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Plenty of hurdles, I agree. A $500-a-week tax-free UBI would not be enough to survive on for a retired renter with no other income. Yet even with a flat tax of 50% on other income it would mean someone earning $1000 a week living tax-free ($1000x0.5= $500+$500=$1000) and someone on $10,000 a week being taxed only 45% ($10,000x0.5=$5000+$500=$5500). A household of two adults and two kids would be rolling in it, with the retired penniless renter still struggling. Tax to fund the UBI would have to move beyond taxing income to taxing land as the principal revenue source; not only residential land, but commercial and agricultural. The flat tax on income would temper the largess of the UBI, and along with GST, control inflationary effects.

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Wasn't 50% only for income greater than 4x the median? So for each dollar earned above about $220k per year you would pay 50%

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Not in my proposition. I argue for a flat 50% tax on all income; as I explain above, it is the UBI that effectively turns the 50% flat rate into a graduated tax.

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