A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
THE GREEN TAX SHIFT & TRUE-COST ACCOUNTING
Green economics also applies true-cost accounting to production. Currently when products are manufactured, many of the real costs of production are not fully reflected in the retail price. Pollution, waste, depletion of natural resources, stress and illness are just some of these ignored (externalized) costs. Keeping production artificially cheap by ignoring externalities only leads to the damage of natural capital, misplaced investment priorities, and increased health problems.
We are in fact "producing" immense environmental and social consequences that damage ecosystems on a global scale.In a green economy, business would integrate all the costs associated with production of goods or sale of services. Retail price would then reflect the full cost of production. If all businesses operated this way, we would not need payroll and sales taxes to be high enough to compensate for the multiple consequences of under-pricing production.
In order to advance toward the goal of comprehensive true-cost accounting, the Green Party wants to GRADUALLY AND PARTIALLY shift a portion of government revenue receipts away from income taxes and onto the current form of "dumb production" that diminishes environmental Sustainability and quality-of-life. This would begin to create a financial incentive for re-engineering production and accountability in costing/pricing products.This is what the Green Party means when it talks about "Taxing Bads, Not Goods" and of "Full-Cost Accounting" and "Life-Cycle Product Stewardship". We are talking about real Sustainability.