For updates, see the specialized tag at http://www.diigo.com/user/mbauwens/P2P-Taxation

Favorite project: see the Smart Taxes Network

Introductory Articles

Taxation's purpose is not to fund the government, it's a social agreement to mobilize energies and resources, while avoiding spending that overshoots natural capacities of the planet and creating more social ills such as inequality. It's not something you have to 'pay for', for example through interest to private banks:

- "Ruml goes on to say the purpose of the tax is not to fund the federal government. The purpose of the tax is multifold. One important thing it does is it allows the government to remove some money from the economy so that you don’t overheat the economy through government spending. In other words, taxes help you keep a lid on inflation. If you just spent money into the economy but you didn’t tax anything back, you’d run the risk of overheating the economy, causing an inflation problem.

Another thing taxes do is affect the distribution of income. You lower taxes on some folks, they end up with more take-home pay. You raise taxes on others, it takes the money away. You impact the distribution of income. You use taxes to incentivize or disincentivize behavior. A carbon tax is a good example. You don’t want as much pollution. You don’t want certain activities taking place, put a tax on it. You want to encourage certain other things like people driving electric cars, give a tax incentive or some form of a subsidy to encourage that." (https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/money-matters-why-monetary-theory-and-policy-critical-terrain-left?)

1. Chris Cook on P2P Taxation Reform
2. Dale Carrico: Principles of Taxation
3. Herman Daly: What Should We Tax?

Important entries:

1. Commons-based Taxation
2. Taxes as Commons

Citations

George Monbiot:

"There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich." (http://www.monbiot.com/2011/08/01/how-the-billionaires-broke-the-system/)

Key Resources

Key Articles

• Thomas Olsen on the New Taxation Paradigm

Key Policy Proposals

1. From Taxing Income to Taxing Inefficiency. Open Market Sustainability policy proposals by Patrick Doherty. [1]
2. Check out the very sensible principle for a global Green Tax Reform by Earth Rights, which includes a Global Resource Agency
3. Tax Reforms Are Needed To Fund the Basic Income