Gas Tax May Be a Simple and Good Enough Road Usage Charge

US road maintenance is underfunded. Unfortunately, current politics does not offer any sustainable funding ideas either. Instead, we hear about various one time patches like playing with custom tariffs or selling strategic oil reserves.

A good funding mechanism is based on the following principles:

1. It creates a steady income.
2. The Income grows and falls according to the road maintenance needs. This means it is related to the total driving mileage.
3. The funding burden is closely associated with individual road usage, in particular the damage one causes to the road structures when driving.
4. The mechanism is largely inflation-proof and does not require frequent political interference.

Freeways permit fast uninterrupted travel through dense urban environments. But they are not cheap. I-110 in LA.

By Adrian104 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In recent years we have seen an increased interest for "road usage charge", a user fee that depends on the actual driving mileage. Indeed, modern technology (currently tested in Oregon) allows to determine the exact mileage on different types of roads, and to send the driver the bill afterwards. Here I argue that we do not have to wait for the a technology to mature, as old-fashioned gas tax may serve as a good substitute for a smarter driving distance fee. I solely focus on road maintenance funding, and ignore congestion, pollution, and climate issues. Note that from this perspective there is no difference between fossil fuel, biofuel, and electric cars.

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Two arguments strongly favor gas tax over alternative funding mechanisms: it's simplicity and it's focus on road users. The main objections are related to it's impact on economy, and the fact that it is less than perfect measure of actual road usage.

• Gas tax is simple to introduce, collect and pay. First, the direct payments are done by big oil market operators who can easily handle a rather minor additional administrative burden. Second, most governments already collect it, hence the additional administrative burden would be even smaller. Third, such "pay-at-pump" scheme is the simplest imaginable tax for motorists. You pay for your gas and that's it.

  This contrasts to the proposed distance charge which is to be payed individually by millions of drivers. Hence the aggregated administrative burden for both private actors and public administrators is most likely higher. The distance tax must also be payed monthly or yearly, based on the actual driving, in a similar fashion as we currently do with the electricity bills. This also means the drivers have to keep some funds available for the tax payments later.

• Gas tax is payed according to road usage—the more you drive, the more you pay. Unfortunately, this correspondence is less than perfect. Cars come in different fuel economy and size and stress the roads differently. This is potentially the main objection against funding roads solely by gas tax.

  

  Heavy transport stresses the roads substantially more than small cars. Although trucks burn more fuel than cars, the gas tax may not compensate for the additional stress on roads. Here weight-dependent usage charge may have an advantage.

  By bilbobagweed (formby) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

  But save the road usage charge, gas consumption is still far closer indicator of individual "road consumption" than any other alternative, such as income or sales tax. If gas tax is too crude a measure, how on earth can sales tax be a better one? But sales tax is widely used for funding transportation projects.

• Gas tax is often claimed to be a burden to the economy. But the picture is more complex. Sure, taxes hurt, but I don't see why should gas tax hurt more than the other taxes, in particular business and payroll taxes. If we introduce it in revenue neutral way, i.e. we lower the other taxes by exactly the same amount as we rise the gas tax, it amounts to redistributing the tax burden from the rest of the economy to large gas users. It is not immediately clear what are the economic implications. Transport intensive sectors will probably lose (but it also depends on what happens with road quality and congestion) while "human-intensive" sectors win from lower income tax. This includes technology companies that rely on a large well-payed workforce. I do not see the effect being much different from that of a better targeted road usage fee.

• Inflation diminishes the value of both gas tax and road usage charge in a similar way. Unless inflation-indexed, regular political decisions are needed to rise these accordingly. The usage charge possesses a clear advantage here as it does not depend on the vehicles' fuel economy. Gas tax must be adjusted both for inflation and fuel economy, usage charge only for inflation.

• Finally, many people may dislike the idea of government knowing exactly where and how much we drive. And the corresponding technology itself is not safe either—the ways to screw such meters will probably advance as well.

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We do not have to wait until a better technology solves the road funding problems. It may never arrive. Meanwhile, gas tax is a simple and good enough road usage fee. The problem is in politics, not in technology.

Water Markets for California

California is parched.  There is little water and all the forecasts indicate that there will be even less of it later in summer.  What are the options to ameliorate the situation?

