Raw LLM Responses

I think if we implemented a system akin to UBI, it'd be better off to go for a negative income tax bracket ala Milton Friedman's proposal. Starting from $0 taxable income up to a set amount, the negative rate dictates how much money a person gets as a % of the difference between their taxable income and the bracket's cap. For example, say we had a negative tax bracket from $0 - $40k at 30%, for simplicity. In affect, this would mean that for every dollar you earned through taxable income (up to $40k), you'd receive 30c less from government: Someone earning no taxable income would receive (40k-0)*.3 = $12,000 p/a Someone earning $20k would receive (40k-20k)*.3 = $6,000 p/a which in addition to what they earned would total $26k income that year. Depending on size of the bracket and the rate this could be manipulated to improve incentive to work at low income or lower costs to government. For comparison, imagine this bracket is instead up to $24k at 50% to minimise government costs. So up to $24k, every taxable dollar earned would only net you 50c: Someone earning $0 would receive (24k-0)*.5 = $12,000 p/a Someone earning $20k would receive (24k-20k)*.5= $2,000 p/a, which in addition to what they earned would total $22k income that year. --- One advantage of this system over UBI is that it avoids giving money to people earning large amounts of taxable income who do not need it. Another use is that this can be used to replace welfare for unemployment, as it avoids creating a system where a person can be better off financially by not working at all versus working part-time or full-time (though it lacks the advantage UBI has in not affecting incentives at all). If desirable, one may also consider it worthwhile to have things like disability and single-parenthood increase the size of the bracket, in effect targeting vulnerable welfare groups to get more money due to higher costs of living/less opportunity to earn income. One potential issue though, is the need to review people's income more frequently in order to provide the negative tax benefits more frequently rather than an annual lump sum. How much this might impact the economy (for good or bad) is uncertain, but given how automated the tax process is in advanced economies, this could prove fairly simple.