NationStates Jolt Archive

Hello one and all, welcome to the first showing of the Nation States debate teams.

Created in the interest of turning General into a more intelligent place, Euroslavia and I have created debate teams to actually argue 1v1 or 2v2 on given topics. We feel that by allowing only two people to debate at a time the debate will be easier to follow for all as well as clean and concise.

This thread is closed to all NS generalites and others except for Super-Power and Deleuze who will be the debaters. However, feel free to tag thread to keep track of progress

[Moderator Edit - Cogitation] Due to potential abuses in closed debates (for example, rigging one side to deliberately "lose"), requests to remove civil, on-topic posts by outside parties will not be honored by NationStates Moderators. NationStates players are not required to abide by requests of the thread author to stay out of the thread so long as anyone posting remains civil and on-topic. [/modedit]

Thread for Spectators to Comment on (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=408656)


Each of the posters (SP and Del.) will post one (1) constructive argument. This will be akin to an essay and it will be the first post. After that, the two will each give three (3) counter arguments in individual posts. Then, they will each make a second constructive post, followed again by three rebuttals, finally, they will make a closing argument and Euroslavia and BLARGistania (the moderators of the debate teams) will declare a winner.


Super-Power - Constructive Argument #1
Deleuze - Constructive Argument #1

rebuttals by both

Super-Power - Constructive Argument #2
Deleuze - Constructive Argument #2

rebuttals

Super-Power - closing statement
Deleuze - closing statement

BLARGistania or Euroslavia - final judgement.


Topic: Resolved: The United States should switch from a progressive tax system to a flat tax system.

Debate Resource Thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=405333)

Definitions:
Progressive Tax - A tax with a rate that increases as the amount to be taxed increases.
Flat Tax - An income tax having a single rate for all taxpayers regardless of income level and type.
tax system - a legal system for assessing and collecting taxes

bump, it deserves it.

thank you- tomorrow is when the debate should start, pending the rediness of Super-Power and Deleuze

I look forward to it.

Today Automobiles Gag.

Should be good. Ooh, what about making Progressive tax have no cap? Currently there is a cap, maybe to make it more progressive, take away cap. Rich get away with some less spending in tax due to cap.

but anyway, I've always wondered what flat tax argument is.

Flat taxes suck! Power to the people!

I'll be writing my first post tommorow.l

perhaps we should have a spectator thread, running simutaneously to this one.

have the spectators open both windows, and refresh the debate constantly, but the spectators are not allowed to post in the debate thread. any comments on the debate should be posted in the spectator thread.

perhaps we should have a spectator thread, running simutaneously to this one.

have the spectators open both windows, and refresh the debate constantly, but the spectators are not allowed to post in the debate thread. any comments on the debate should be posted in the spectator thread.
That's a really good idea.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=8561168#post8561168

There is the debate spectator thread, please make all future comments (non-debaters) in here.



Thanks all
~BLARG

The advantages of flat tax

*It would simplify the tax system considerably, in turn saving taxpayers billions of dollars in direct and indeirect compliance costs.


*Because there is a progressive income tax, there is billions of dollars in investments specifically which avoid tax. By implementing the flat tax, people would have more of a reason to shift these investments to those that produce actual goods and services.

*Flat taxation taxes all income once, and once only (annualy), as close as possible to its source of revenue. Also, it taxes income uniformly.
-Currently the progressive tax system has numerous taxings. Take dividends and capital gains for example: they must be taxed on both the corporate level and the shareholder level.

*Under a flat tax system, individual income tax would boil down to something as simple as the following:
Income Tax = Flat Tax x [(Wages, Salaries, Pensions) - (Personal Allowance)]
-This allows an individual to keep more of his or her dividends or capital gains

*Flat tax has been shown to be effective.
-Hong Kong implemented the flat tax system in 1947 - this flat tax was essential for the expansion of one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
-The Channel Island's flat tax rate at 20% has allowed their economy to outpace the economic growth of England and Wales.
-Through the 1990s and up to today, Eastern European countries like Estonia, Lituania, and Latvia adopted flat taxation policies, which were shown to be effective

Look, this debate will boil down to whether increased funding for the government is a good thing or a bad thing. It's pretty clear that a progressive tax system can provide many more funds for the government than a regressive one (no one thinks a 45% flat tax is tenable, but a 45% rate for the very wealthy and a lower one for those with less income is a reality in many countries around the world). I'll present a view reasons why that's good, to start:

1. Social equality - it to me seems repugnant that the very wealthy have more money than they know what to do with while some people starve on the street. Bill Gates' life would not be effected if the government took 23 billion of his 40 billion dollars, but 230,000 people could be given 10,000 dollars each, probably enough to prevent them from dying of starvation. And that's from one person! Think how much suffering could be alleviated if the progressive tax system were configured so that such things would be possible.

