What taxes should you pay?

Why the answer is simple - it depends. Here is a
primer of what you are going to face on earth.

1) Remember all of those boomers are about to start
retiring. With longer lifespans they will be
consuming rather than producing for the next 40 years.
The taxes are a factor of the ratio of working people
that produce something to the ones that don't. Anyway
you cut it, there are higher taxes in the future.

2) When the taxes get too high a black market develops
sapping the revenue going to the state. You cannot
avoid the taxes on the big well tracked things like
houses and cars. Some things like house cleaning and
haircuts are really hard to track by the state.
Barter is the way to go in a high tax environment.

3) In a service economy the price of energy is the
biggest wildcard. Essentially the US consumes a lot
of resources around the world and pays for it with
dollars. These dollars find their way into the world
financial market and often into the debt of the US,
Europe, and Japan. When things like oil get more
scarce either through demand or cartels there is a
risk that this money flow will be interrupted causing
inflation in core commodity prices. People have less
cash, the government runs huge deficits, and
eventually taxes will rise to pay off all of this
debt.

So if this chosen habitat is well balanced in age (not
to many non-workers) and has a stable well run
government (no unrealistic taxes or debt) and makes
the hard choices to obtain vital resources a long time
in advance then what you get for what you pay will be
a respectable value.

Compare this to earth in countries that mismanage
their resources and don't plan for large populations
of non-workers (retirees) and they will always have
higher taxes in real terms to the value they provide.
Worse in the case of both Europe and Japan the
government debt, it is only theoretical that this debt
can be paid off in the face of a stagnant economy and
rapidly aging population. This ends in either massive
defaults or massive inflation to reset the balance
between creditors and debtors.

There is no reason to suspect that habitats will be
run any better than the governments on earth. If they
are like the tiny countries in Europe that never run a
deficit and plan for everything on a 50-100 year basis
then great. If they are like Belgium or Japan then
watch out.

- Thor

>>>Victoria TangoMan wrote:>>>

Ok, here's the set-up . . .

You answer your videophone and there is the personnel
officer of the
SPS Corporation and he's telling you that you've got
the job and
that you've got a week to get your affairs in order.

Now, you've got some thinking to do.

You've been reading about the Habitat for a few months
now that
they've opened for immigration and things aren't going
smoothly.
Well, technically they are, but not financially.

You see, there's not one service that they can take
for granted. No
lake to tap for drinking water, that's coming from
NEO/lunar
resources; no pasture for the cattle/sheep, no oceans
for the fish,
no rainfall for the crops, etc. The planners
underestimated the
expenses of providing all of the services as well as
the governance
costs and the result is that taxes on the income of
the workers is
going up.

Your decision is should you move to the Habitat, which
afterall is a
higher tax location that where you currently live?

How high could the marginal income taxes and the sales
tax go before
you'd decline this dream job?

TangoMan