[lambdapie]

I don't understand your point. Can you clarify?

For reference, when I speak of "marginal effective tax rate" I mean the marginal effective tax rate after including (1) welfare payments to you, (2) the tax you pay and (3) any basic income you receive, although (3) does not directly contribute to the marginal effective tax rate, since it is zero.

[jsprogrammer]

I'm just thinking that instead of taxing some other money (primarily debt) to fund the basic income, the basic income itself can be the money (though, additional monies may be desired), which would obviate any need for taxes/reclaimation.

[dragonwriter]

> I'm just thinking that instead of taxing some other money (primarily debt) to fund the basic income, the basic income itself can be the money

The basic income can't be the money that pays for the basic income, unless your concept is that the government prints additional money for the basic income directly (note this is distinct from the Fed printing money and buying government securities, which is just debt financing.) That's possible, just as it is for any government spending, if you break the whole independent central bank system.

[tene]

The usual justification for this is that it's simpler, and reduces additional incentives to cheat the system and additional overhead. We currently have a means already in place to claim a portion of an individual's income, through taxes. More-traditional means-tested welfare systems have additional overhead of a second system trying to investigate your income to determine how the government chooses to interfere in your finances. The proposed intuition is that you get a simpler system with less overhead by just giving out a flat UBI payment, and also claiming some amount of that back via taxes that people already file, rather than employing an army of people to investigate your income every month before deciding how much to give out.

I'm not entirely certain that I've actually answered the question you intended to ask. If I'm way off the mark, could you try rephrasing a bit?