EU Elections

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

If someone makes 500k a year I'm pretty sure they can afford to find an accountant that will help set up tax shelters somewhere. If I'm a high income earner and I'm about to get taxed 75% I'll pay a pretty large sum of money to find any loophole possible to avoid paying tax. I haven't seen the legislation and I don't know anything about European tax laws, so that's just my opinion.

I highly doubt people with that kind of money are going to sit back and say "well this sucks. Here's my 375k in tax because this government deserves it".

I can't disagree with the thrust of your post. However, the premise laid out by Captain Crunch is that these people will move to another country.

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

I can't disagree with the thrust of your post. However, the premise laid out by Captain Crunch is that these people will move to another country.

Maybe not PHYSICALLY move.......lol

I see it a lot in Canada, moreso for the health benefits. People live abroad and hold houses in their home countries (mostly the middle east), but spend the minimum amount of time in Canada so as to not lose citizenship. It's probably pretty easy to do it in the EU due to the proximity of all the countries.

Again, I'm only making an assumption as I have no idea what the tax structures are in places like France that are proposing these tax structures.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

I can't disagree with the thrust of your post. However, the premise laid out by Captain Crunch is that these people will move to another country.

The kind of wealth we are talking about here is such that they just change their primary address, say a few extra months in the Villa in Tuscany rather than the apartment in Paris, a hey presto they no longer get taxed.

These are mostly highly mobile people who schlep themselves all over the world anyway

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

I can't disagree with the thrust of your post. However, the premise laid out by Captain Crunch is that these people will move to another country.

I'm sure you know exactly what the Captain meant when he said 'move.'

It can mean move their money, move their home, move their business...move whatever, but the point is when you have taxes at the rather extreme level of 75% for 'wealthy' people, they will make damn sure they do everything possible to not pay those kind of taxes.

Now, if you want to say that a company having to pay 18% as opposed to 15%, I would agree that it probably doesn't make a huge difference. Corporate tax rates should be fair, and according to the needs of the country.

Here in Canada we're ALMOST running a surplus. If they wouldn't have cut the GST, we would have a surplus. Which means we don't need additional revenue, so there is no reason to raise the corporate tax rate, or tax the 'wealthy' even more.

How did we get there? Through reforms that were mostly carried out by the evil Liberals and their wacko of a leader Chretien. Guy might have been a tool as far as the west was concerned, but he had the balls to do what needed to be done in order to keep our welfare system sustainable. Europe on the other hand doesn't seem to want to do ANY of that.

[Finner]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

Just out of curiosity, do we know of any examples of this? Many people repeat this claim, but I don't know of many examples wherein a wealthy / ultra-rich businessperson (or what have you) moved to another country because of the tax rates*. I'm trying hard to name one example, but I'm having trouble coming up with any.

I know I would never move to, say, Hong Kong just because taxes were low. Would you? No offense to Hong Kong (or wherever), but it's just not my country or home. Do we think a few rich businessmen from Nice are going to move to Miami? I really, really doubt it.


* I'm excluding cases wherein people effectively move into lower tax rate countries as an ancillary effect of escaping a repressive country. I think we can agree that escaping a totalitarian state is the primary driver for such people, not their tax rates.


Edit:

A corollary of this scenario may have already provided our answer: Did the wealthy and ultra-rich migrate back into the USA in the early 80s?

Here's one:

http://www.advisorone.com/2012/02/23...han-before-tax

In Britain they raised the tax rate significantly and found they earned far less in tax revenue, as the wealthy could afford to either not pay themselves, utilize different tax credits or move.

[NBC]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

Just out of curiosity, do we know of any examples of this? Many people repeat this claim, but I don't know of many examples wherein a wealthy / ultra-rich businessperson (or what have you) moved to another country because of the tax rates*. I'm trying hard to name one example, but I'm having trouble coming up with any.

I know I would never move to, say, Hong Kong just because taxes were low. Would you? No offense to Hong Kong (or wherever), but it's just not my country or home. Do we think a few rich businessmen from Nice are going to move to Miami? I really, really doubt it.


* I'm excluding cases wherein people effectively move into lower tax rate countries as an ancillary effect of escaping a repressive country. I think we can agree that escaping a totalitarian state is the primary driver for such people, not their tax rates.


Edit:

A corollary of this scenario may have already provided our answer: Did the wealthy and ultra-rich migrate back into the USA in the early 80s?

