Replacing Income Tax With a Pollution Tax Can Trigger Social Transformation
Taxing what we want less off rather than what we want more off can change everything
Earning income is good for you as it gives you money in your pocket, it’s good for society (because the job or work you do must be of social value), and it’s good for the economy, as that money in your pocket can be spent on goods and services. But before you earn a salary, the government takes a large wedge of it in income tax. Income tax punishes a social good. Meanwhile, the impacts of fossil fuels (for example), which release greenhouse gas emissions that cause the climate crisis, go unpunished.
To make matters worse, governments subsidise the fossil fuel industry (a staggering $5.9 trillion in 2020) partly through the taxes collected from your income. So, not only do we tax a social good, we then use the proceeds to support an industry that is destroying the climate.
The current state of affairs makes no sense, but income tax goes unquestioned because it works just fine for the wealthy, who manipulate the rules of the game to make sure they pay less tax. For decades, the social benefits of trickle-down economics have been lionised by right-wing governments. The idea is that taxing the rich less is good for society because…
