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Discussion on: 5% privilege tax for working remotely?

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kristinides profile image
Kristin Ides DeMar

I don't disagree with the sentiment. I have been very privileged in my industry during COVID and did not experience any disruptions to life.

I have lived in six different states in the US, some were high-tax some and low-tax. The problem is more tax $ does not equal better outcomes. In fact some of the best states I've lived in were very low on taxes (i.e. no personal income or sales tax) but ran very efficient and honest governments - Oregon for example has no sales tax and actually runs their budget at a surplus and sends taxpayers additional refunds every year. Other states have very high levels of corruption - and VERY high taxes. If I'm going to pay 5% I would rather have it go directly to a person's rent than just siphoned into yet another black hole.

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_hs_ profile image
HS

I agree with that, however as I said I understand they may be some issues on how to handle it without going into "balck hole" but I trust that Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and such have less corruption and can be trusted moving money to it's actual destination. Not to get too much into it I'm saying that depends on the trust issue with the country as I had with mine which is why I moved here in the first place. However I was pointing out that a lot of people that were loud in the beginning were actually complaining about getting less money even though they might have enough but they just don't want to help anyone. On different comment I was targeting "home office setup" as something that can also be regulated where if you can work from home but don't have equipment employer must allow you to take home such equipment. So in all basic underlying idea was not so bad but got really criticised.

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v6 profile image
🦄N B🛡 • Edited

The underlying idea used to justify this is not to "say thanks to the ones keeping the infrastructure and modern lifestyle alive is not too much for me." I got no problem with that, I guess. Like, maybe temporary boosted Medicare access for "First responders" and so-called "essential" workers? IDK. The justification and the ideas proposed would look a lot different if the rationale was something more like, ""say thanks to the ones keeping the infrastructure and modern lifestyle alive" and less like the usual Critical Theory.

What Deutsche Bank's proposed is literally called a "Privilege Tax." What does "Privilege" mean, in that case? Does it mean the underlying idea is that those with a "Privilege" (with a capital "P") are oppressing, rather than helping, those without?