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Let's assume that you are filthy rich though who are 55. You have two possibilities: a) work hard with your business and leave less to your kids at the end; b) become a tax exile, instead of working spend lot's of time ex. skiing in Switzerland and effective leave more to your children. (it could be also possible to rule your international empire anyway from abroad) |
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My point is the following. That's not the problem of getting a few tax havens forced to disclose some data. The problem is that in globalized world people (especially cosmopolitan elites) anyway are not bound too much to any country. That not a matter of creating some bogus net of mysterious legal entities and secret bank accounts. The devensive solution may be also simply packing suitcases. Especially if we're talking about the long run. I wondered about emigration not because of tax reasons but other economic factors, though actually my country was very mildly hit by crisis in contrast to Ireland. Had that been reverse I'd have a different IP number now. |
Second, yes, increased cooperation with and pressure on havens would be helpful in combating tax evasion and avoidance. For example, Germany paid millions to a Lichtenstein bank archivist to get info on major tax evaders/avoiders. This information was distributed to England and the States, resulting in the recovery of substantial (relative to the investment) owed tax revenues, and concessions on behalf of the Lichtenstein government and many tax evaders. I believe the subsequent recovery netted in the vicinity of hundreds of millions of Euros; this is a comparative pittance to this form of tax avoidance in general, which features in the tens to hundreds of billions (USD) of lost revenue for your average first world country in a year. International pressure and legislation needs to be applied to so-called tax havens to keep them honest and transparent, and close enabling loopholes (see below).
Related wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Li...ein_tax_affair
Third, off-shore capital flight is huge. Tens of trillions. This is primarily made possible by unregulated/monitored havens, and weak, exploitable tax laws, not changes in residency.
In all, you seem to thoroughly underestimate the impact of complex tax avoidance strategies and haven opacity as major contributing factors to illegal tax evasion, or the exploitation of unintended loopholes.
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Also you speak here about "loopholes". I'm not sure whether that's a good description for the problem - I mean the countries are free to choose their set of tax sources - consumption? personal income? corporate income? fixed property? inheritance? recreational substances? petrol? It's enough that they choose different taxation base and properly mobile person can surf between jurisdiction and pay less tax than expected. (yes, they are also weaknesses - even though the same idea is behind American 401k and Polish IKE, other gov could feel complied to tax it as any other investment profit) |
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With right to life I have one thing that always bothered me, especially in American case (but because you were first hit with epidemic of obesity anyway you would serve as good case study for other countries that unfortunately follow the same trajectory though slightly slower). It's all right to force a person to pay for other healthcare, (with all punishments prescribed for tax avoidance) but it's not all right to force the recipient to lead a healthy lifestyle (let's think about unimaginative fine for being obese which would be cancelled if the person shows at least some progress, start going for a walk everyday, etc.)? Even though if assessed from life expectancy good lifestyle would matter more than good health plan? |
Several of Kaeso's comments are offensive and beneath contempt, so I will not even give them the dignity of a response or quotation, though kedcoleman summises my stance on so-called 'parasites' without work-ethic. Most welfare systems require proof that you're attempting to seek employment and/or enrolment in job search programs besides, and the standard of living they afford is typically so poor, that I can see only the most chronically dysfunctional people looking to 'exploit' it, short of despicable criminals tax evading via cash jobs.
Furthermore, a broad cross-section of socialist democracies consistently and typically feature superior standards of living and rank higher on political freedom indices vis a vis their 'free' market counterparts as a rule, so the opine that absolute minimal government intervention is best and welfare systems are inherently harmful to society is almost certainly incorrect.
As to the distribution of wealth, the state must absolutely be involved. You simply cannot have wealth immensely and disproportionately concentrated (which is the fast and inevitable outcome of an unmoderated marketplace, and no progressive taxation) and expect capitalism, and democracy to somehow remain intact. The inevitable consequence is plutocracy, corporatism and consolidated monopolies/oligopolies. This is already beginning to happen in the States, where the intermingling of private money, lobbying and government is more problematic, widespread and impactful than ever.
I would also like to see statistics documenting meaningful tax exiling/capital flight as a consequence of Hollande's mandates/legislation.