Timeline for Are sales taxes regressive?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 21, 2023 at 21:32 | answer | added | Governology | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jul 7, 2016 at 16:11 | comment | added | Shane | @DavidSchwartz I respect your opinion, but I disagree with it. The quote you mention does not mitigate the contradiction because the poor do not consume more than the rich. Quite the opposite. The poor do generally consume a greater percentage of their income then the rich, but they do not consume more. So I maintain that by the Wikipedia definition, a flat sales tax is proportional, despite the fact that most of us would think of it as regressive. Regarding the definition of a car, I would say that I might struggle to define it, but, as Potter Stewart might say, I know it when I see it :P | |
| Jul 7, 2016 at 15:58 | comment | added | Shane | @denesp Yikes! I feel like I've fallen into a Monty Python film! The last question in the text on Wikipedia's reasoning is opinion-based. It's really an expression of frustration, even. But the key question of whether a sales tax is regressive shouldn't be opinion-based. I feel like this is why all the hard sciences make fun of us! | |
| Jul 7, 2016 at 15:54 | vote | accept | Shane | ||
| Jul 7, 2016 at 15:28 | comment | added | Giskard | @Shane Come to think of it this question is primarily opinion based because it asks us to speculate about the reasoning of Wikipedia... | |
| Jul 7, 2016 at 15:27 | comment | added | Giskard | @DavidSchwartz Sir I do hope your last sentence is intended as humor. | |
| Jul 7, 2016 at 15:07 | answer | added | Three Diag | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jul 7, 2016 at 8:13 | comment | added | David Schwartz | Definitions don't work that way. Definitions are not tests that you can apply to things to see if they "really are" instances of the thing defined. You cannot look up "car" in the dictionary and find out some test you can use to tell what is a car and what is not. If you keep reading that very Wikipedia article, it explains that in the second paragraph, "if the activity being taxed is more likely to be carried out by the poor and less likely to be carried out by the rich, the tax may be considered regressive". Regressiveness is a judgment, not a precise test. | |
| Jul 7, 2016 at 2:57 | comment | added | Shane | @DavidSchwartz I specifically mention my assumption that people with higher incomes have higher saving rates (which you agree with). And let's abstract from sales tax exemptions -- I mean this as a precise theoretical question regarding definitions. The question is whether, even with the assumption, the Wikipedia definition would allow us to call a sales tax regressive. From my reading, it would not, and I find this odd. | |
| Jul 6, 2016 at 19:21 | comment | added | David Schwartz | You're oversimplifying. Sometimes "critical goods" such as food have a reduced sales tax rate or are even exempt from sales tax or "luxury goods" have a higher rate. Also, you are assuming that people of all incomes spend the same percentage of their income and that's not true. I'm pretty sure I pay sales tax on a higher percentage of my income than Bill Gates did. | |
| Jul 6, 2016 at 10:34 | history | asked | Shane | CC BY-SA 3.0 |