively high income tax, or any spending increases of any description. Taxation is a necessary evil, but we have a responsibility to the people of Hutori to take as little as possible of their hard-earned money, regardless of the ends. In this case, as in many, the ends can NEVER justify the means. |
| Date | 07:15:59, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation |
| Message | We should also mention that we would eventually like to abolish the federal income tax altogether, replacing it with a combination of slightly higher excise taxes and tarrif revenue, and we would instead allocate the responsibilities of income tax to state governments, making it fairer and more responsive to the needs of the tax-payers in local communities. This is, of course, a long term goal. |
| Date | 07:32:47, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Liberale Partij (L) | To | Debating the Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation |
| Message | Right. If parties are going to all stick to their guns on this, consensus will never be reached. Massive changes to the system of taxation will then continue with changing coalitions. Pity. |
| Date | 12:53:43, May 21, 2008 CET | From | Hutori Conservative Council | To | Debating the Cross-border debate: principles behind taxation |
| Message | Complete consensus doesn't have to be reached. There just has to be a consensus amongst the majority of seats in the house. When we proposed the flat tax, we had a consensus amongst the majority, and likewise, when the communists proposed a progressive tax of very high margins, they had a consensus amongst the majority, as the left held majority at that point. It's almost impossible to try and come up with a solution to income tax that parties from all over the political spectrum could agree to. We don't believe that real democracy is about comprimise - certainly, parties will comprimise somewhat in order to gain power and to appeal to voters, but beyond that, they are still parties trying to gradually assert their own agendas, and if this wasn't the case, every party would be exactly the same. The Hutori Conservative Council does not try to hide its beliefs on taxation. And we will not comprimise on the income tax especially, as we believe the progressive income tax system is flawed and unnecessary. We also believe income tax should be left entirely to states. We will not comprimise on this issue because we are not a party of appeasers. We are a party that stands for low taxation, and low spending, and we believe that this is what the people of Hutori truly want. We are not the biggest party in this country for no reason. The people of Hutori didn't just vote for us, again and again, because they thought we would comprimise on the left's policies. They voted for us because we stand for low taxes, a balanced budget, a strong economy. And we will not let them down. 'Consensus' is a good buzz word, but we don't believe democracy is about every party being friends and coming up with a watered down solution that every party can agree on. Democracy is about consensus, yes, but only the consensus of the majority. So the issue right now is whether or not the majority of the parties in this country agree to a progressive tax system Having said all of this, we agree to most of what the Hutori Libera Party has proposed in this legislation. We strongly support the first articl, of course, in regards to a finely balanced budget. And we also certainly support a tax-free threshold of income. The only things we don't support with this legislation relate to the fact that it infers retaining the progressive rate income tax, and we can never support this. If the Hutori Liberal Party changes this legislation to be more about balancing the budget and the tax-free threshold of earnings, we would most definately support it, and we should hope every party would too. But we don't believe in different income brackets in taxation, or the concept of a progressive taxation system. For now, we will unfortunately have to decline support for this legislation. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||
| yes | Total Seats: 41 | ||||
| no |
Total Seats: 215 | ||||
| abstain |
Total Seats: 45 |
| Random fact: When your party holds the foreign affairs department, you can create new treaties. However, before writing anything new, it is a good idea to search for existing treaties which already accomplish what you desire. |
| Random quote: "Don't listen to what the Communists say, but look at what they do." - Nguyen Van Thieu |