281–290 of 332 posts
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Being a software engineer in a EU country, you're definitely not a classically rich person. In USA, maybe? In EU not so much. There's so many professions (quite common at that) that earn more, or even much more than us.
Why aren’t software engineers valued more in EU?
This book argues actually its western countries like UK, US, and FR that benefit as rulers buy London, Paris or NYC flats in the names of offshore companies. https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Without-Borders-Power-Centr... Personally I think the correct response is to tax things rich people like in those countries. Specifically housing, high end cars etc. Putting beneficial owners on real estate makes total sense.
The London real estate market and maybe real estate dealers perhaps benefit. Most citizens of UK don't benefit from parts of London being actually empty for purposes of investment.
The recycling of third world dollars back to the West has been ongoing since the "patrodollars" of the 1970s. Those who get a piece of those dollars benefit, the average citizen Western nations haven't benefited from the tremendous economic imbalance this has created.
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This is the best lie ever told, "don't worry, these taxes wont affect YOU!". Every new tax inevitably falls onto the middle class, because they can't hire people to restructure their wealth and the poor pay no taxes. Lower taxes makes it less expensive for the rich to pay the government. Look at housing and food costs to see how the middle class are affected, they don't get welfare, social housing, or food stamps.
>Every new tax inevitably falls onto the middle class, because they can't hire people to restructure their wealth and the poor pay no taxes. That might be true of new taxes/tax increases created by those doing the bidding of the truly wealthy. In fact, it is true. But that's true of all possible new taxes, and increasing taxes on those with earned income over $400k will have ZERO impact on those who earn less (in ter…
We should put effort into compliance, instead of increases.
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Owns a reasonable home in a decent school district with a commute around 30 minutes. Eats out a few times a month. Takes 1-2 vacations a year. If upper middle class, savings adequate to gradually upgrade housing, send kids to University of State, etc. If regular middle class, home will be maintained against entropy and kids will take out student loans. Either way, will retire at the usual time. In some places $400k c…
> In some places $400k can give 8 families this life. In others not even one. It depends. Can you name a place, anywhere in the world, where $400k/yr is not enough to survive for one family?
>> the customers of offshore banks are likely to be from the wealthiest segment of whichever society they come from. What a surprising discovery. Governments with the most abusive tax policies still cannot realize that they cannot tax their way to prosperity. Most creative and productive people, entities and businessed did, do and will use any tools at their disposal to escape barbaric tax racket and turn their atten…
Do you think there's any level of taxation where a wealthy individual wouldn't want to do some "tax avoidance" in another jurisdiction? I suspect there is not.
Run on a road or highway? Pay a toll. Run a container through the ocean? Pay a fee for protection. Want to have nicer neighborhoods with better maintenance? Pay higher property taxes to your municipality.
You can't escape direct taxation. And as long as you keep competition between companies, municipalities and jurisdictions; the system will balance itself where individuals will pay what they are comfortable with by their own volition.
The current system is broken because a small bureaucratic minority has too much power over your own property (they can seize your property/money at random). It's also too easy to get popular votes and people onboard with it (free healthcare for everyone!).
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Great, but there are many more mid-six-figure earners who don't have >$10M in household net worth. And if you tax mid-six-figure earners, you get them, too. If you want to target wealth over $10M, tax wealth over $10M .
Are you excluding primary residence? A lot of paper millionaires due to lucky real estate
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Owns a reasonable home in a decent school district with a commute around 30 minutes. Eats out a few times a month. Takes 1-2 vacations a year. If upper middle class, savings adequate to gradually upgrade housing, send kids to University of State, etc. If regular middle class, home will be maintained against entropy and kids will take out student loans. Either way, will retire at the usual time. In some places $400k c…
> In some places $400k can give 8 families this life. In others not even one. It depends. Ummm, where exactly in the world is $400k per year not enough to survive? Monaco? If you earn $400k year after year, then you are earning enough to be "rich". But true, it's still possible to live beyond your means regardless of how much you earn and incur financial difficulty.
In San Francisco it's just about striking distance to the lifestyle I described. The commutes and the housing are generally a little worse.
If you want more insight into this with less pejorative language, ditch the ICIJ and the Brookings study and look at KPMG, Deloitte and PwC annual reports on the offshore industry. The also know what they are doing instead of trying to reverse engineer it like these studies are.
Is there some sort of issue with ICIJ reporting?
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The top 1% pay 6x more tax than the bottom 50%! It's obscene how much they pay and how a small group of individuals is forced to carry the entire country. Much, much more should be expected from the bottom 50%.
I am sorry for being rude but this comment is borderline idiotic. Do the words 'top' and 'bottom' perhaps mean something? Have you ever bothered to look at the distribution on wealth and income? The top 1% has more more wealth than the bottomn 50%, it is impossible for the bottom to contribute more than the top
"it is impossible for the bottom to contribute more than the top"
What I'm hoping for is a significantly more equitable contribution of the bottom 50 percent to broader society than what they're currently contributing. Something like a flat tax rate and a reduction in entitlements, perhaps, but I don't have conviction on the exact specifics.
This book argues actually its western countries like UK, US, and FR that benefit as rulers buy London, Paris or NYC flats in the names of offshore companies. https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Without-Borders-Power-Centr... Personally I think the correct response is to tax things rich people like in those countries. Specifically housing, high end cars etc. Putting beneficial owners on real estate makes total sense.
The book looks interesting but I'm not a fan on the spin you're apparently putting on it. The London real estate market and maybe real estate dealers perhaps benefit. Most citizens of UK don't benefit from parts of London being actually empty for purposes of investment. The recycling of third world dollars back to the West has been ongoing since the "patrodollars" of the 1970s. Those who get a piece of those dollars…