Parents Should Pay Higher Taxes
Parents Should Pay Higher Taxes
As is stands, parents are able to claim their children as dependents on their tax returns, which lowers their overall tax liability and in effect means that the parents either pay less in taxes or receive a higher return at the end of each year.
Until they reach the age at which they can work, children are a drain on society. They receive public schooling and receive the same benefit from public services that adults do, yet they contribute nothing in return. At the point that they reach maturity and are gainfully employed and paying taxes, they become a functioning member of society.
If a parent decides to have a child, they are making a conscious decision to produce another human being. They could choose to get a sterilization surgery, use birth control, or abort the pregnancy (assuming they don't live in a backwards state that's banned it). Yet even if they decide to have 15 children, the rest of society has to foot the bill for their poor decisions until the child reaches adulthood.
By increasing taxes on parents instead of reducing them, you not only incentivize safe sex and abortion, but you shift the burden of raising a child solely to the individuals who are responsible for the fact that that child exists.
I am a strong advocate for social programs: Single-payer healthcare, welfare programs, low-income housing, etc, but for adults who in turn contribute what they can. A child should only be supported by the individuals who created it.
Children are not a drain on society, they are society. You cannot have a society for longer than a single generation without children. They are critically important to continuing any society and penalizing people for deciding to have children is backwards thinking.
The idea that a single family body should be the sole people responsible for the development of a child is also a foolish and somewhat modern misconception. The adage of "it takes a village..." comes to mind. As a society, it is our collective duties to ensure that all members of the society are healthy and cared for. We are communal, social creatures who have long relied on community to be successful and raise our children. This individualist perspective is myopic and counterproductive.
Additionally, the value of a human being simply cannot be reduced to what they contribute to the GDP. Children or adults.
Also the idea of yet another way or reason to exclude young people from society, yet another way to make them other or less than is the opposite of what modern society needs, and should be treated as fundamentally offensive.
Children are not a drain on society, they are society. You cannot have a society for longer than a single generation without children.
Nowhere did I suggest that people should just completely stop having children. The fact is that children are extremely expensive, and having more than one per adult is quite frankly unnecessary. At least until the unchecked population growth is under control, reproduction should be disincentivized as much as possible, and society should not be forced to bear the brunt of parents' poor reproductive decisions.
Unpopular as advertised, sure. But man, what an absolute weapons-grade bad take, with beginning to end poor reasoning.
Parents pay less in taxes because they've contributed a human to the system which will inevitably be taxed.
It's an incentive for procreation.
Frankly the incentive isn't good enough.
This isn’t unpopular, this is plain wrong. You seem to be so blinded by your hate of kids that you forget they’re critically essential for the society to function
Parents already pay higher taxes on everything they buy for their kids.
You need one jacket. My fam needs 4. I'm paying 4x the sales tax you are. I drive my kids to school ..I pay more gas tax.
The only place parents get a break is on income and the only reason is because we have to pay for at least 2x the stuff.
As someone with no kids, never wanted the crotch goblins, I have no issues with parents getting a break on taxes raising their kids (where I am there is no tax on kids clothes and I am 100% behind this) and my subsidising their education. Besides I, OP, and basically everyone else will need these new adults in the making to take care of us when we are once again, and I am sure will shock OP, will be in the position to need to be looked after again (unless OP came to the world a fully formed adult, I know I wasn't). Who do they think is going to look after all of us?
There are states in the US where this might be reversed, e.g. they have no sales tax, but higher income tax (Oregon). I'm not suggesting that moving to any of those states would be feasible for most of us, but the tax burden may work a bit different for parents there.
If I go to the store for a jacket, you're right, I only need to buy one. You may need to buy 4, but do you really think that the sales tax you spend on supplies for your children is equivalent to what they cost the taxpayers in public education? Does it offset the increased demand that your children place on the supply chain for food? Does it offset the carbon emissions that 4 more human beings produce for 18 years?
Maybe your children will grow up to cure cancer one day. Maybe they'll spend their entire adulthood working a minimum-wage service job. As long as they don't grow up to become drug addicts or serial killers, they're still contributing to society in whatever way they can. Until they become adults, though, they're not a contributing member of society. Nobody forced you to produce 4 children, and the taxpayers should not be forced to support your life choices based on the possibility that they may benefit from them in the future.
