If you had to decide to either put taxes on production or on economic rent, what would you choose?

[Mike Q]

There's two choices to pay for public infrastructure and services. Either you tax production or you tax economic rent. If you had to decide for one of them, what would you choose?

Please tell me your political orientation in your answer. Thank you.

[Marine One]

We Don't Do Homework Here .......................

[sociald]

I am not completely sure what you mean by economic rent but I am going to assume you mean for use of the produced product such as a toll on a road.
I would be for taxing the use, which I am again assuming is what you maen by economic rent.
And im not party affiliated but im a fiscal conservative.

[Stuart]

the top 1% pay about 29% in taxes after deductions. see tax policy center.

[Disco Stu]

I am for a use tax over a higher income tax. This way we would capture a piece of the multi-trillion dollar black market in this country that currently goes virtually untaxed, rather than taxing production even more. I mean, even people who make "under the table" transactions in order to dodge taxes still have to go to the store and purchase goods and services, right now many states collect tax, but the feds only collect on income and capital gains.

[neil s]

Value added tax

[Nicholas Johnson]

First of all, I just want to say, a lot of you jokers answering this question don't know shit about economics. Why would you attempt to answer a question you don't understand? You read the word "tax" and immediately think of the little number at the bottom of your sales receipt from the local Idiots'R'Us or wherever it is you shop. This question is about the political economy concept of economic rent vs production taxation. You need to understand some political and economic theory to answer this tough question beyond just regurgitating your preference for American taxation reform proposals.

Now, my novice economic answer:
Natural scarcities aside, as economic rents arise as a product of contrived scarcities caused by interference in the market, I would favor economic rents as a remedy to this market interference. In a perfectly competitive market, economic rents do not exist, but in a market that is not perfectly competitive, economic rents can arise, so I would place tax on them to offset the artificial distortion of the market.

As a specific example, one place where public infrastructure and services revenue can be received on economic rent when a government collects royalties or extraction fees in cases of natural resources such as minerals and fossil fuels. Because the detrimental affects of utilizing such resources (global climate change) are social problems, it takes government intervention to solve them. Therefore, it makes sense to place the cost of addressing the consequences on the causal factors in the first place.