Comment by trebligdivad
18 days ago
If they're here they tend to spend money, and employ people. That all ends up as tax slightly more indirectly.
18 days ago
If they're here they tend to spend money, and employ people. That all ends up as tax slightly more indirectly.
So what you are saying is, it eventually trickles down?
edit: The reality is they don't spend enough for it to offset the harms that wealth inequality brings.
I know a couple of people who have been using this London loophole as a way to avoid paying taxes anywhere at all. They are not residents here, they are not residents there, and their income is earnt globally. So they think they shouldn't have to pay tax to any particular country.
>edit: The reality is they don't spend enough for it to offset the harms that wealth inequality brings.
source? Has "the harms that wealth inequality brings" even been quantified?
Yes, and London is a case point for it: the affordability of housing. Anyway, I don't even need to trawl for links, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_economic_inequali... has plenty.
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Are they? Or are they there to outcompete ordinary people for houses, labour, etc?
We don't need a bigger market for luxury dog sitters or sports car manufacturing, better allocate those resources for childcare, elder care, or other chronically understaffed fields.
That's just arguing trickle down economics, which has a decades long story of failure.
>That's just arguing trickle down economics, which has a decades long story of failure.
Deng Xiaoping's "let some people get rich first" worked out pretty well.
This worked because China had very strong regulatory frameworks and redistribution was at center of that philosophy. The entire point of letting a few people get rich was that those people who get rich will need to pay taxes to redistribute that wealth around the country.
The people who hoard the wealth in the US actively attack regulation and avoid taxes so that they don't have to redistribute the wealth. At that point, you're a drain on the system.
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Likely you’ve been flagged because everyone on hackernews refuses to see themselves as working class and think that we’re the global elite that needs protecting.
“Failure” is of course subjective, but I would say that the gargantuan increase in wealth inequality is a datapoint in favour of suggesting that its a failed model.
Post-War consensus Britain was a golden age, and neoliberalism has been harmful to the quality of life for an overwhelming number of British people. This is just factual, by all the data we have.
They don’t need to be there to employ people, and they don’t spend as much as most people do as a portion of their income or wealth.
I'm not claiming they pay as much tax or spend as much as percentage; but they do spend money in the country; it might not be a fair amount etc - but it's a useful amount going into the pot. So if you emphasise fairness they leave and you have less tax to spend on the poor. As long as they're not actively doing bad things, I'd rather have the cash coming into the country.
If, say, a megarich person who only operated their business in that country left, would the economic system be hurt after the initial shock wore off? They aren’t like doing charity work; in principle it’s either net zero into and out of their companies or producing value by the function of the company, and if the latter then shouldn’t whatever niche they occupied before be quickly filled? I don’t really understand the economic logic, and I’d genuinely appreciate an explanation because maybe I’m just not informed.
And if they just pay tax like everyone else, even more tax!
slightly more indirect, with more loopholes with more of the cash exiting the cash flow cycle, choking the life out of the economy.
There are plenty of people with money, who do pay taxes, who can start those businesses. We don’t need trickle down economics in order to function as a society.
I employ people and I am not a billionaire. I also pay my taxes. Crazy I know.
Would you still pay if you knew for certain you'd get away with it? If yes, why, or why not?
Yes, I took from my community to get to where I am. I used libraries, roads, and social services. Ethically, it's only fair that you pay it back and give other people the same chance I had. If you have clean water coming out the tap then you benefit from people paying taxes.
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"slightly more indirectly" is an interesting way to say "by distorting local economies and politics around the idiosyncratic needs and desires of a very small number of uber-wealthy foreigners."