Su suggerimento di @uqbal.

Robert Frank è professore alla Cornell University e in un articolo su Vox.com propone una soluzione al problema della disuguaglianza economica opposta a quella di Thomas Piketty, l’autore del saggio di successo “Il capitale nel XXI secolo”. Se nella trattazione del francese la redistribuzione della ricchezza sarebbe da attuarsi con la tassazione del capitale, per Frank è molto più efficace una tassazione dei consumi.

We spend too much on houses and parties because as individuals we have no incentive to take account of how our spending affects others. The tax system offers a simple, unintrusive way to change our incentives. We could abandon the current progressive income tax in favor of a much more steeply progressive consumption tax.

Here’s how it would work: people would report their incomes as they do now, and also their annual savings, as many now do for tax-exempt retirement accounts. Their income minus their savings is their annual consumption, and that amount less a large standard deduction would be their taxable consumption. For instance, a family that earned $100,000 and saved $50,000 in a tax year would have annual consumption of $50,000. If the standard deduction was $30,000, the family’s taxable consumption would be $20,000.

Immagine da flickr.