There is one obvious reform that has not received much public attention: introducing water-markets.  I do not understand why is the market solution almost universally overlooked.  I am even willing to argue that water market is the solution, it may be supplemented with other means but those will remain supplements, adjusting the market where it cannot get it right.

This is not the first dry spell in California.  Dry riverbed in 2009.  By NOAA, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Instead of markets, we hear about different ad-hoc measures.  But how much can a state save if the restaurants are forced not to serve water to the customers unless they ask for it? Who is going to control whether lawns are watered 2 or 3 days a week?  Why do we need rules that only permit to fill covered pools?  The list goes on-and-on, garden fountains can only be used in case they work on a closed circulation, cars can only be washed with hoses with shutoff nozzles, new developments cannot irrigate with potable water unless drip irrigation systems are used, agricultural water users have to report more water use information to regulators...

There are several issues with such measures.  First, these may not be effective for saving water.  The problem is not washing streets or watering lawns after rain.  The problem is that the population as a whole uses more water than what is available.  It is the total quantity, not the way water is used.  We may prescribe what is the "fair" use but wasteful usage remains an issue even when only spending water in "acceptable" way—we cannot check how many minutes people take shower.  Second, the government cannot decide what is the best use.  Water consumption does not have noteworthy externalities, so it should be left to the individual users to decide what to do with it.  Third, such measures may target the straw-man while leaving the main culprits untouched.  The little data I have suggests that more than 3/4 of water in California (out of what humans are using) goes for irrigation.  As a rule of thumb, agricultural water need is around 1000 times the final mass of the harvest.  So, the "water-tag" of a restaurant meal amounts to 300-1000kg, out of which less than 1/1000 is served in glass...  Maybe we should ban restaurants to serve Californian rice instead?

Markets help to settle all these issues.  Here is a number of steps one has to take to reach fully functioning water markets.

• Clear water property rights.  The water ownership must be unambiguous, both for reservoirs and groundwater. 
• Extraction quota for different water sources, set each year by a public institution.  Up to the quota, the owners can sell water to any user.  This amounts to a "cap-and-trade" system.
• The quota must be tradable.
• "Pipe-neutrality".  The price must be associated with quantity,  quality, and location of the water, but not how it is used.  If you pay the price, feel free to drink, water your lawn, or wash the car.  Note that this is exactly how the electricity market works.
• Every household and farm must have water meters.  This also applies to irrigation water.
• There may be a need for a (temporary) support for those who loose as a result of the new system.  The support must be in the form of cash, not water!

Water meters are simple and ubiquitous.  Photo: André Karwath aka Aka [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

Who are the loosers?  Many will point to farmers but that depends on who will obtain the water rights.  If the farmers will be entitled to a large endowment as they have historically been, they may be the winners instead—selling that water may bring more income than using it on fields.  If, however, the rights are given to someone else, many farms will be immediately out of business.  It is expensive to farm in arid climate.

Finally, I stress here that this reform does not amount to a tax hike.  First, the money for water goes to the government only if the government gets the water rights.  Second, if this is the case, the government should lower taxes, such as income or property tax.  It amounts to shifting government revenues from property and income tax to natural resources.

Tax Breaks for Protecting Landscape

Untouched nature is increasingly scarce.  This is even more true close to big population centers where such areas are of high value. Below I talk mostly of  forests but the ideas are more general.

Old forest.  Many snags and coarse woody debris offer habitat for a wide range of organisms.  Such forests are often suitable for recreational use as there is little undergrowth due to dense canopy above.  Conifer forests of Rattlesnake Ledge, WA

Land is typically taxed based on it's market value.  This approach is simple—it only depends on the size and location of the plot (although determining the value may be tricky).  However, it does not encourage the landowners to preserve the valuable habitats, nor does it encourage it to keep the land open to public.  It implicitly tells that the property owner is the sole decision-maker and does not have to take into account the others' interests.  But natural landscape is valuable not just for the landowner but also for other users, such as leisure trekkers or picnickers, and for many living organisms other than homo sapiens.  In economics parlance, natural landscape possesses positive externalities.

Keeping land open for everyone—for both nature and humans—should be an attractive option.  It can be encouraged by making land tax dependent on the type of usage.  Valuable natural habitats where the public has open access should be free of tax.  In other words, we should not tax land possession but only the "exclusion" of land, using it in a way that does not permit the others (including nature) to benefit from it.

