[dsula]

Having all the conversation with Ludi about fair taxes I just had a good idea. What about taxing idle time? If you don't put in 8 hours of work a day you're being taxed in proportion to your time off. That is fair. Because surely you can see a guy who has all this leasure time at hand should be made to pitch in little bit to ease the pain of the guy who actually works.
Ahaha I can feel a brave new world where for once a guy who works doesn't get screwed over by the slackers.

[americandream]

The OECD aspires after shifting as much of the income tax base onto sales tax....eventually.

Having all the conversation with Ludi about fair taxes I just had a good idea. What about taxing idle time? If you don't put in 8 hours of work a day you're being taxed in proportion to your time off. That is fair. Because surely you can see a guy who has all this leasure time at hand should be made to pitch in little bit to ease the pain of the guy who actually works.
Ahaha I can feel a brave new world where for once a guy who works doesn't get screwed over by the slackers.

[IslandCrow]

If you don't put in 8 hours of work a day you're being taxed in proportion to your time off.

This reminds me of the story of the government worker who won the Lottery. When asked how this would effect his life the response came back: "This will not change a thing...I am not going to do another day's work in my life."

Or of the old Soviet factory system, where the workers' attitude was "They pretend to pay us, so we pretent to work".

I am not sure your idea would work any more than those forced to spend 8 hours in a place they did not want to be.

[dsula]

I am not sure your idea would work any more than those forced to spend 8 hours in a place they did not want to be.

I'm sure my idea won't work. But it's a nice thought experiment. I'm so sick of all this tax the rich shouting all the time. I'm not rich, but I know what's fair. A guy making $1M doesn't use more services than a guy making $10k. He probably uses less, because he doesn't need police every week-end for drunken domestic violence incident.

If you think the rich make too much money it ought to be regulated in a different way, not through wealth redistribution.

[Ludi]

Who gets to decide what is "work"? Only that which earns money? Then why not tax the money? Oh yeah, that's what we already do. If someone is not working for money, how do you tax them? Take away some of their free time by making them slaves?

I generally work only a couple hours a day for money. This earns me a reasonably comfortable life and I have plenty of free time to pursue other things like growing food, land restoration, art, talking politics on messageboards. Should I be taxed for the time I spend growing food? Or only for the time I spend talking politics on messageboards? If I happen to sell some of the art I made in my free time, does that get taxed at the money-earning rate or at the leisure rate? What about folks who spend part of their workday talking politics on messageboards? Are they working, or are they at leisure? Who decides and how is each moment taxed?

I'm not really into the whole "I'm rich because I work so hard, stop picking on me!" thingy. Lots of folks work hard who are not rich. Lots of rich folks barely work at all. If folks don't want to work so hard maybe they should figure out how to reduce their need to earn so they can slack off like I do.

[dsula]

I generally work only a couple hours a day for money. This earns me a reasonably comfortable life and I have plenty of free time to pursue other things like growing food, land restoration, art, talking politics on messageboards. Should I be taxed for the time I spend growing food? Or only for the time I spend talking politics on messageboards? If I happen to sell some of the art I made in my free time, does that get taxed at the money-earning rate or at the leisure rate? What about folks who spend part of their workday talking politics on messageboards? Are they working, or are they at leisure? Who decides and how is each moment taxed?

That's why I said my scheme would never work, nevertheless it's interesting to have another take on the situation for once.

I'm not really into the whole "I'm rich because I work so hard, stop picking on me!" thingy. Lots of folks work hard who are not rich. Lots of rich folks barely work at all. If folks don't want to work so hard maybe they should figure out how to reduce their need to earn so they can slack off like I do.

But maybe some folks like to work, they get enjoyment from producing something they can sell on the market. Why should they pay more than the guy who gets enoyment from laying on the beach?

That's why I propose as I always do, to keep it simple. Everybody is paying a flat fee. E.g 10k/yr no matter how much you make.