Please provide pros and cons to a carbon tax administered like a sales tax at the point of sale.?

Question

I believe it would provide an incentive for industry to reduce the carbon impact of the product they produce and not drive industry out of a country as the tax would apply to all products. Would the same tax scheme be use full to reduce other negative impacts of a product. Think sin taxes.

Answer 1

Who would get this new tax money ?  Sounds like a big pay raise for the politicians.  Maybe out of every $100 collected, 2 or 3 would get to where it needs to go.  I want the man to leave my pay check alone.  They already get 50% of my money now.  Think of ALL the taxes one pays, income, property, sales, etc.  I know people want a carbon tax on fuel, but the government already gets 40 - 75 cents a gallon now.  The talk about how much exxon makes, but they provide value to the fuel, conversion, transportation, sales.  What does the government do ?  Makes their dime with no added value.

Answer 2

give me lots of your tax money, i will be glad to walk every where i want to go

Answer 3

the main word in your question is tax. earth gets **** on,rich pay tax &feel good,gov gets more money to spend. Poor peaple think the gov is helping them.

Answer 4

Just like the ridiculous "sin taxes", a carbon tax administered at point of sale is a regressive tax that would place a far heavier burden on lower and middle income brackets.

Answer 5

Pros - None

Cons - Government interference in the market always creates more problems than it solves.  This would be no exception.  The law of unintended consequences will result in major difficulties if this is done.

Answer 6

Corporations cannot become more carbon neutral until a carbon cap is put into effect.   Imagine spending billions voluntarily getting your company to be 50% cleaner, then having the government decide they're going to make companies cut their carbon output.   You just screwed yourself.  

Since gas is so heavily subsidized in the US it would even the playing field.   Why should others use my tax money to drive a huge vehicle that damages roads, is life threatening to anything of a normal size and eats up my tax money in subsidies?

Answer 7

Very good! we must have consumption and pollution taxes that give us the real price of goods -health effects, GW, cleanup and renewable energy funding. We would change the debate from carbon credits to how do I stop this-it cost me money. And the one that can not cleanup their act will pay, but we all get the benefits:  cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner food.