Private property: Harvested natural forest is replaced by a plantation.  The area is made inaccessible both for humans and for large animals.  (Former) temporal forest in Veskimõisa, EE.

This approach will bring a number of changes:

• The landowners should only pay land tax on such a property that is either not open (like gardens and courtyards) or not natural (like fields).  Forests, natural meadows, and other habitats should be considered as "natural land".  If everyone has free access to these areas and human interference is kept at minimum, the land should be tax-free.  I mean "free access" in legal sense, the owner should not have any obligation to facilitate it through specific infrastructure.
• In case the landlord takes some of the natural area into non-natural use (say, by logging), then it will immediately be subject to tax.  The tax will decrease over time as the nature take over and the natural/leisure value of the area increases.
• Analogously, if land that was previously used for non-natural or restricted purpose is left untouched, the tax will fall over years as the value of it grows.
• If land tax is based on the market value, it implicitly (albeit imperfectly) takes into account how the human value of land depends on location.  Land near the population centers is expensive, and hence the potential land tax will be high.  Such a tax exemption encourages creation of publicly open natural areas close to cities more than it does that in far-lying locations.
• In order to be eligible for a lower tax rate, the natural value of the land must be re-assessed. The landowner should apply for re-evaluation, perhaps no more frequently than once in 5-10 years.  Such evaluation reports should be made public to decrease the room for corruption.
• Perhaps the largest problem with this proposal is the need to asses the non-market value of land.  It is a vague concept and leaves room for interpretation.  Simpler but less precise rules may be preferred instead.

Natural resources are a strong incentive to restrict public access.  Diamond area in South Africa, 1940s.

Who are the winners and the losers?  First, I don't think this measure would be massively used and hence the effects will be small. If it will, however, it may harm the logging and wood processing industry. Second, if the tax income from certain plots decreases, it must rise elsewhere (not just on land).  So it amounts to trading more nature for higher taxes.  Obviously, the winners are those who benefit from the nature and the losers are those who do not.  Finally, the largest gains are experienced by property owners who already keep their natural land open for everyone.

Managing Forests for Everyone

The forested private land is largely managed as a profitable asset—the harvesting, planting, and other management is done from the viewpoint of the landowner.  As is often the case, this approach leaves a number of other interested parties with little say about their environment.

Mature forests are an excellent recreational landscape.  They also form a habitat for many species.  Forest near Kaagvere, Estonia, in December 2013.

Forests are a major component of landscape and environment.  This means there are many people (but also other living organisms) with stakes in the forests.  Below, I focus on recreational landscape users, but most of my arguments are valid for the other users as well, including the non-human ones.  The main problem lies here—while landowners profit almost exclusively from logging, the others will mostly enjoy the landscape where the forests are left intact.  (I will ignore such interest groups who profit from logging, such as forest industry.) This is a textbook case of negative externalities.

The most straightforward solution is to let all the recreational landscape users pay the landowners according to their valuation of the intact forests.  Obviously, such an income flow will cease after the forest is cut, and will count as a cost of clearcutting.  Unfortunately, this approach will not work—it offers a perfect opportunity to shirk and hide your private valuation, and it would be extremely costly to locate the landowners and to pay each of them a few euros every time you walk through the forest.  It would also put all the burden of adjustment to the recreational visitors.

A public-sector version of the same idea would look like this: determine the average value of various types of landscape, and pay the landowners accordingly, but only if they maintain it in that particular state.  Such rules can also take the form of individual contracts between the government and landowners with no new legislation introduced.  The payment should be financed through some sort of general taxes, such as payroll tax.  This approach is technically feasible.  Here landowners win, the society bears all the burden.

A third option is to introduce the same reform while shifting the burden to the landholders.  The government taxes the land according to "non-likeability" of the landscape.  If the property is not suitable for recreational use, you pay a lot.  If it is a nice natural area open for everyone, you pay little.  If forest is cut, the land tax increases accordingly.  (In case of well-functioning financial markets, this is equivalent to logging tax.)