I don't hate children. They're brought into the world whether they like it or not, and they should have every chance to succeed as long as they put forth some sort of effort. What I do hate are parents who have a child without any consideration to what they're doing. No couple should ever have more than 2 children, at least until the population declines. Children should not be punished because of their parents poor reproductive choices. Parents should be punished, not rewarded.
Say what you will about humans on earth, annoying kids, etc.
But the state needs bodies. Kids are future workers, and they state wants healthy, capable workers. As such, tax credits are offered not as a prize to the parents, but an investment by the state. The state is hoping parents will have a bit more money for healthy food, housing and education for their kids, thus creating workers who are a bit healthier and more capable.
Human capital is a real thing, at a state level. Lose your input, and you'll grow weak.
You may not have had a perfect, or even good upbringing, but any tax credit your parent/guardian received didn't make it worse. If you did have a good upbringing, think of all the variables that went into that. Tax credits are a small part of that.
Upvote for using the sub correctly
LOL, get this libertarian incel fantasy land bullshit out of here.
By increasing taxes on parents instead of reducing them, you not only incentivize safe sex and abortion, but you shift the burden of raising a child solely to the individuals who are responsible for the fact that that child exists.
I bet you don't even realize how telling this sentence is about you.
this post is the perfect representation of the far reaching consequences of western hyper-individualism.
community is a thing of the past, the golden rule is long dead, no longer do we have any reason to look out for each other. everything and everyone is reduced to its simple atomic parts; you are responsible only to you and what you create, and nothing else from which you have benefited.
You're probably right about this being a Libertarian view, but I do disagree with the Libertarian philosophy in general. The government needs to regulate certain things in order to maintain a functioning society. What I don't understand is how you can possibly make the stretch that this is in any way associated with incels. In no way am I being disrespectful to women or trying to profess some sort of twisted misogynistic worldview.
I bet you don’t even realize how telling this sentence is about you.
I believe that any 2 adults who produce more than 2 children are fundamentally selfish and are destroying the planet. I believe that until the ballooning population is under control, abortion should always be the first option when a couple becomes pregnant. I believe that except in very few cases, any possible contribution to society that someone makes between the ages of 18 and 80 pales in comparison to what they consume. I believe that forcing existence upon another human being is an act of non-consent to both the child and the society that's forced to support them.
I realize exactly how telling this sentence is about me.
Who do you think will be paying your pension when you get old?
I don't suppose OP would want to go on pension and work until they die - after all, they don't want to be a drain on society!
I fully intend to work until my physical and mental state deteriorates to a point at which I can no longer do so. Once that happens, I'll try my best to take a lower-paying job that can still support my by basic needs. My plan for retirement is to die. I still put away a bit in retirement savings for the small gap between when I can no longer work and when I can no longer breathe, but I hope that gap is no more than a year at most.
So while your comment was intended to be sarcastic, it is completely accurate.
Anyone that's lived more than a decade as an adult should start to make the connection that kids eventually become your coworkers and neighbors and it's more comfortable to live in a society where they are educated and have reasonable opportunities. I'm happy to pay taxes so other people's kids become marginally less shitty adults than they would be if we actively punish them for daring to create the next generation.
Upvoted because it truly is an unpopular opinion.
The fact that there exists a mind who can think this is a good take has me deeply concerned for the future.
Upvote.
Until the age at which they can work, children are a drain on society
Just remember that after the age you can work, you will be a drain on other people's children.
Further, he was a drain on society until he was of age too.
This is such 'fuck you, I want mine' mentality.
I was a drain on society until I started working. My parents should have paid higher taxes to compensate, or perhaps thought twice about having a child in the first place. I can't go back in time 40 years and change tax laws to support what I've learned as an adult, but I can certainly advocate for better laws now.
Furthermore, I will not be a drain on other people's children once I reach the age that I can no longer work. At some point, I will reach an age where my physical and mental state no longer allows me to be a productive member of society. With any luck, that will be very close to my death; hopefully, I'll die while still gainfully employed. If that doesn't happen, though, my retirement savings will be more than enough to last me through the very few years between the point that I stop working and pass away.
Upvoted because you're dead wrong, in my opinion. Your argument incentivizes the demise of the human race by saying "stop having kids to save money". Society is made up of generations. Get rid of the youngest generation, you remove humanity.
"The government should disincentivize making more citizens and make it much more expensive to do so" is a take that definitely belongs here.
Until they reach the age at which they can work, children are a drain on society. They receive public schooling and receive the same benefit from public services that adults do, yet they contribute nothing in return.
