I don't know about Canad and I don't know the details in Switzerland except I know several families living in Switzerland and they all have talked about the increased taxes and charges. The accident insurance is partly covered by employers but employees must fully pay health insurance for themselves and their family from their own pocket. That is not a tax and I never really said it was, it is an extra charge you lawfully must pay if you have a child. There are other social charges. E.g., there is no council tax but a social tax based on your income and family status.
What level of taxation is "fair"?
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I don't know about Canad and I don't know the details in Switzerland except I know several families living in Switzerland and they all have talked about the increased taxes and charges. The accident insurance is partly covered by employers but employees must fully pay health insurance for themselves and their family from their own pocket. That is not a tax and I never really said it was, it is an extra charge you lawfully must pay if you have a child. There are other social charges. E.g., there is no council tax but a social tax based on your income and family status.
You will have unemployed people, what has that got to do with anything.
You do in Canada, or my friend is lying. It is put into education therefore allowing reduced class sizes and a better standard of education. In Australia you pay a small premium for better schooling. Here you pay a whopping amount for private education albeit a very good education.
The biggest problem I have found is overcrowding in schools, to reduce them you need either bigger schools or more schools, they cost money, people with no kids would begrudge paying more for other peoples kids to gain a better education, so to me, it seems the only fair thing to do is either, increase tax on parents, slightly, or make parents pay a small premium for schooling. Ther's more but it will turn into a ramble
Soldato
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It doesn't take the entire population working to sustain the entire population. What if we reach a point where increasing population just leads to greater and greater unemployment rates? For starters it wouldn't lead to economic growth, it would probably hinder it. And secondly what's stopping us from embracing that as a good thing? A system which forces people to work to eat? What if we don't need people to work? Should we share the work out between everybody? Say everybody does a three day week?
this is where it starts to get unfair. eg lets say we apply a social tax in lieu of council tax to cover the collection of your bins. If I was on 100K and my neighbour was on 50K why should I then have to pay more to have my garbage collected simply because I earn a higher wage ? Which would be the net result if 'social taxes' to cover services like this are applied based on your earnings.
PerrmaBanned point is that having numerous children is ultimately not that useful to a society and certainly very detrimental to the planet.
The worst thing you can possibly do to the planet is have a children. A single children will produce far more waste, green house gasses and consumer far more finite resources than both parents combined.
Overpopulation is the single biggest threat to man kind, everything else such as disease, world poverty , catastrophic climate change all leads back to over population issues.
We should be aiming to stabalise populations, and preferably perhaps slowly shrink global populations to more manageable levels.
There are plenty of short term gains in having an increasing population size and trying to have more young working adults than retired pensioners but the long term costs are far greater.
According to the wife (who deals with payroll and taxation for several Swiss companies) the employee pays the same, the extra 'family allowance' as it is called falls on the employer. She says that they must offer the basic compulsory health insurance which is the same for every employee and then the employee has the option of supplimentary insurance to suit their needs...she says there is no compulsory extra insurance based on married status other than that borne by the employer, she says it seem difficult to believe that there is a compulsory premium on children as Pregnant women are exempt from health charges.
There are a range of taxes that are paid dependent on income (wealth tax) and status, but nothing that relates to children as far as she is aware.
You can't control peoples urge to have children without applying a level of oppression, which will ultimately lead to catastrophe anyhow when we will simply have a recreation of the peasants revolt on a global scale. It might work in a militaristic state like china, but there is simply no way either through taxation or under fear of death that you can control this without an uncharacteristic crackdown leading to a more police/military state like world.
Socialists everywhere would cry tears of molten steel and blood over something like this........
You do in Canada, or my friend is lying. It is put into education therefore allowing reduced class sizes and a better standard of education. In Australia you pay a small premium for better schooling. Here you pay a whopping amount for private education albeit a very good education.
The biggest problem I have found is overcrowding in schools, to reduce them you need either bigger schools or more schools, they cost money, people with no kids would begrudge paying more for other peoples kids to gain a better education, so to me, it seems the only fair thing to do is either, increase tax on parents, slightly, or make parents pay a small premium for schooling. Ther's more but it will turn into a ramble
My family in Canada say no, as they have two children I would assume they would know.
Pay for private education by all means, but taxing having children....no.
My friends say yes! This is a bit awkward, maybe it's a state thing.
I 100% agree but a social tax based on income is still more fair than the stupid archaic council tax in the UK. The fairest tax is really a tax on each person, so some form of Poll tax. A local social tax based on income is at least a step forwards than randomly taxing based on property size.
As to your actual example, the fairest method of taxation would be to tax the amount of garbage you produce . This is actually done in some cantons in Switzerland. you have to put garbage in special bin bags that you have to use (or you get fined) and you buy these bin bags that have a certain tax on each bag. Therefore you pay tax on each bag of garbage you use, Recycled material are not taxed so you are encouraged to recycle as much as possible.
I am a fully paid up member of the one child only brigade....however, we are talking about taxing parents and the only parents who would pay those taxes would be the very ones who you want to be having children....so you are disincentivising the wrong group in the wrong way.
Change the benefit system that encourages having children to be treated as assest in obtaining more income, not punish the taxpaying, responsible parents who already conribute to the taxation system.
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Maybe so. If you are refering to Canada....my brother and his family (not gaidin) lives in Ontario if that means anything.
But that information just doesn't tie in to my experience, and I have lived there for 5 years. You pay health insurance 100% from your own pocket, and you must pay for your children's health insurance. there is normally a family plan of sorts. The employer has nothing to do with personal health insurance. The employer does cover accident insurance, but this is more to cover accidents at work and although it extends outside the work environment you are encouraged to pay for additional accident coverage, especially if you do any sporting activities. I believe their is a social charge to the employer that is used to subsidise health care, but that is independent. It is not like in N. American where the employer will typically cover health costs for the whole family. In Switzerland you must pay yourself, but there are measures to make sure everyone is covered even if you cannot afford it, e.g. unemployed. This will also cover pregnant women if they cannot afford insurance themselves.
There are a lot of charges that someone in payroll will never see. These are charges that are done at the cantonal level and wont appear in any pay check etc. E.g., I had to continuly pay a tax de sejour for being a resident.
Other charges that are common are a 'responsibilite civil,' basically a personal liability insurance that must be paid even for children.
Jesus....what are you babbling about.
Why dont we take a simple concept....blow it all put of proportion to the context of discussion....and create a dystopian apocalypse ala Handsmaid Tale out of it......
You need a stable population, which is representative across all demographics, with the largest demographic being the younger productive one to be sustainable.....by disincentivising the very group who would have the most stable birthrate, produce the most productive offspring you are creating a system that is ultimately unsustainable......far better to tackle the low income, non prosuctive, high birthrate demographic by readdressing the benefits and social support systems to disincentivise that group....
Taxing having children is counterproductive.
Calgary, he reckons it's near the rockies, it just looks like a big place to me
I'm due to e-mither him so i'll have an ask about it, it made sense at the time and may also be because they are very high earners, who knows.
I wonder how many of the responsible parents would be happy to pay more for a better education for their children? Not private education prices but a small premium either through tax or from their disposable income. I know I would.
Soldato
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You weren't talking about having a stable population, you were talking about increasing the population in order to stimulate the economy.
In response to D.P. i'm not convinced that regulation or taxation are sustainable ways to manage population size. The only real way to do it in my eyes would be to make sure that people know the implications of such a choice before they make it, and understand that having a child isn't a necessity for a normal, happy life. How many people have children because it's the 'done thing'?