This proposal is not free of problems either.  As all the burden is shifted to the landowners, this leads to falling land prices and hence a decreasing property value.  Second, the "non-likeability" is hard to determine.  It is possible to evaluate certain types of landscapes, but not everything. Even more, the policymakers need simple rules to avoid misunderstandings and too much potential for corruption.  Third, it does not take into account the potential value of the landscape.  Some landscape types are inherently more valuable, and even more, we can only enjoy what is at a reasonable distance from us.  The value of places far away is smaller.  The correct approach is not to tax the "non-likeability", but the difference between the potential and the current value.  Can policymakers handle that?

Middle-aged temperate forest in Northern Europe.  The left-hand side of the road is scheduled to be cut soon.  (And sorry for the cellphone photo...)

Pulling the three ideas together, I think a reasonable way forward is to combine the second and the third possibility.  One should differentiate land tax according to a simple scale of landscape value, for instance forest age.  Young forests (0-15 years) will be subject to high taxes, the mature ones (100+) will have low tax.  This data can be collected and handled.  Second, the municipalities should buy recreational land and also make contracts with the landholders to stipulate mutually best management.  This combined approach would shift part of the costs to the landowners, and part to the society. The taxes should be established step-by-step over many years.  However, although feasible, this policy is not free of problems either—the landholders around rich municipalities (big cities) win while those far away loose.

Music as a Public Good

Anti-ACTA meeting, Nuremberg 2012-02-11

Internet seems to have thoroughly changed the playing field for the music industry. The previous attempts to introduce anti-copying measures or improve the legislation (from the music industry's perspective), have not been of much help. Below I compare the current situation of intellectual property-related industries with some other parts of the economy. Perhaps a little exaggerated, but I hope this helps to make the point.

Today, Music is Non-Excludable

Due to the new technology, it is not possible any more to limit the potential audience of a song (or a movie, or a book). This is what non-excludability means. Through most of the history it was possible to grant the access only to those who pay. Today, this does not work.
To create a non-excludable product may be something new for the recording industry but this is far from a unique situation. Much is produced around us with no way to keep the free-riders away. The examples include traditional public goods, such as street lights or clean sidewalks, open-source software, or research results. As there is no way to limit access to these goods (or, in some cases, narrowing the access is not desired), all this is given away for free.

How Does this Influence the Music Industry?

Part of the industry is probably not affected. Orchestra music, for instance, is highly subsidized anyway, and the target audience is not going to substitute an exclusive evening in the noble music-hall for a internet download. In some cases, an unknown (or even a well known) band may make most of their income from live concerts or from being invited to play at parties or other events. For this group, the new world may not look too different either.
But there are also authors who earn most of their income by selling their recordings for a fee. This is the group who may fare substantially worse. How well they do, depends on how easily they can shift to a different revenue source. Unfortunately, I do not have any data here, but I believe that any serious policy proposal should include this analysis.

Do We Need a Fat Government?

Non-excludable music is essentially a public good: once recorded, it is accessible to everyone. Public goods are typically financed through taxes (like street construction), donations (like public concerts), grants (research) or simply enthusiasm (community gardens). In particular, this suggests that government financing will play a more significant role in the future music industry. Many books, plays, and movies are created through various scholarships and grants already today.
Note that various taxes on empty CD-s or broadband internet should be seen in this light. Free music must be financed somehow, including through higher taxes. You pay CD-tax even if you never use it for copying music, exactly as you help to finance all kind of public services, even those you never use, through your income tax. This may not be all that good news for the indebted Western governments. But here we have an example of a technological change which leads to larger government role.

Would it Be Worth of It?

It seems like most people are quite happy with the new world. Unauthorized downloading seems to be overly popular and tougher rules, such as proposed by SOPA, PIPA and ACTA, cause a large-scale public outrage. It seems that most of us would rather sacrifice the recording industry than our internet-freedom. Democracy is very much about choice. By choosing free music and other intellectual products, we also get a little higher taxes and perhaps somewhat poorer choice, as there will be less money and less players in the industry.

Miljöömaks ja kuidas seda kompenseerida

Muinsuskaitse nõuded ajaloolistele hoonetele on võrreldavad maksuga. Et vältida vanemate elupiirkondade lagunemist, tuleks (nõutele vastavat) renoveerimist osaliselt kompenseerida.

Täpsemalt Tartu Postimehes.

Public Goods Provision as an Anti-Immigration Argument?

