Specifying details about a basic income is essential to determining if it works.

7. Conclusion Taking a BI seriously as a policy option requires that we consider carefully how we could really implement it. This paper debunks the proclaimed simplicity of a BI. We show that implementing a BI is far more complicated than many people, especially BI advocates, seem to realize. Our analysis sparks three key take-away messages: 1) A Basic Income is never simple – it requires many choices. The exact specification of the BI matters a great deal. Which parts of the existing tax/benefit system are maintained? What is abolished, modified or replaced? Is a BI made taxable? Is eligibility to other benefits affected by a BI, for example through a means-test? These choices are best made with a specific purpose in mind. For a BI can serve many end goals, which may well be incompatible. 2) Those choices matter, even apparently ‘minor’ choices matter. Depending on how exactly a BI is specified, the effects may vary a lot. The level of the BI is only one choice that needs to be made. Strikingly, a higher BI will not necessarily always have “better” distributional consequences, especially if poverty reduction is the goal. But besides the amount of the BI, we have demonstrated that many other design features matter just as much. When a BI would be implemented as a wholesale replacement of existing social protection arrangements, poverty would increase without exception. Alternatively, replacing tax allowances – which tend to benefit those with higher incomes – with a BI would reduce poverty rates (as probably would be even more the case with more targeted benefits). Whether or not a BI is included in the means-test of other benefits also matters for the poverty reduction that can be achieved. Even the tax structure matters. A BI accompanied by a flat tax would for example be overall far less redistributive compared to a progressive tax. Our analysis thus highlights the importance of scheme design in developing a BI policy.