I mean, I won’t speak for you, but a lot of sales taxes are regressive, hurting the average consumer a lot more than those who can and should be paying more (on account of their benefiting from the common infrastructure more, while also placing greater strain on it), but I will concede there are sales taxes that make sense, and fuel taxes are one of them.
I will argue that the introduction of many sales taxes were a mistake…
But once they exist, removing them won’t help consumers because the market will just raise prices to suck up the difference. It’s a ratchet effect.
Edit: If we ever want to “reverse” a tax, then the solution is just to send people thier cash back after the fact. Like the Carbon rebate program (that 80% of Canadian households ended up getting more back in rebates then the paid in carbon taxes. Great program. Good politics to reverse, but terrible policy to reverse)
Yup. Income taxes are just a better way to collect funding.
If you want to add externalities back into the price of something, or literally just fund a government service the buyer is about to use like roads, it’s a different story.
I mean, I won’t speak for you, but a lot of sales taxes are regressive, hurting the average consumer a lot more than those who can and should be paying more (on account of their benefiting from the common infrastructure more, while also placing greater strain on it), but I will concede there are sales taxes that make sense, and fuel taxes are one of them.
I will argue that the introduction of many sales taxes were a mistake…
But once they exist, removing them won’t help consumers because the market will just raise prices to suck up the difference. It’s a ratchet effect.
Edit: If we ever want to “reverse” a tax, then the solution is just to send people thier cash back after the fact. Like the Carbon rebate program (that 80% of Canadian households ended up getting more back in rebates then the paid in carbon taxes. Great program. Good politics to reverse, but terrible policy to reverse)
Yup. Income taxes are just a better way to collect funding.
If you want to add externalities back into the price of something, or literally just fund a government service the buyer is about to use like roads, it’s a different story.