The public goods game is an explanation to why so often too little is done to promote the common cause. The idea itself is very simple. Imagine we have several players. Everyone can decide how much resources to put into the "common pot". Next, the content of the pot is multiplied (by a number less then the number of players) and distributed evenly back to all the players. Obviously, the best solution for everyone were to invest a lot and gain back even more. Unfortunately, for every dollar I invest, I receive back less than one (although I receive a slice of what the others have invested). Hence, a rational selfish player will not invest anything at all and solely free-ride on the others investments. As experiments indicate, the people around us are not quite that bad, but most will still devote less than optimal amount of resources for the public good.
Now imagine that instead of players, we have countries. The common pot are the public goods, such as crime prevention or public highways. Voters in every country are free to pay taxes and build up such public goods. But afterwards, they are also free to move to whichever country they want. What would rational voters do? First, they would pay no taxes, and second, they will move to the country with best amenities. Sounds like the public goods game, right?
However, for the analogy to work, the public goods must be non-excludable -- it must be hard to avoid free-riding on the taxpayers bill. However, from the viewpoint of immigration, many public goods, usually given as examples of non-excludable goods, are actually excludable. This includes highways (can be financed by fuel taxes), social security (can be made conditional on some sort of contribution period) and public schools (if immigrants can be taxes, this money can by used for constructing new schools). If population growth (not just through immigration) is slow enough, and newcomers pay taxes, you can expand all of the above examples. The excludability originates from the fact that governments can tax the (potential) users, and expand the supply through this source of funding. Note that you still may have a conflict between rather rich locals and poor immigrants, each preferring a different level and variety of goods.
What cannot be easily expand include some sort of inherently limited resources one cannot produce at all, such as minerals, arable land, but also street space in a busy downtown. Although these are public goods as well, the public goods game as described above does not directly apply for these (another one, called "tragedy of commons", does). There is also a type of amenities which are non-excludable even in case of countries and governments. This includes information, environment protection, and other stuff for which national borders play no role.
In conclusion, free-riding on public goods provided by locals is a valid but possibly quite weak argument against liberal immigration policy. Strength of it depends on the degree to which the immigrant population can be taxed, i.e. whether immigrants are in legal employment.
Note also that there are more ways immigration and public goods provision are related. For instance, studies find that more diverse population leads to less public goods provision, possibly through low level of solidarity in heterogeneous society. That's a different story, however.

Miks valimislubadusi uskuda ei saa ja kas midagi üldse uskuda saab

Lingin siia oma valimisteemalise kommentaari Postimees onlines.

By U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob Caldwell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Milline on EE tööjõu maksumäär?

Siin arvutusreegel Eesti tööjõu piirmaksumäära rehkendamiseks.  Algselt oli see mõeldud lisana HEI loole: Kas Eesti maksusüsteemi võiks lihtsustada, aga sinna jõudis ainult keskmise maksumäära rehkendamise valem.

Lühidalt: tööjõu maksumäär on kolmeastmeline, kusjuures astmed on umbes 4, 25, ja 43 protsenti.  Loos ma ei maini ka seda, et tulumaksu vähendamine ning töötusmaksu sisseviimine on muutnud seda vähem progressiivseks.   Arvutuseeskiri on siin PNG failina, kui keegi oskab latexit mathml-ks muuta, siis aidake :-)

Directive 261: why the airlines should pay for hotel (and why they shouldn't)

Here I discuss the issues related to occasional cancellations, not caused by the airlines. These arguments may not be valid if the airline itself is the source of the problem, or in case of massive air traffic disruptions, such as the ash cloud of 2010.

By Jnpet [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

There are two reasons to require airlines to provide food and lodging -- risk aversion and economies of scale. Humans do not like risk. They hate to change their plans in an unexpected and expensive way like when the flight is cancelled because of bad weather or industrial dispute. Obviously, the airlines hate to pay these costs as well. They simply collect the money from the passengers themselves in form of more expensive airfares. Essentially, the airlines act as insurance providers, charging passengers a little more for their flights, and providing food and shelter when needed. As airlines operate many flights, delays and cancellations occur quite often, and it is relatively easy for them to collect and maintain related funds.