This happened in the UK in the early 1970s under successive Labour governments. Denis Healey became the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1974 under Harold Wilson. According to the Telegraph, "When Lord Healey was chancellor the top rate of tax was 83 per cent, and the rate on unearned income was 98 per cent. Before becoming chancellor he had promised the Labour Party that taxes would rise and that there would be “howls of anguish from those rich enough to suffer”.

As a result of Britain's dire economic outlook and oppressive tax scheme, there was an exodus of high-earners that went into tax exile, ironically, many left for France.

While the list is by no means comprehensive, here are some who had:

The Rolling Stones
Rod Stewart
Tom Jones
Pink Floyd
Shirley Bassey
David Bowie
Michael Caine
Sean Connery
Ringo Starr
George Harrison
Led Zeppelin
The Who
Freddie Mercury
Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol
Robert Gaines-Cooper

There is a distinct lack of British businesspeople on the list due to the differences in Britain's corporation tax scheme.

[CaptainCrunch]

some other thoughts, if you do jack up the tax rate to 75% there will be some people that physically leave, there will be some people that leave in a more unique sense in that they will move as many of their assets and their physical addresses somewhere else and get their paychecks forwarded there for example.

There will be a downturn in domestic investment by these people if things get repressive enough.

Its easy for a government to sit there and become popular by saying basically "Hang the rich", the poor and the middle class will cheer, but in the end they suffer.

Governments seem to detest the hard work of ammending their tax laws to close loop holes, and to go after the people in any class that aren't paying income tax. One of the problems in Greece was that they didn't go after tax cheats, its a similar problem in Canada and the U.S. where you have a pretty good percentage of your population that's not paying any taxes on your income in any of the classes.

I do think that the fairest thing is to go to a flat tax structure, if you earn an income 20% comes off the top. No loop holes. If you do that you could kill a huge chunk of the tax system that just sits there and does calculations on tax returns. you would probably kill a lobby group or two, you would kill the guys that sit there and create or figure out loopholes. H+R Block would probably die and you would need a calculator and an online form that would take 20 seconds to do.

Taxes on themselves are economically repressive, a system that punishes people for being successful even more so.

In other news, Germany has already said a deal is a deal to Greece on cuts. Don't live up to the cuts don't get money.

Same kind of news with France's new leader going in to see Angela this week, he might talk about the end of Austerity but those cuts are going to have to happen.

In other news Greece's voter lashback has given the Golden Dawn Party a near 7% share of seats which in their fractured parliment could be a pretty powerful number of seats.

Golden Dawn is anti-immigrant and a militant group that has put on basically white power concerts in the past, they are also linked to several violent attacks against immigrants and Jewish Synagogues. They even have a black shirt army.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

In other news Greece's voter lashback has given the Golden Dawn Party a near 7% share of seats which in their fractured parliment could be a pretty powerful number of seats.

Golden Dawn is anti-immigrant and a militant group that has put on basically white power concerts in the past, they are also linked to several violent attacks against immigrants and Jewish Synagogues. They even have a black shirt army.

The National Post calls them outright Neo-Nazi's:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05...fear-has-come/

Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn won its first seats in the Greek parliament since the end of the military junta in 1974, winning 21 out of 300 seats.
The party’s leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, warned rivals and reformers that “the time for fear has come” after his breakthrough.

“The time for fear has come for those who betrayed this homeland,” he said at a news conference, flanked by young men with shaved heads.

“We are coming.”

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by chemgear

The National Post calls them outright Neo-Nazi's:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05...fear-has-come/

Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn won its first seats in the Greek parliament since the end of the military junta in 1974, winning 21 out of 300 seats.
The party’s leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, warned rivals and reformers that “the time for fear has come” after his breakthrough.

“The time for fear has come for those who betrayed this homeland,” he said at a news conference, flanked by young men with shaved heads.

“We are coming.”

Not to brag, but I've predicted in the distant past that we will see the rise of European facism again this century as more and more of these nations drown in their own debt, they will externalize the current issue and blame it on immigration influences and nationalism will rise as nations like Greece and Spain will blame outside influences like Germany for their problems.

While we won't see true malignant facism like we saw in Germany and to an extent Japan and Italy where they become militiarist repressive regimes that decide to deal with what they perceive as an immigration problem with harsh measures (not extermination, but ejection), a victory of 20 seats out of 300 is significant in that those seats could become vital in any coalition.

We've seen a lot of these race based nation first parties rise up over the last few years, and they aren't as marginalized as they used to be.

