Simplify and cut taxes

Problem statement:

• progressive tax is hard to reason about and unfair (if I’m paying 10% am making more income I’m already paying more, why should I pay even more?)

• threshold for what’s considered “the rich” in the tax system are too low (no, $200k per year is not rich)

• too many sorts of taxes (VAT, corporate profit tax, income tax, dividend tax, social contributions, blah blah blah)

• we’re paying too much (half or sometimes more of what we produce) when it boils down to it (on top of the taxes mentioned above which you pay out of your business, you also “pay” tax indirectly whenever you buy anything in the form of that business paying tax)

The complexity and heavy burden of the high taxes makes it hard to be socially mobile. Low social mobility means low incentives for anyone to perform at a high level.

Solution:

This is where it gets hard.

I’m well aware you can’t just cut taxes deeply or simplify everything in a day.

There are many nuances to this.

I think it all starts with making government more efficient.

If government squanders less money, it can cut budget.

If it can cut budget it can cut and simplify taxes.

This is all hard to solve.

But current European government tend to move towards bigger government and higher & more complex taxation, not lower.

Which is why I want to raise the issue.