Large firms can handle occasional disruptions lot easier than individual passengers. Hence it makes sense to shift more of the risk to the firms. Second, as airlines have a base or partner in the airport, it is easier for them to provide the hotel. Imagine yourself stranded in an airport far away with little money, extremely expensive cellphone prices and no idea about the hotels. How would you get to an affordable one? Airlines could easily (eventually through airports) make an agreement with a number of hotels and taxi companies. Even more, they have access to phones, internet and office facilities, which tremendously simplifies booking. It costs a lot less for them to do the actual bookings in case of cancellations.

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The arguments above work best if all passengers are similar. But they differ. First, people have inherently different tendency to take risks. Second, your risk aversion depends on the circumstances. Your outbound flight was delayed? Bad, but not a big deal. Just go home and sleep till morning. You are probably not that interested in a hotel just a few blocks away from your home. However, if this happens to be your flight home, the situation is different. Third, people value lodging differently. A backpacker may find it completely acceptable to spend a few nights in the airport (in exchange for cheaper airfare), while others are willing to pay a lot for a good hotel.

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The current directive 261 requires the airlines to offer a one-size-fits-all compulsory insurance. But sometimes you may rather want to get cheaper tickets and take the risk, another time you may want to pay even more to get better provision. The current directive does not allow for this kind of flexibility. Fortunately, there is an easy solution -- make the insurance voluntary, an explicit choice with corresponding price tag, while buying the tickets.

Does this mean that current directive 261 should be replaced by a voluntary insurance? Maybe. It depends on how different the passengers typically are, and whether they actually understand the risks and make the right choices. But it might be a good idea to experiment with this option.

This story is inspired by discussions with Idir Laurent Khiar. Here I use the opportunity to acknowledge his role.

Maksupoliitka tööjõumaksude vaatepunktist

Eesti tööjõu maksusüsteem on vähem läbipaistev kui võiks arvata. Praegu vastab ta ligikaudu kaheastmelisele maksule, millest madalam on 35 ja kõrgem 43%.

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Mida näitab Eestis kehtiv 21% tulumaks? Võibolla üllatuslikult osutub, et peaaegu mitte midagi. Meile on tegelikult olulised kaks rahasummat: see summa, mis tööandja maksab (palgafond), ja summa, mille töötaja kätte saab (netopalk). Nende kahe summa vahe, nimetan seda siin tööjõumaksuks, läheb erinevate maksude näol riigile. Kui näiteks palgafond on 14 925 krooni kuus, siis töötaja saab sellest kätte 9000 krooni. Vahe, 5925 krooni, ongi tööjõu maksud. Eestis jagatakse tööjõumaksud kolmeks osaks: sotsiaalmaks, tulumaks, ja töötuskindlustusmakse. Niisugusel lahterdamisel ei ole aga majanduslikku sisu. Kui ettevõtjale on 14 925 krooni liiga palju, siis ta töötajat ei palka. Kui töötajale on 9000 krooni liiga vähe, siis ta tööle ei tule. Kus lõppeb sotsiaalmaks ja algab tulumaks, ei mängi siin mingit rolli.

Kuidas näeb siis praegune maksusüsteem välja tööjõumaksu vaatepunktist? Alloleval joonisel on näidatud tööjõumaksu protsent sõltuvalt netopalgast (must joon). Nagu näha, läheb tüüpiliselt umbes 40% palgafondist maksudeks. Kõige väiksem on see protsent -- umbes 35% -- 4000 kroonise netopalga juures, sellest veel väiksema palga korral hakkab maksumäär kiiresti kasvama.
Seega, vaatamata tulumaksuvabale miinimumile, on tööjõumaks kõige kõrgem väga madala palga juures. See on seotud sotsiaalmaksuga, õigemini sotsiaalmaksu miinimummääraga. Sõltumata sellest, kui väike on töötaja palk, tuleb sotsiaalmaksu maksta vähemalt miinimupalgalt (mis teeb maksu miinimumääraks 1436 krooni kuus). Kui täiskohaga töötajad teenivad vähemalt miinimupalga, siis osaajaga töö puhul see nii ei pruugi olla. Näiteks väikeste laste kõrvalt üksikute "otste" tegemisel, mis toovad sisse 1000 krooni kuus, kulub maksudeks 60% palgafondist. Sisuliselt ütleb maksusüsteem nii: "kui töötad, tööta palju. Kui töötad vähe, tee seda mustalt".

