A late friend of mine work real hard to achieve something like this in a way that made sense to me: a tax on resource extraction rather than a tax on value add.
Wow, I have had exactly this idea and it makes so much sense I was surprised I never heard anyone else come to this conclusion yet, but finally I seem to have found one. My idea in a nutshell:
tax only non renewable or finite resources and not labour
Finite resources include
- land use (be it housing, leisure or agriculture though desirable locations should have higher taxes)
- resources (metals, minerals)
- fossil fuels
Not to be taxed:
- labour
- wealth (having money has no environmental impact. It's the spending that matters)
- added value (get rid of VAT)
I feel like all tax systems are based on what is easy to be taxed, but I have never heard a good argument on why e.g. income should be taxed, but environmental impact not