[chemgear]

Speaking of coalitions:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2...aftermath.html

The leader of the runner-up party in Greece's national election has rejected a coalition with the winning conservative party, raising fears the fractured parliament won't be able to implement critical economic reforms agreed to under an international bailout deal.

Following 40-minute talks Monday with conservative leader Antonis Samaras, the leader of the Radical Left Coalition, Alexis Tsipras, said the two parties' views were diametrically opposed. He demanded the cancellation of austerity measures many blame for deepening economic woes.

[CaptainCrunch]

I think they have 30 days to form a government or else they go back to the polls again, at least that's what my fuzzy brain is saying.

[Slava]

So let me ask you what you guys would do if you were in charge of Greece at this point? Honestly if it were me I would probably stop the austerity measures, default and take it from there.

I say this because at this point the people who get stung by a Greek default (in terms of real impact here, not shockwaves) are the bankers who lent them the money. Was it silly for Greece to take all that money and expect that they would somehow be able to pay it back? Sure, likely not a brilliant move, but then again the lenders bear some of that responsibility as well. As far as the actual issues that Greece face for defaulting, a lot of that is there already. Might as well leave the Euro, print some cash and begin the healing process.

[chemgear]

^ From what I can see, they gotta leave the Euro. Go back to their own currency so they can at least control its value (ie. devalue it)

As to who gets stung though, a lot of the debts are held in the Euro (Germany and France if I recall correctly - I'll see if I can find that graphic again.) Additionally, some people fear that when other countries like Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain see Greece leave - it would open up the possibility for them to do the same that much more easily. People aren't really saying it in the open but when you're sitting at 25% unemployment, I can easily see Spain start thinking about it seriously for example. As it continues, populations could end up voting in parties that advocate leaving the union regardless of is "best for the Euro as a whole."

EDIT: Here is the graphic from a while back. I believe it is from 2010? So there will be some slight shuffles in the numbers but they will almost all be higher:

[Jacks]

^^
Those numbers are staggering.

[Notorious Honey Badger]

Greeks gave the neo nazis a lot of votes. Shame on them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti....html?ITO=1490

'This victory is devoted to all the brave boys with the black T-shirts and the white letters reading Golden Dawn,' Mihaloliakos said. 'Those who betrayed the motherland - you should be scared now.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz1uDILiGgM

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Slava

So let me ask you what you guys would do if you were in charge of Greece at this point? Honestly if it were me I would probably stop the austerity measures, default and take it from there.

I say this because at this point the people who get stung by a Greek default (in terms of real impact here, not shockwaves) are the bankers who lent them the money. Was it silly for Greece to take all that money and expect that they would somehow be able to pay it back? Sure, likely not a brilliant move, but then again the lenders bear some of that responsibility as well. As far as the actual issues that Greece face for defaulting, a lot of that is there already. Might as well leave the Euro, print some cash and begin the healing process.

I don't know if anyone has the guts to do what has to be done. Most of the Austerity is around cutting the civil service, hacking the bloated pensions and making people work longer.

These are things that I wouldn't even call Austerity, I think they have to be called realistic things that have to done no matter how much people whine and cry about it.

I was reading that two out of 10 people work for the government, if those figures are right that a big problem that they really need to rectify no matter what the cost.

They have a severe tax collection problem I would make sure that I'm tearing after that and collecting for at least the last 10 years.

I would push the retirement age to 67, and I would increase pension deductions on paychecks.

Basically they're a stupidly run banana republic populated by spoiled brats who have had it way beyond good for too long.

So yes, I would continue to push to get spending under control and live up to the bailout conditions.

If Greece defaults on their loans, they are also going to be forced to default on pension payouts and paychecks to their bloated civil services and retirees and other ridiculous payouts.

If they do default they're basically only going to get international loans if they find a international money mart that challenges credit card style interest.

If they do establish their own currency, it will be completely valuless on the international stage which means that the required goods that they bring in that they don't produce will cost a fortune and be unaffordable.

As much as its romantic to say forget Asterity lets stimulate and spend ourselves out of this hole, the issue isn't stimulating their economy anymore, its gutting generations of bad management and terrible policies that have spoiled their own people.

Now on the second day in office after my assasination, what happens.


I think Slava the other question is you wake up this morning in the German Chancellers body, after you spend several hours exploring your new found boobs, what do you do?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Notorious Honey Badger

Man I got through that maze in like a second, I need a bigger challenge.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know if anyone has the guts to do what has to be done. Most of the Austerity is around cutting the civil service, hacking the bloated pensions and making people work longer.

