Of Course Americans are BROKE

[Metaphorical]

35. A tax on spending rather than income

Set an arbitrary minimum limit, such as $1M per year which incurs no taxes, certain exemptions (first house for instance), with progressively higher tax brackets as spending increases. Apply the same principle to corporations - if they buy a CEO contract, they will have to pay the taxes on that contract, while spending per employee starts to incur taxes above $250,000 a year including compensation. Taxes are paid within the seller's jurisdiction.

The idea is simple - the notion of an income tax by itself is regressive because it penalizes savers - those who build capital - while rewarding spenders - those who consume capital. It also concentrates power because the biggest spenders usually end up with the most power. A spending tax forces corporations to invest into pools with no one investor being able to dominate that pool - you need to raise capital, then you need to create a community of investors to do so.

This may seem counterintuitive but I think the problem we're facing at the moment is we have too much capital investment by too few people, and we ironically have far more capital than is actually needed, given advances in technology. It also forces both people and corporates to save rather than to rely upon debt to capitalize a project. Day to day spending by most people is not affected, other than the fact that there isn't a frantic rush to spend on needless purchases because the system is geared towards spending.