Alcohol 'more dangerous than heroin'

[Jaysyn]

disprove it

I'm not the one making the claim. Come on man, you know how this works by now.

[ib.me.ub]

i know nothing, nothing i say......

[Lethe]

It would be wise to legalize and regulate, as users are going to keep on using regardless, might as well make a profit. That would be my line of reasoning. The problem I've found with this though is excessive taxation. Less and less of the people I know are actually buying 'American' for their cigarettes, still others buy out of state, it's weird having tobacco go underground like this. But maybe it's just a local thing.

[Skipper]

It would be wise to legalize and regulate, as users are going to keep on using regardless, might as well make a profit. That would be my line of reasoning. The problem I've found with this though is excessive taxation. Less and less of the people I know are actually buying 'American' for their cigarettes, still others buy out of state, it's weird having tobacco go underground like this. But maybe it's just a local thing.

Fair point. But even with taxes, if drugs were legally produced on a mass scale and didn't go through tens of different people (growers, shippers, traffickers, distributors, country dealer, city dealer, area dealer etc) all adding expense to end product, governments and companies could easily under price the illegal trade and make it cheaper for the end users which would also cut petty drug related crimes such as burglary and muggings.

[Tiberius]

Did I mention I'm against all tax apart from a flat income tax?

[Loki_999]

Did I mention I'm against all tax apart from a flat income tax?

Your idea seems simple and appeals to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Skipper]

I'm against many taxes too, inheritance tax being a massive one. VAT on the other hand im in favour of, as the more you spend the more you are taxed so the well off put in a larger share, however I guess that could be achieved via an income tax if the idea you propose has a sliding scale, increasing for higher earners?

[Tiberius]

however I guess that could be achieved via an income tax if the idea you propose has a sliding scale, increasing for higher earners?

Erm...I think you should look up what a "flat tax" is.

I don't think people should be taxed on what they buy, but by what they earn from society. If you take more from society, you pay more, but at the same rate. For instance, I think that most governments could get away with a flat tax of 10% across the board, provided they planned well enough, made the government small (by splitting it up over districts, etc), and by pulling out of things that could be better handled by the private sector.

[Loki_999]

however I guess that could be achieved via an income tax if the idea you propose has a sliding scale, increasing for higher earners?

Erm...I think you should look up what a "flat tax" is.

I don't think people should be taxed on what they buy, but by what they earn from society. If you take more from society, you pay more, but at the same rate. For instance, I think that most governments could get away with a flat tax of 10% across the board, provided they planned well enough, made the government small (by splitting it up over districts, etc), and by pulling out of things that could be better handled by the private sector.

Its definitely a nice idea. Not sure about 10% though. The rich have good accountants who are good at (legally) hiding earnings. Laws would definitely need to be simplified for these loopholes to be closed.

I'm with you on privatising as much as possible. Not because I think privatization is a great idea, especially for things like health and education, but because having worked in government i've seen the inefficiencies that occur there. Empire building, too much management, poor management (promotion based on seniority instead of competence), ineffective incentive schemes, poor salary (at lower levels - insane salaries at high levels), and the stupid equal ops laws that require them to hire people who cannot do the job just so they can tick a box to show they have a retarded person (no offence, i mean this in the medical sense) employed, which then of course means employing a normal person to do the job the retarded person is meant to be doing.

Take for example the what used to be Disability Working Allowance. Disabled people would be given extra money if they held a job and applied for DWA. So, the tax department would tax their income, another department would issue them additional money for working, which would be another payment which would be taxed as well, not to mention all purchases they make getting taxed when they spend their money. Pure madness.

[Tiberius]

Its definitely a nice idea. Not sure about 10% though. The rich have good accountants who are good at (legally) hiding earnings. Laws would definitely need to be simplified for these loopholes to be closed.

Well in my imagined system, I wouldn't allow for "legal" ways to hide money. It would be very simple: Take what you earn each year, work out what 10% of that value is, pay the state that amount.

I think 10% is a good value. Any more and the poor will be affected. Any less and I doubt a state could function properly. Of course, you'd have to implement such a system first to see the optimal amount of tax to charge. In reality, the figure may flux and be different each tax year.