Maya Forstater

Our piece on the Commitment to Equity project is now on Vox:https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/999656272298463232 …

I respect internet users' God-given right to post clever reaction GIFs without reading the actual article. See replies to the Vox tweet. (Ron Paul!) But for the small % of folks who care, one important clarification:

1. Fiscal policy may enrich or impoverish an economy in the medium to long term. Call these dynamic growth effects. 2. Fiscal policy definitely redistributes money in the short term. Call these static incidence effects. We are *only* talking about (2) here.

Did read it - great piece. You outline that VAT is preferred IMF solution coz, although regressive, works in highly informalised economy. What are the progressive equivalents that can work at scale? Land? Property? Not usually considered big revenue generators in rich countries?

Good question. I don't have a full-fledged tax agenda here. Since we keep using the Tanzania example though, I'd be curious what @oddfjeldstad thinks -- ie what is the most viable, progressive tax lever feasible at present?

Interested to see @MForstater's view in 280 characters too....

As Richard Bird said back in 2005 (paraphrasing) Progressive taxation in developing countries is really hard . https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=804704&download=yes … I am not sure that the dilemmas that Richard sets out have changed

My take away from @noralustig & cos. work is not that progressive taxation has not been tried, but that even progressive tax systems (combined w insufficient transfers) can make significant numbers of people at the bottom of the income scale worse off.