TAX REFORM

Along with monetary reform comes a radical reform to the taxation law.

Both national and local government require revenue for essential services at each level. Infrastructure needs to be rebuilt and maintained.

Tax gives an opportunity to ensure that nobody and no corporation makes unearned income, to ensure fairness in the consumption of scarce resources, to foster full employment and to ensure all our people are adequately fed, educated, housed and given health care. The right tax can be an elegant tool in the cause of fairness and equity. But a tax must not repress industry, restrict commerce or punish thrift.

Tax reform would include phasing out income tax and GST replacing it with a range of resource taxes, including land value taxes, excise taxes, some tariffs and a Financial Transaction Tax.

Our final solution was to spread the right to tax over 2-3 layers of government as described in the book The Big Shift: Rethinking Money, Tax, Welfare and Governance for the Next Economic System.