Should taller people really be taxed more than their shorter counterparts? I heard this idea for the first time a few days ago on NPR. They were talking about the strong corelation between income and height of people. I thought it is quite a fascinating corelation. To give a heads up on what this post is about, let me give a brief overview on what exactly I'm talking about. So there were a couple of people from Harvard who thought it would be a great idea to research this topic (Mankiw and his "graduate student". Obviously Mankiw did nothing but give his "graduate student" the topic and the graduate student wrote the entire paper which NYTimes wrote an article on.)
On NPR, there was this person who was being interviewed who gave a whole lot of arguments on why tall people make more money (The typical 6-foot American earned $5,525 more than a 5-foot-5-inch worker, after correcting for sex, age and weight) She went on to talk about higher confidence/self esteem. The ability to be a leader since people tend to "listen" to them since their childhoold etc. Most importantly she talked about having a more "attractive" personality which automatically fetched them a higher paying job than an equally qualified shorter guy.
I thought the whole idea of higher taxes for higher people was BRILLIANT. (Obviously my being shorter has a big role to play in my opinion formation :D). But someone really needs to think the whole thing through (i.e. if anyone has the guts to even think about implementing it) First off, couples file taxes together. So what if the husband/wife is really tall and the wife/husband is really short? How do we account for the height tax? An obvious solution is that we should consider the mean height of the household. Or is it really?
I think considering the mean height is a hideous idea. It is not uncommon knowledge that most women fall for the taller dudes! I have heard this so many times from so many of my women friends that I have been this close to adding a few platforms under my own shoes! So how about we introduce an additional variable to the entire "dating" equation! The taller guy comes at a price. Literally!
The next obvious question is, if you tax based on height, you should also be taxing on other "self esteem driving qualities" such as beauty. The argument that many people tend to make with this is that height is a much more "objective" variable as compared to "beauty". Although I agree with them to some extent, I am willing to believe that some amount of objectivity can be brought into "beauty" as well. Maybe the research in the world is just insufficient to properly quantify beauty. Infact, some painter said somewhere that all attractive portraits have the exact same geometric ratios between different features on the face. So maybe we can come up with some tax equation which talks about the angle the nose on your face subtends when a couple of rays pass through it!
The point being that taxation based on height is just another way of looking at non-linear taxation. We already have an established practice of people who make more money being taxed more. So it doesn't seem very far fetched for people who have "a tendency to make more money" to be taxed more as well! This is simply because the "tendency" is something they have acquired genetically. Of course there are youngsters who are encouraged to work out more so they'll end up being taller. Maybe that is just another math equation they should think about solving before going for their next swim!
6 comments:
I totally support it.. hehe
You have TOO much time on your hands!! The graduate student and NY Times too have too much time to spare. If the graduate student correlated height to ethnic origin and in turn ethnic origin to the kinds of jobs NON US citizens get the whole thing would make sense! Bottom line - START WORKING ALREADY!!
Ken Andapani! You bring a very interesting point. Being in a "certain" country, Ethnic origin also has a lot to do with the kind of jobs you manage to get. if you are a short indian guy, the chances of you being the CEO of a company are so much more limited. (Vikram Pandit is just an exception) So how about we extend non-linear taxation and tax based on race as well!!!!! Incidentally that will totally go against indians atleast in the United States :D
The point is to base tax on income period! Let it be the way it is otherwise it gets real messy. You completely missed my point!! I wanted to say that SOME researchers will do anything to occupy themselves and if they find any correlation they´d go for it without thinking WHY the correlation!! While others prefer drilling holes ;)
Ok this is going off on a tangent. So it is best to not comment on the what you're saying. But I would suggest that you read the actual paper because contrary to what you seem to be implying the researchers here seem to bring out the stupidity of the whole idea of the height tax which was in fact proposed by someone else! The point of MY post on the other hand was simply to point out the extent to which non-linear taxation COULD really be taken. For right or for wrong? I'm not trying to be the judge to that!
I don't get it. If tall people are more likely to fall in the high-income tax bracket and are getting taxed on the income they are making, why tax them again for being tall! Double Tax? I object!
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