Free Tax Project

Meta

Status

• Work in progress

Please

• Please feel free to edit
• Please help to correct the grammar in this wiki page: thank you:)

To do

• Extract of conversation w Michael & Kevin

Definitions

• intangible goods or intangibles, e.g. bits or information
• Free, cf. Wikipedia: Gratis versus Libre, The Free Software Definition and The Open Source Definition)
• contestable market

Concept

'Free' tax

• means libre tax and, at the same time, optionally gratis tax,
  • but does not mean that it should be gratis,
• means free choice of the destination of the tax depending on political allegiance both of producers and of customers of intangible goods,
  • but does not mean that you should not pay tax of intangible goods to a territorial state (e.g. if you owe political allegiance primarily to it).
• means free from monopolization (e.g. by the states), i.e. the tax market should be contestable, i.e. free for competition
  • and does not mean either that tax market should be freely monopolizable (e.g. by the states),
  • or that some hypothetical (e.g. a super-state) authority should enforce tax competition, i.e that the tax market should be competitive,
• means independent tax (e.g. free from dependence of states),
  • but does not mean that taxation should be independent from ethical considerations

producers can change the default.

The Project as the Greatest Common Divisor

The Free Tax Project is defined as the Greatest Common Divisor among

• p2p movements
• Hackerspaces
• Pirate Parties
• Micronations
• "State hack" projects (first steps in this direction: Free State Project and Icelandic Modern Media Initiative)
• The United Persons
• (who else?).

Constraint: Scope of the state

The predetermination of the desirable scope of the state is certainly not included in the Greatest Common Divisor. Contestable tax market should shape the environment for the states and they will proactively/reactively adapt themselves to this environment.

Members

• Peter Mazsa

If you want and/or the organisation you represent wants to join to the project as a member, please insert the name+link here and write to peter at mazsa dot com at the same time.

Potential Members

• The United Persons
• P2P Foundation

If you want and/or the organisation you represent wants to join to the project as a member, please insert the name+link here and write to peter at mazsa dot com at the same time.

Subprojects

The subprojects should be defined as the necessary and together sufficient open system modules for the project.

As a first approach, we should have

1. (Sustainable Creativity) an ethical basis for free tax in the form of a firm conception of sustainable creativity in case of the intangibles (i.e. bits or information)
2. (Independent Infrastructure) infrastructure for secure communication and political participation independent of states
3. (Independent Money and Tax) the option to exchange bits and pay our tax on bits the political units to which we owe our political allegiance (i.e., independent of, but optionally not excluding, the states)
4. (Pacification) the option to avoid double taxation of bits by states
5. (Participation) the infrastructure to spend our taxes by means of our participation (not necessarily democratic, but necessarily based on a constitution),
6. (Customary Law) laws revealed by our customs of our communities on the internet, and
7. (Citizen Experience) to offer average users a kind of user experience as Apple provides, and to advanced users as open as Linux provides and as formal as machine readable ontologies; for all above.

Independent Money and Tax

Tax on bits independent of states

• default rate > 0
• option out (i.e., e-cash)

The extreme 0% tax rate still does not mean gratis transaction: the costs of transaction and tax rates are not the same concepts.

Reference

• p2pfoundation.net/Category:Money and p2pfoundation.net/Category:Taxation
• Michael's delicious P2P-Money and P2P Tax links
• Smart Taxes Network (Michaels's favorite tax-project)
• qp's Zotero money and tax
• qp's delicious money and tax links
• Collections of Roy Davies on money and e-money, and the book of his father on the History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day

Pacification

• default: no double taxation
• option out (i.e., pay taxes on bits to states as well)

Reference

• p2pfoundation.net/Category:Security
• Michael's delicious security / P2P-Warfare links
• qp's Zotero conditions / warfare / 4th generation warfare and / invasion collections
• qp's delicious security+defense links

Participation

Reference

• Michael's delicious participation, collective choice systems and P2P-Governance links
• qp's Zotero voting and nudges collections
• qp's delicious voting and governance links

Customary Law

Customary law does not mean that we should avoid prescriptive laws or constitutions: it just means that we should review and appreciate the experiences we acquired through our cooperation of different kinds on the internet.

Reference

• qp's Zotero non-territorial law collection

Citizen Experience

• Usable
  • User Experience @apple
• Open
• Formal
  • Wikipedia: Formal ontology
  • Basic Formal Ontology