A Tax Lottery
Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 7:10 pmWhat if we write into the tax code a way to incentivize people to pay taxes? Something like a lottery system that's only available to tax payers.
You pay your taxes normally, but then you get entered into a lottery. If your name is drawn then not only do you get to not pay taxes that year, you also get a refund that is a multiple of the taxes you would have paid. If you're low income, you may get as much as your whole income's worth back. If you're wealthier the amount you get back will taper off, but still significant. We can also have an upper limit on what you can get back, maybe a max of $30,000.
We can determine the number of winners to draw after some analysis, but the number should be enough to feel like people are constantly winning. This along with current laws should also discourage people from under reporting their taxes.
You pay your taxes normally, but then you get entered into a lottery. If your name is drawn then not only do you get to not pay taxes that year, you also get a refund that is a multiple of the taxes you would have paid. If you're low income, you may get as much as your whole income's worth back. If you're wealthier the amount you get back will taper off, but still significant. We can also have an upper limit on what you can get back, maybe a max of $30,000.
We can determine the number of winners to draw after some analysis, but the number should be enough to feel like people are constantly winning. This along with current laws should also discourage people from under reporting their taxes.