"Future citizens are a drain in society until they aren't, so we should make their caregivers pay more to the government while they're also paying out the nose to raise them"
By increasing taxes on parents instead of reducing them, you not only incentivize safe sex and abortion, but you shift the burden of raising a child solely to the individuals who are responsible for the fact that that child exists.
"We should be actively sabotaging our society by destroying the incentives to make the next generation"
I am a strong advocate for social programs: Single-payer healthcare, welfare programs, low-income housing, etc, but for adults who in turn contribute what they can. A child should only be supported by the individuals who created it.
"If you can't support your child on your own while paying higher* taxes, good fucking luck birther"
I read it as we should tax OP more for all the years that they were a drain on society to make up for all the tax breaks that they got.
As it is people like this should consider that "paying taxes to support other people's kids" is really just them paying everyone back for when they were a kid.
But yes society needs people of all ages and without young people there would eventually be a collapse.
By increasing taxes on parents instead of reducing them, you not only incentivize safe sex and abortion,
Ah yes, make sure they have less money to spend on preventing pregnancy. What a well thought out and not completely backwards take you have mashed into your keyboard.
One would hope logically that those additional taxes would be used in part to cover contraceptive costs and have them provided by the government
Not saying anything about OP but it seems like an obvious answer
You do realize that preventing pregnancy comes before birth, right? I'm talking about increasing taxes on parents. You're not a parent if you don't have custody of a child, and you wouldn't be paying a "child tax" until a child actually exists. This is all irrelevant anyway if we had a single-payer healthcare system and access to legal and safe abortion in every state.
You do realize that parents frequently want to prevent additional pregnancies so they don't end up with a ton of kids, right? Harder to afford that when they have to pay for their kid AND taxes on top of that.
No offense but there is something deeply wrong with your worldview and I think you may need to speak to a professional.
What is so deeply wrong about their worldview?
I tried typing this once before, but kept running into situations were I'm not sure if I'm just being condescending. These are the most obvious reasons this is a selfish and self destructive perspective:
When you are old, children today will be the only people able to take care of you. Optimizing society so that there are many more old people than young people will create unfair burden on the next generation, and probably lead to horrific suffering for millions of people (probably including you).
Children are best raised by stable, happy, healthy families, and they are more productive members of society (and happier) when that happens. Because we want the next generation to be happy and productive, aiding today's parents helps us all tomorrow. Adding financial strain causes many negative effects for families, and therefor for children, and therefor for society at large.
Unless you are extremely lucky, you probably faced issues in your own childhood that would have been lessened if your parents had more money. Wishing the same, but worse on the next generation is twisted.
A carefully crafted shit take ... up voted!
What a horrid take. Here's my up vote for a truly unpopular opinion.
The reason they get a tax credit is because it costs a lot to have a kid and raise it and all that cost is taxed so they get a break because they are already putting more in then you as a single person and when the parents die they leave behind a new tax payer and when you die nothing will be left behind
Only rich people should have children - that's a seriously unpopular opinion. Upvoted.
I thought the whole eugenics thing was generally agreed to be bad, especially when enforced by economic class, but guess it's in fashion again, sort of like it was ~100 years ago?
Individuals choosing not to have kids should pay an extra tax that should go to the ones having children.
Choosing not to have children is a perfecly acceptable individual choice, but the consequence is that you become a net negative for the economy.
Taking on the burden of child-raising is an essential task that is net positive for the economy, which has been way underappreciated for too long.
I don't get this one... If I am a productive worker and self fund my retirement, how am I a net negative?
Because you aren't replacing yourself. It might not be net negative while you're alive (though I would be very surprised if your 'self funded" retirement wasn't helped along significantly by the tax code (either tax breaks you get for saving for retirement or tax breaks tour employer gets for matching contributions, etc) the state will outlive you and need a replacement...one you didn't contribute to the system.
If people don’t reproduce enough, we aren’t going to have enough workers. Fortunately though, there’s always a steady flow of immigrants to solve that problem in wealthy countries. After a few hundred years, many societies might look very African/Arab/Asian. If you want to further speed up that process, you could start taxing reproduction too.
Your taxes should go up each decade you age without having children. If you have a kid some of that could be refunded as an incentive.
You’re saying more children should live in poverty so that former children with jobs get a small tax break.
We all have to foot the bill for your old age care, so makes sense you should pay for the children who will be your nurses in old age.
You’re saying more children should live in poverty so that former children with jobs get a small tax break.
