What would you think of a social system whereby though citizens would be expected to make a contribution to their society, little money would necessarily go through inefficient government buraucracy. I'll give an few examples of how such a system might work below:
A poverty-earmarked personal income tax. If you give your money to a charity and earmark it to help the poor, you can deduct that amount from your income tax and thsu not pay that tax. If you don't give any money to charity, well then of course you pay the tax.
A non-essential accumulated wealth tax, which again could be deducted from charitable contributions.
A personal education-earmarked income tax. If you give a portion of your income to a school of your choice (the school must be public in the sense that it cannot turn applicants away), you can deduct it from that tax.
A personal non-essential wealth ceiling tax. The government can confiscate all of your non-essential wealth above a certain ceiling. All you have to do to not pay that tax is to not allow yourself to surpass that ceiling, either by investing your excess personal wealth into your business, giving it away to a charity of your choice, or spending it all on perishable products and services.
Such a ssytem would still oblige us to contribute to our communities, but give us more democratic control of how that money is to be spent.
Of course the ideas above are but examples of all the possibilities. But in principle, what would be your thoughts on such a system?
