I still like the idea of converting the estate tax to a cumulative gift tax, with the first $2m of gifts received free of gift tax, then next $2m at 25%, then next $2m at 50%, then 75%, then 100%.

That would break the aristocracy of self-perpetuating fortunes, as marginal income taxes even of 90% at their height in the US never could.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

If there is regular employment at a business for a certain number of janitors, which they have outsourced, they should pay a penalty on outsourcing that work as opposed to hiring the janitors directly.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

Since when was private property in the "Wealth" of land, non-renewables, intellectual property, and shares in joint stock corporations - which constitutes a huge part of our stock of wealth - "delayed consumption"?

Taxation of the privilege of private property in land eg a "Location Benefit Levy" or a tax on land rental values, is perhaps the simplest, and certainly least avoidable, tax there is.

Even Milton Friedman said it was the "least bad" tax, and Martin Wolf - no pinko subversive, he - was suggesting it again in the FT only a day or so ago.

Likewise Corporation Tax should be abolished (double taxation again) and replaced by a "Limited Liability Levy" on gross corporate revenues, collected at the transaction clearing level.

Such a tax on the privilege of limitation of liability would again be simple, equitable, and unavoidable.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson