
Trying to make sense of Colombia’s “Strata” economic system (2014) - imartin2k
http://occasionalplanet.org/2014/09/09/trying-to-make-sense-of-colombias-strata-economic-system/
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martindelemotte
My theory is that as a lot of people don't declare their full income in
developing countries (and are quite tax-adverse due to a perception of high
corruption), a way to redistribute is to tax "luxury" goods like vehicles or
other visible stuff like the strata.

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Akath19
As a Colombian I can say that most people declare full income due to fear of
being chased by DIAN (colombian IRS) which is probable the most corrupt
institution in the country, meaning that if you don't declare your full income
they'll shake you down for everything you have, I've personally heard cases of
people making innocent mistakes in taxes and getting extorted for millions
upon millions by "honest DIAN officers".

The strata system was created to create a form of "equality" where rich people
helped poor people via subsidies, however, this has been abused by both sides
since the very beginning (poor people using 10 or 20x the normal amounts of
water and electricity to "fuck the rich people" and rich people paying to get
their houses declared "historical patrimony" to avoid paying subsidies)

In the end, the strata system was created for a different society that we have
right now, nowadays almost all buildings are estrato 3 or 4 in areas where
estrato 2 was the highest possible.

I have no idea what could replace the strata system (I'm not a political
scientist or anything that resembles that) but I do agree that the system is
broken and should be replaced by something better.

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jboggan
How about replacing it with nothing?

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Frondo
No system of taxation?

If you can show us a modern functional large-scale (i.e. nation-sized) society
that has no taxation, then I'd love to see how they do it.

I can't think of any examples, though, so would welcome your thoughts on this.

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stickfigure
On the surface this looks a little bit like a Land Value Tax, which tends to
get broadly praised by economists as efficient and fair. Enforcement and
structure appears to be uneven, but it doesn't sound much different from
property taxes here in the US.

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hannibalhorn
It's a different animal than property taxes (which we have in Colombia too.)

If you want to comparison shop high speed internet access, for example, you
have to get a quote from each provider, as the rate is based on your estrato.
Things have gotten better recently but until the last couple years, those
rates were just in a big binder in the office, not something you could just
look up online. I feel it hurts competition - providers can’t just advertise a
monthly rate - and I can only imagine the added complexity in billing systems,
etc, that ultimately is passed on to the consumer.

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timthelion
Well, is this really wrong? If I get work done on my house as a young person,
I pay as much as 10x what the same workman would charge my grandmother in law.
The workman _knows_ he/she can get away with charging a young person who
doesn't have to live off social insurance more. The workman would never get
the job from a retired in Prague if they charged what they charge yong people.
However, if they charged everyone the reduced rate, then they would never
cover the cost of tools and training.

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m0skit0
Although the Stratum idea seems logical and even good (at least for me) the
basic problem in developing countries is always the same: widespread
corruption and wirepulling.

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Havoc
Reminds me of the South African system. Enforcement of electricity levies
depends very much on location. Townships vs leafy suburbs

