this is incredibly straightforward. UBI is the superior option. NIT creates a progressive marginal tax rate, which is more administratively complex and cannot be neutral with respect to time.
NIT requires no additional tax complexity over our existing system. What do you mean about "neutral with respect to time". I have to completely disagree with you that this is "incredibly striaghtforward" - it is not as you can see from my analysis. If you look at the above and you think "no need to do any thinking about that", all it means is that you aren't thinking. Regardless, I agree with your conclusion, which I elaborated on in a later post: https://substack.com/home/post/p-151568018 . But the *reasons* for the conclusion are important and it seems I don't agree with your reasons.
You are assuming that the UBI is paired with what you regard as a superior form of tax. But if LVT is superior to income or sales tax you don't need a UBI to justify it, so should already be collect the full land value to fund other government expenditures. The question is then what is the deadweight cost of adding a UBI.
If the revenue from the LVT is sufficient to fund all government expenditures, including the UBI, your argument works. That was, I think, the situation Henry George imagined, but government expenditure is much greater now than it was then. If, on the other hand, even without a UBI the LVT only funds part of expenditure then the additional cost of the UBI has to be funded via a different tax, bringing us back to your initial argument.
The article is not about justifying LVT. It was about comparing UBI to negative income tax. I know we disagree about LVT, so I purposely didn't mention that in my comment. No need to talk about LVT when its not relevant to the conclusion that negative income tax is more efficient than UBI in an income-tax regime.
> government expenditure is much greater now
I acknowledge that even a 100% LVT is unlikely to be able to fund govt spending to the degree we have today.
> then the additional cost of the UBI has to be funded via a different tax, bringing us back to your initial argument.
this is incredibly straightforward. UBI is the superior option. NIT creates a progressive marginal tax rate, which is more administratively complex and cannot be neutral with respect to time.
https://www.ubicenter.org/us-flat-tax
NIT requires no additional tax complexity over our existing system. What do you mean about "neutral with respect to time". I have to completely disagree with you that this is "incredibly striaghtforward" - it is not as you can see from my analysis. If you look at the above and you think "no need to do any thinking about that", all it means is that you aren't thinking. Regardless, I agree with your conclusion, which I elaborated on in a later post: https://substack.com/home/post/p-151568018 . But the *reasons* for the conclusion are important and it seems I don't agree with your reasons.
You are assuming that the UBI is paired with what you regard as a superior form of tax. But if LVT is superior to income or sales tax you don't need a UBI to justify it, so should already be collect the full land value to fund other government expenditures. The question is then what is the deadweight cost of adding a UBI.
If the revenue from the LVT is sufficient to fund all government expenditures, including the UBI, your argument works. That was, I think, the situation Henry George imagined, but government expenditure is much greater now than it was then. If, on the other hand, even without a UBI the LVT only funds part of expenditure then the additional cost of the UBI has to be funded via a different tax, bringing us back to your initial argument.
The article is not about justifying LVT. It was about comparing UBI to negative income tax. I know we disagree about LVT, so I purposely didn't mention that in my comment. No need to talk about LVT when its not relevant to the conclusion that negative income tax is more efficient than UBI in an income-tax regime.
> government expenditure is much greater now
I acknowledge that even a 100% LVT is unlikely to be able to fund govt spending to the degree we have today.
> then the additional cost of the UBI has to be funded via a different tax, bringing us back to your initial argument.
I agree with that assessment.
that's the disagreement about LVT? LVT is good because it has zero deadweight loss. that's just an objective fact. there's nothing to disagree about.