Donald Trump เสนอยกเลิกภาษีเงินได้! คุณคิดว่าเป็นไปได้ไหม?
Summary
Trump’s proposal is to abolish income tax and revert to customs duties as the main source of government revenue, as the US once did.
Historically this was real: both the US and Thailand once had no income tax.
Countries began levying income tax because modern state spending outgrew what tariffs could fund.
The key question is where the money would come from, since today’s budget bears no resemblance to the nineteenth century’s.
For ordinary people the effect is that the burden shifts from high earners onto the prices of goods everyone buys.
Key points
It was historically real
Both the US and Thailand once ran the state without income tax.
The modern state is far larger
Welfare, defence and infrastructure put spending on a different scale.
The arithmetic fails at the start
All customs revenue falls far short of the income tax that would be lost.
The burden moves; it does not vanish
Collected at import, the cost ends up in the price of goods.
It is regressive by nature
Lower earners pay a larger share of their income than higher earners.