These are things that I wouldn't even call Austerity, I think they have to be called realistic things that have to done no matter how much people whine and cry about it.

I was reading that two out of 10 people work for the government, if those figures are right that a big problem that they really need to rectify no matter what the cost.

They have a severe tax collection problem I would make sure that I'm tearing after that and collecting for at least the last 10 years.

I would push the retirement age to 67, and I would increase pension deductions on paychecks.

Basically they're a stupidly run banana republic populated by spoiled brats who have had it way beyond good for too long.

So yes, I would continue to push to get spending under control and live up to the bailout conditions.

If Greece defaults on their loans, they are also going to be forced to default on pension payouts and paychecks to their bloated civil services and retirees and other ridiculous payouts.

If they do default they're basically only going to get international loans if they find a international money mart that challenges credit card style interest.

If they do establish their own currency, it will be completely valuless on the international stage which means that the required goods that they bring in that they don't produce will cost a fortune and be unaffordable.

As much as its romantic to say forget Asterity lets stimulate and spend ourselves out of this hole, the issue isn't stimulating their economy anymore, its gutting generations of bad management and terrible policies that have spoiled their own people.

Now on the second day in office after my assasination, what happens.


I think Slava the other question is you wake up this morning in the German Chancellers body, after you spend several hours exploring your new found boobs, what do you do?

I don't think that they should try to spend their way out, but I do think that they should default. The more obvious elephant in the room and a question that is being answered from the results is whether austerity really works anyway? When you look at countries like Hungary, which were amongst the first to use these measures, and see the same problems a few years later its a fairly obvious answer that no one wants to hear.

So then you have to wonder. If austerity isn't working, and the bailouts are only coming if they're tied to austerity then how do you right the ship? Eventually you have to scrap things and basically start anew; that means defaulting, and printing money along with collecting taxes and rebuilding. I'm not even sure how viable that is, but I don't know what else could be done.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by Slava

I say this because at this point the people who get stung by a Greek default (in terms of real impact here, not shockwaves) are the bankers who lent them the money.

This is a genuine question as I'm horribly ignorant of these things. Will the rest of the world let that happen? I would be interested to see which banks would be on the hook for that and how many of them are German, English, America, and such. Do they have enough clout to make sure they get their money back?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Slava

I don't think that they should try to spend their way out, but I do think that they should default. The more obvious elephant in the room and a question that is being answered from the results is whether austerity really works anyway? When you look at countries like Hungary, which were amongst the first to use these measures, and see the same problems a few years later its a fairly obvious answer that no one wants to hear.

So then you have to wonder. If austerity isn't working, and the bailouts are only coming if they're tied to austerity then how do you right the ship? Eventually you have to scrap things and basically start anew; that means defaulting, and printing money along with collecting taxes and rebuilding. I'm not even sure how viable that is, but I don't know what else could be done.

the problem in my mind with stimulus spending in countries like Greece etc is that it won't work because they're so screwed up and procedurally wrecked that it won't restart their econonomy. Stimulus spending in Canada, and to a minor extend the U.S. and other countries is that they had decent economic fundementals that supported spending to stimulate your economy.

But when your in debt to the point that your annual debt interest servicing outstrips your annual GDP you can't stimulate out of it by aquiring more debt.

Even defaulting and going to your own currency where you start at zero isn't going to help. Your currency is going to be completely valueless outside of your borders. Unless you dramatically drop your cost of labor and business taxation you're not going to get international investment, and you can't borrow because your interest rate is so high that your in the hole before you start.

Austerity hasn't worked because countries like Greece and Spain and others refuse to go whole hog and use Austerity as an opportunity to fix the fundemental cultural problems with your country.

Unless Greece breaks the unions, breaks the pension system and makes it more realistic and hardcore collects on current and past taxation debt, printing your own money and defaulting to zero is going to make little difference.

Greece also needs to cut their ridiculous civil service down by 3/4, there's no reason to have two civil servants for every 10 citizens, which means that even if you cut the civil service in half, your unemployment accelerates to about 20 to 25%, which becomes a unrecoverable employment crisis.

So in confusion. Default reset to zero and unless you gut everything your screwd.

Follow Austerity but at least get money coming into your economy and gut everything which probably destroys your own economy.

The Greek people are actually becoming their own worst enemies but they don't see it, until they do they're f%%ked.

But I believe your a lot smarter then me on this stuff Slava so I'm probably missing something.