I would never suggest that children or adults should live in poverty. As long as someone is doing a job to the best of their ability, they should at least make a living wage, and I would gladly pay higher taxes or an increased cost on goods to help support that.
What I am suggesting is producing a child is ultimately a personal choice made by the parents, and they should foot the bill associated with their choice. If someone can't afford a child, they should not have a child (and the rest of us should help pay for birth control or abortion). If someone has a child that they can't afford, the child should be removed from the household and given to a family that is both willing and financially able to support a child. If that's not an option, the child should be placed in a state-funded care center and given an education and basic necessities until they become an adult. The ultimate goal is for adults to think twice about reproducing unless they are fully capable of raising a child on their own and for a large number of people to stop having children.
Remember folks, in this community we upvote unpopular opinions. Looks like people are downvoting because they disagree.
That's always how this goes. A better name for this sub that reflects people's voting patterns would be "popular_opinions_on_lemmy_that_are_unpopular_with_my_dad" but it doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
It's Lemmy, people can't help but launch into political kneecapping
bad opinion, thanks for the laugh, upvoted.
if you care
society has a vested interest in humans being not shitty. part of that interest can be ensured in public education, but the vast majority of what makes a child a good and proactive member of society must come from the parents. human beings turn out better if they have food, a roof over their heads, education and social guidance, and at least one parent or guardian (even better if it’s two). when they don’t have any of those things? things get really bad really fast.
tax breaks and tax credits are are one fine method to make sure that undue burden is not placed on the ones bringing up the next generation of laborers, without paying the parents outright. you characterization of children as “a drain on society” is at best refusing to see the whole picture, and at worst absurd.
Yeah. Just what the world needs... a bunch of neglected kids who will rob me in 15 years.
Your parents should have taken assistance so you could have been weaned on something other than paint chips.
Better yet, everyone should stop having kids so humans will die out. I'm not sure who will produce food for us or wipe our ass in the nursing home someday, but we'll get those sweet, sweet tax breaks in the meantime
It is true that before reaching adulthood children are a financial burden for society, but primarily they are a financial burden on parents. Tax breaks help make it more affordable and a viable option for more than just the wealthy.
But you seem to be of the opinion that having children is a selfish act that society should punish rather than encourage. Some people are not responsible enough to be good parents, or otherwise are not in the right circumstances where it would make sense. But generally children are an investment in society's future, and very much worth the costs of supporting with projected future contributions.
But you seem to be of the opinion that having children is a selfish act that society should punish rather than encourage.
This is going off on a bit of a tangent, but you're absolutely right. Having children is the most selfish act possible. Nobody on the planet asked to come into existence; we're all here because of a choice our parents made. Regardless of your place in the world, no human experiences their entire life without pain and suffering. I am personally very happy with my life, but there have of course been ups and downs. By producing a child, you're guaranteeing that another person will experience suffering and sadness. Nobody lives forever, so you're condemning another person to death.
Having children (to some degree, not unchecked) is necessary for the human race to continue to exist, but the idea that producing and raising a child is a selfless act is as far from the truth as you can get. If you consider a theoretical world where everyone was suddenly sterile, the human race would cease to exist within a very short time. A lot of other things would cease to exist: Sadness and heartbreak, murder, rape, war, terrorism, poverty, starvation.
One might argue that brief periods of happiness give a reason for continuing human existence, but is this really true? Most people, if they're lucky, go through life in a neutral state; we might not be happy or sad, but we're "doing okay." If suffering is a -1 and happiness is a +1, with everyday life being a 0, then every person is going to ultimately average out to somewhere around zero. By having a child, you're making an irrevocable choice that you want another human being to live a life that's either neutral to a point that's statistically insignificant or predominantly negative, and you're making this choice because something in your brain is telling you to. It's the epitome of selfishness.
Breathtaking.
China had a one child policy for decades, now look at how they are scrambling panicking at their loss of young adult labor and aging population of seniors that can't work.
No calculating government will shoot their own balls. Lol China..
@corroded this opinion is bad. Upvoting for the unpopularity!
Your argument doesn't really make sense though. If benefits should be limited to the ones who can pay taxes, why have taxes! They could just pay for what they need.
Taxing is a community safety net to make sure everybody gets what they need, even individuals who can't contribute. What you are describing sounds more like a social insurance where only people who have contributed can be covered (similar to pension)
Having taxes ensures that all members of society get the same benefit. Lets say for instance that it costs the fire department $5000 to put out a house fire for a low-income family. My income is higher, so I pay more taxes toward the fire department, but they still get the same response to their house fire that I would. That's exactly how it should be.