2. Military funding - all of the greatest military powers on Earth have progressive tax systems, and for good reason. The only way to have a first-rate military is to have enough funding to pay for it. The only way to do that without sacrificing other important programs (or to have those programs while sacrificing military power), is to have enough tax money in order to pay for it.

3. Economic development - the most common argument against progressive tax, namely, that it discourages economic growth, in fact goes in favor of a progressive tax system. More government funding allows the government to invest it in areas that provide the most resources for national development. This is empirically true - the United States being the best example. During its rise to its current state of economic hegemony during the 20th century, the United States always had a progressive income tax, particularly used to fund the New Deal and World War II (proving my examples above), two crucial vessels to the creation of the world's dominant economic power. Additionally, money from progressive tax systems funded the Marshall Plan, considered one of the greatest projects of economic development in history.

4. Allows the government to best help their citizens abroad - increased government funds allows it to bring more pressure to bear on foreign countries during negotations and thus to secure the best possible state of affairs for its citizens.

This is a start, I'll probably add more later.
Tell me if there are any typos, and I'll answer his arguments in my rebuttal (1NR, first negative rebuttal).

bump, because edits don't do that.

alright, c'mon guys.

Rebuttal time, doesn't matter who goes first, just have at it.

*It would simplify the tax system considerably, in turn saving taxpayers billions of dollars in direct and indeirect compliance costs.
Not true. The flat tax is necessarily pro-savings; i.e, that interest is not taxed. Therefore, tax avoidance schemes would involve giving employees stocks and bonds in lieu of salary, thus avoiding the tax. The government would attempt to crack down on this type of avoidance, creating another set of arcane and complicated laws as bad as the current one. Additionally, progressive tax schemes aren't necessarily so complicated. Give a reason as to why that's true.

*Because there is a progressive income tax, there is billions of dollars in investments specifically which avoid tax. By implementing the flat tax, people would have more of a reason to shift these investments to those that produce actual goods and services.
That was answered above as to why people would in fact keep money in those investments in order to avoid tax. Progressive systems can prevent that by levying a tax on those investments.

*Flat taxation taxes all income once, and once only (annualy), as close as possible to its source of revenue. Also, it taxes income uniformly.
-Currently the progressive tax system has numerous taxings. Take dividends and capital gains for example: they must be taxed on both the corporate level and the shareholder level.
There's no reason why this is bad. It only provides more income that the state can use for the beneficial purposes outlinhed above. Additionally, there's also no reason presented as to why this in unfair.

*Under a flat tax system, individual income tax would boil down to something as simple as the following:
Income Tax = Flat Tax x [(Wages, Salaries, Pensions) - (Personal Allowance)]
-This allows an individual to keep more of his or her dividends or capital gains.
All above why people would be able to keep enough of their money for the system to still be fair and for the government to get more mone. Additionally, the flat tax doesn't take into account the marginal utility of each dollar, meaning what the dollar possessed by an individual can be used for. For example, the marginal utility of 1 dollar used for survival purposes (food, water) is much greater than that of 1 used for a shower cap. Therefore, taxing everyone at the same rate would allow people to keep more money, but money of less marginal utility, and therefore still being fundamentally unfair.

*Flat tax has been shown to be effective.
-Hong Kong implemented the flat tax system in 1947 - this flat tax was essential for the expansion of one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
-The Channel Island's flat tax rate at 20% has allowed their economy to outpace the economic growth of England and Wales.
-Through the 1990s and up to today, Eastern European countries like Estonia, Lituania, and Latvia adopted flat taxation policies, which were shown to be effective
The United States, China, India, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Canada...any of these countries ring a bell? Yeah, these countries are the world's economic leaders. All of them have progressive tax systems. I mentioned the United States in my constructive. China and India, generally considered the world's next economic superpowers, have propelled their amazing growth through progressive tax. Germany and Japan went from destitute after World War II to two of the world's leading economies with progressive tax systems. France and Britain had progressive tax systems during their stints as world powers in the 20th century. Canada, despite its relatively low population, has gained enormous economic success with a progressive income tax. Additionally, none of the countries listed here are nearly as large as the United States, the object of the resolution in this debate. Therefore, these examples don't prove that a flat tax can be implemented on a large scale. Defer to my examples of successful countries with progressive incomes of size similar to or greater than the United States.

Due to potential abuses in closed debates (for example, rigging one side to deliberately "lose"), requests to remove civil, on-topic posts by outside parties will not be honored by NationStates Moderators. NationStates players are not required to abide by requests of the thread author to stay out of the thread so long as anyone posting remains civil and on-topic.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
NationStates Game Moderator

AK! MOD EDIT!

Thank you for clarifying cog.