Tax discussion thread (U.S. focused)

[Final-Fan]

Kasz216 said:
Also... if studies can't be found... how can it be claimed they can be created?

I mean in what scientific way can "diminishing returns" be measured in peoples lives?

How would you even measure such a thing...?

After all i would think you would measure it by how much stuff of value people can aquire, and how much more money they could aquire.

In which case... the only money that's going to make any difference in said expierement is money used for higher education... IF the person picks the right career and even then it's going to vary widely.  (Some other stuff being used for buisnesses equipment... like buying a snow plow... or buying a company for that matter. So really i guess it'd only matter for schooling.)

So why would you be against a flat tax with a tax credit for higher education?

Let me preface my response by saying that I have no background in sociology nor any expertise whatsoever as far as how such studies might be conducted. 

Nevertheless, even if such studies have never been done (which I don't yet concede) I really don't see how that implies that such studies CAN'T be done.  (In response to your first line.)

As for measuring diminishing returns, again I'm no expert but I imagine it's possible for an in-depth study to look at thousands of people making all sorts of levels of income.  A study might look at what people tend to do with their money getting 30k, and how much use they get out of it; and similarly for people getting 50k, and what the extra stuff tends to be, and how much use they get out of it and what the difference is; and so on.  Does the difference between a trailer and a nice house affect people as much as the difference between a nice house and a mansion?  A mansion and Hollifield's hundred-[edit:  room] mansion?  One car, two cars, four cars, Jay Leno's cars?  Et cetera. 

Maybe the study wouldn't work in the way I imagine, but I'm confident that this is observable behavior that can be studied.  No, it's not exact science, but studying people rarely is.

And I disagree with your contention that higher education is the only acquisition that affects people in unequal proportion to relative income (including discounting bare-survival income).