Viimastel aastatel arutletud võimaliku sotsiaalmaksu ülempiiri kehtestamise üle. Kuidas mõjutaks niisugune otsus tööjõu maksukoormust? Näitena (punane joon graafikul) eeldame, et sotsiaalmaksu ülempiiriks kehtestatakse 10 000 krooni. See tähendab, et ükskõik kui suurt palka tööandja maksab, sotsiaalmaksu ei pea maksma rohkem kui 10000 krooni kuus. Nagu jooniselt näha, kaasneb sellega tööjõumaksu määra kiire vähenemine alates umbes 25 000 kroonisest netopalgast. Seega on sotsiaalmaksu ülemmäär sisuliselt samaväärne kõrgepalgaliste madalama maksustamisega. Ehk siis astmelise tulumaksuga, kusjuures ülemise astme maksumäär on väiksem kui keskmisel astmel.

Kuidas kajastub Eesti viimase 10 aasta maksupoliitika tööjõumaksu kontekstis? Mäletatavasti oli aastal 2000 tulumaksumäär 26% ning töötuskindlustust ei olnud üldse. Praegu on tulumaksu määr vähenenud 5% võrra, samas on lisandunud kokku 4.2% töötuskindlustusmakse. Seega on tööjõumaks kõrgepalgaliste seas vähenenud üsna vähe. Palgaskaala madalamas otsas on aga olukord teine -- kuna maksuvaba miinimum töötuskindlustusmakse kohta ei kehti, on siin maksukoormus hoopis kasvanud.

Praegust maksusüsteemi saaks lihtsustada. Kõige lihtsam viis oleks kehtestada üks ja ühtne tööjõumaks, vajadusel mitmeastmeline. Näiteks võiks maks olla 35% väiksema kui 6000-kroonise tulu korral ja 43% seda ületavast tulust. Kui on soov kõrgepalgalisi madalamalt maksustada, võib ülespoole lisada veel ühe, madalama astme. Tööjõumaksust saadava tulu võiks riik siis juba edasi jagada Haigekassale, pensioniteks, ja muudeks vajalikeks otstarveteks. Nii muudaks maksusüsteemi ja ka maksupoliitika märgatavalt läbipaistvamaks.

Aga võibolla just seda poliitikakujundajad ei soovigi?

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Lisan siia juurde ka arvutuseeskirja, mille alusel on võimalik netopalga järgi leida brutopalk ning palgafond. Jäägu igaühe enda otsustada kui lihtne või keeruline on Eesti maksusüsteem.

Canceled Flights and who should bear the Risk

Flying is risky. In September 2010 airBaltic (BT) canceled a number of routes while shifting to the winter schedule. Although it is common in the airlines industry to operate a thinner schedule for the winter period (October till March), this particular process was related to many unexpected changes. BT canceled flights where they already had sold tickets, including a large sales campaign which ended just days before the canceling announcements. This led to number of accusation of BT being unreliable and unfair to customers.

However, the story is not quite that simple. Namely, according the the BT's representative Janis Vanags, "flexibility" is necessary in order to keep the prices low. I would add another dimension here -- flexibility, i.e. ability to change schedule and cancel flights, also encourages BT to start flights to more risky destinations. These include low-demand, seasonal, or otherwise unknown locations, where the firm may be quite uncertain about the business results. To put it briefly -- BT is cheap, and reaches many destination, exactly because it is flexible.

You, as a customer, should understand it as a take-it-or-leave-it deal. You get a cheap flight to a weird destination. But be aware: this airline is re-scheduling/canceling more than you might expect. To put it in a different way: compared to "traditional" airlines, BT is shifting more of the operating risks to the customers. This helps it to keep the prices low and the network large. Is it good or bad for the customers? It depends. If you are price sensitive and don't mind changing your holiday plans by a day or two, then it is a good deal. If you are a business traveler booking your tickets just a few days before you fly, it is fine as well (the schedule changes are usually announced about a month in advance). If you are not flexible -- bad luck. Consider another airline if there is an affordable alternative nearby.

Can we conclude that last-minute changes in schedule are fine? Not quite. The problem is that customers may not aware of the actual risks. The majority of airlines are following their schedule closely long time in advance. BT seems to be somewhat free-riding on this perception of reliability. The best solution may be to make the customers aware of the related risks, given they are actually able to make use of this type of statistics.

Traveling long distances is a risky business. You either have to pay the insurance, or take the risk.