Putting the nippers out to work shows a dedicated commitment for laissez faire capitalism. My hat goes off to you, Sir! 😉

How would it make you feel if I told you that there had been suggestions around that …

Personally, I reckon flat tax and pay everyone, even babies, a minimum income. It would be pure rock.

Ahhh I see, very good. I was actually having a conversation with someone the other day where we suggested we could have a civil union – as long as we don’t mind each other constantly cheating with women … but I digress.

This is all very interesting, as it illustrates to me that people are unhappy with the poorly targeted nature of a progressive tax system – maybe it is a time for change towards a more targeted, transparent, system.

No tis not. It treats a couple living together different to two friends living together – how very strange 😉

Then you should like income splitting – it’s completely neutral as to the form of the household.

“However, we should take that into account when setting other taxes shouldn’t we? Just because it is costly to collect does not make it irrelevant”

OK, let’s set a higher GST rate in Northland and the East Coast. We can’t tax them for the pot they smoke there, but we can ping them in other ways. 😉

“As I said on the other thread, we already have a set of policies aimed at artificially boosting labour force participation by secondary earners”

Such as WFF, and I agree with you that these are potentially misguided in the same way.

The ONE potential thing they have in favour of them is the belief that there is “persistence” in employment – so there might be “multiple equilibrium” for work, and we might believe that allowing second earners the opportunity to get some work experience leads to a better outcome.

However, I am not saying I think that.

“But then… “some sort of 1950′s traditional household mold”… there’s that contempt again.”

I have no contempt for that household model – in fact in many ways I quite like the idea of it. BUT, I don’t like the idea of policies that are established to try and make a certain household model – my view is that households should be formed endogenously, not as a target of policy. I agree with you policy does influence this – but it shouldn’t be a goal per see.

“Back to your first point: we don’t tax household services because it would be impossible to collect, not for conceptual reasons. So, completely irrelevant to the issue of income splitting.”

We implicitly subsidise something because it is difficult to collect the tax, yes. However, we should take that into account when setting other taxes shouldn’t we? Just because it is costly to collect does not make it irrelevant 😉

As I said on the other thread, we already have a set of policies aimed at artificially boosting labour force participation by secondary earners. All thanks to the last government, under the mistaken notion that it would be good for the economy (spreading the workload across more part-time workers – sounds very…. French) or that it would strike a blow for feminism (yay, forced into work by the tax system! Germaine Greer would be so proud.)

But then… “some sort of 1950′s traditional household mold”… there’s that contempt again. Single-income households were the common not just in the 1950’s, but in the 1960’s, the 1970’s, the 1980’s and the 1990’s. They’ve also been quite popular in the 2000’s and 2010’s, despite the financial disincentive.

Back to your first point: we don’t tax household services because it would be impossible to collect, not for conceptual reasons. So, completely irrelevant to the issue of income splitting.