Is it moral and ethical for some people to get tax breaks (for children, businesses... whatever) while others who have not made the same decisions in their lives fund these breaks?
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Tax Breaks
- Thread starter Meshavrischika
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wanderingone
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I believe there are too many different tax breaks to say all are or aren't ethical. Individually I find many business tax breaks tend to be the ones that cost the majority the most and are the most questionable.
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I think this better be approached from the other side: Is taxation ethical? Virtuous, a necessary evil, or an outrage?
Only when one has established on what basis taxation is ethical can one answer the OP?
My personal, unfounded opinion is that tax breaks are ethical when they serve a greater good beyond the obvious advantage given to the one who gets the break. Or, in economic terms, has positive externalities.
Only when one has established on what basis taxation is ethical can one answer the OP?
My personal, unfounded opinion is that tax breaks are ethical when they serve a greater good beyond the obvious advantage given to the one who gets the break. Or, in economic terms, has positive externalities.
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Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But I think we are due for a complete overhaul of our taxation system.
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B
Blockwell
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My partner and I have no children and pay a lot of federal income taxes that my brother avoids by having three children. It does not bother me one bit. Even though I am gay and childless I see the responsibility of raising the next generation as a critical job that society should support through our tax system.
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vajradhara
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- Jun 25, 2003
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The single young person, such as myself, gets a pretty rough deal really. Not only do we have to pay for other peoples benefits, we have to pay for the schools that the parents send their kids to, as well as paying for hospitals that we likely use much less than anyone else. I'm not saying it is wrong that we have to subsidise everyone else, just that we get a pretty rough deal.
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cantata
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But of course, you weren't paying when you were a child and going to school, and you won't be paying when you're elderly and using the hospitals. We pay tax at the times when we need the services they pay for least, but over the course of our lives, things seem to balance out.
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I realise this, although we wont have a state pension by the time we get to retirement, and who knows whether the NHS will still be running once my health starts deteriorating with old age.
Don't get me wrong, i'm happy to pay (sort of), im just not convinced it will balance out, especially if i never have kids.
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cantata
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If you don't have children, it probably won't.
However, I suppose the way to look at it is that the kids you're paying to educate are tomorrow's police people, shop keepers, fire fighters, doctors, nurses, captains of industry, &c. It'd be a pretty miserable world if everyone just looked after themselves, even for the people at the top. Our society is a better place for everyone because everyone is (at least in theory) looked after.
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Yes all very true.. i still think the single person gets shafted a bit though.. even with council tax i only get a 25% discount because i live on my own... you have to question why i don't get a 50% discount.
But i'm happy to pay my taxes, just wish there was a fairer way.
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H
HollandScotts
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They're about as moral as stealing from someone and giving a few dollars of it to a kid to go buy some candy. Though I find it a lot more moral to just find way of not paying taxes, or so many at least.
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that's another thread entirely. personally I think we should fund very minimally to the federal government (i.e. let's downsize and give more power to the states where it belongs)
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Eudaimonist
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Taxes are the means that people use to try to live at everyone else's expense. An ethically "fair" tax is something like a unicorn -- one might believe that such a thing could exist, but no one has ever actually seen one.
Tax breaks are no less ethical than a lack of tax breaks, but only because taxation is so unethical to begin with.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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