UBI Tax Funding

AFAIK one component of UBI is that you throw out (most of?) the other welfare benefits you might get. By saving money on that, you could potentially offset or even compensate for the required added income tax.

They can. It's called the UBI TAX :)

That is a common misconception. No serious UBI proposal would be that expensive.UBI is not about free cash to everyone. It's about reforming basic welfare benefits and income taxes to prevent welfare traps.The "U" part is about making basic welfare benefits automatic and unconditional. You don't have to apply for them, and you don't have to do anything specific to qualify for them.The "B" part is fundamentally a tax reform. Everyone gets the automatic

This is actually the whole point of UBI, to keep things simple without having to agree on cutoffs or tapering strategies. Your UBI "refund" is a constant amount but the taxes you pay increases with income, so the proportion of your taxes that you get back from the government tends to zero as you make more money. It might help to think of it as tax credit that every citizen receives. The credit barely puts a dent in the taxes paid by the 1%.

Most serious UBI proposals are almost cost-neutral. In other words, most people would not get any more money than they already get.The main source of funding would be income taxes. The highest or second highest income tax bracket would start at 0. If you earn your living, UBI would be little more than an accounting trick for you. You would get some "free" money but pay higher taxes, and the end result would be more or less the same.Some tax credits and deductions might go away, a

Rather than a UBI, why not eliminate income tax ?

Why can’t we have a flat income tax and a ubi?

UBI is taxable income. You just adjust tax rates slightly to claw it back from those with higher incomes. No extra bureaucracy required, no means testing needed.

UBI would replace other programs, like social security and food stamps so it's not as bad as you make it out. Also you can use the tax code to claw back some or all of that UBI from higher income individuals, again lowering the total necessary revenue.

Aren't they basically the same thing? In your example 2., you can say you still distribute $15K to everyone, but you set the progressive tax rate so that if you get $60K the extra tax amount would become $15K that cancels the flat distribution. (If you say UBI is for every person including kids, you can still adjust tax rate in 2. with dependent deductible/compensation).The amount people get depends on the design of whole scheme (including tax increase to compensate UBI) so you ca