Now lets say that same low-income family has 8 kids. They don't need to have 8 kids (they don't need to have any), and regardless of whether they're a low-income household or part of the 1%, chances are a good number of those children won't grow up to produce a net gain to the rest of society. The parents both work entry-level jobs, so they're at least productive members of society. The 8 kids are still in school and produce no immediate benefit to society. Why should I be paying for their children when their children produce no benefit to any of the taxpayers; they could have just as easily aborted every pregnancy and not only would they be better able to support themselves, there would be 8 less non-productive individuals for the taxpayers to support. Once those 8 kids start working, then yes, my taxes should go to help support their healthcare, housing, food, etc; they might be the person making my sandwich, or they might be the person doing my brain surgery. The point is that they are contributing what they can.
Anyone who is productive in the world should receive the same social benefits as any other person who is productive in their same societal group. Children are not productive. They have the possibility of being productive, but not until they reach maturity. Until they reach that point, the only people who should be paying for them are the ones who made the poor decision to bring them into the world in the first place.
A big problem with modern society is that too much of the population is aging out of working age. Dropping birthrates are considered a big problem for developed countries, one that they will have to fix through incentives or by increasing the number of immigrants.
Tax breaks for parents having kids are an incentive to try to encourage more children, and more children are needed for the future of the country.
Here's a video talking about how falling birthrates are a problem for countries
I don't have kids and I take the train. I still pay taxes to build schools and roads because I know we're going to need SOME of them one day. While I am hugely biased toward the idea of massively-dense islands of housing and services, to cut down on maintenance (and use of) roads, keeping transportation medium and education targets and goals in the hands of voters - an idea that is only barely better than every alternative - allows for direction and guidance later (through voting).
We fund the things we need to keep within our control, should we ever wake up and exert that control.
I believe, as Jonathan Swift did, that we should simply eat the children.
It was a proposal, and a quite modest one if I recall. Also hella satirical in case anyone thought Swift believed that.
you're right, it's the parents that aren't paying their fair share of taxes, not Fortune 100 companies or billionaires /s
Okay but hear me out: Less children, more robots. GG
I would say the problem is not in taxing, it's in the school system. Kids used to start working at 14, now they study until 30. You have "adults" that are basically still children from tax perspective. We need less school (the stuff we learn, not to ever use it in life again...) and more work.
I don't really have a problem with adults that study until they're 30, as long as they come out of school being an expert in a field that's actually useful to society. A medical student just out of high school who goes into pre-med, medical school, then residency will be close to that age by the time they finish their education. Somebody who hops from major to major and eventually gets a degree in philosophy when they're 30... maybe find something that's actually useful first. If you're working and contributing and decide you want to study art history for your own personal edification, go for it.
The world is vastly more complex than it ever was before. I get it feels useless, but learning anything makes us smarter.
Being smarter means we will handle situations intelligently. There is no useless learning.
Children will (on average) be a net-positive/taxed in the future, therefore societies incentivize having children by letting parents pay less taxes. Also, children will completely form the society of the future, so different groups in a society having children is probably a good idea for a more diverse society in the future. As having children is expensive it is probably a good idea to let less wealthier people also have children, as you probably don’t want to just exclude them.
While we are at it any one who is irresponsible enough to become a parent shouldn't be a parent!
Modern society needs more children not less.
The world needs less people. I'll die on this hill. We were just fine with 1 billion people. Now we have eight times that,
I wouldn't say I agree with OP, but yeah, until we can ensure good quality of life for everyone and completely reverse environmental destruction, we should discourage bringing more children into the world.
Alternative, when you turn 18 you have to payback all the tax credits and discounts you've accrued.
So your plan is rich kids inherit a college fund, poor kids inherit a debt to the state.
What’s next, the poor must inherit their parents’ debts?
How about rich adults help poor kids have a shot at a little social mobility?
I'm trying to give a contrast to what this implies.
OP has already gotten their reduced price ride and wants to yank it from the children of today.
They're already in crippling debt due to student loans, what's another 100k.
Let's put it up for a vote. There are more of us than you, so you lose. Hah! Fuck you. C'mon now quit wasting time and get back to work, you. My five unplanned children from drunken sex with randos need more money for subsidized daycare.