this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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NeoFrance
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Oh noes, anyway
Believe it or not, having your highest taxpayers and also investors leave the country isn't a good thing for everyone else.
Believe it or not but most of them don't pay taxes like normal people who have an actual job of working for someone.
They don't get income tax the same way as we do. And are you seriously telling me that those who own companies and industries will actually physically move them? No, industry doesn't work like that. They can sell it off and someone else will take over. So no loss there.
What that article is trying to cry is that "trickle down economics works" which is clearly bullshit.
And yet they still do pay way more taxes than the average middle-class taxpayer. In France, the top 10% pay 2/3 of the income tax. Effective total tax+contribution rate for the very top 0.001% is still over 36% on taxable income or 26% on "economic income" (their company profits)
So yeah that's a lot of taxes that go away when those taxpayers leave. The whole "please leave DGAF" spiel surely feels good to say but the reality is that this is shooting yourself in the foot.
This is without even talking about the loss of investment, jobs and consumption.
If they leave, it will open more work opportunities for others. So more taxes in the end.
Why would anyone take over with the same tax issue? Those jobs will move.
Because people just don't sit around doing nothing all day long. Most people tends to want to do something meaningful with their life. If there are work opportunities, they will be taken if the work is meaningful.
If rich people leave the country, it will allow lots of smaller companies to take over the market and pay taxes. They will pay less taxes, but more companies will be able to survive due to the absence of a big company own by a rich person that by design kills small businesses.
You don't replace an experienced neurosurgeon or a star footballer like that. And even if you find such person, they'll look at the tax rate and see that they can sell their skill in another country just as well. As for companies, they'll set up shop abroad and ship the final product across the border.
Unless you run a country with closed borders like North Korea, your economic base and talents will "leak".
We don't talk about the same rich people. I talk about rich company owners (top 1% rich), you talk about liberal professions (top 10 to 5%).
For the one you talk about, they could already leave and don't, so they prefer to stay in a country that taxes them rather than leave. Not everybody wants to leave their homeland even for more money, especially in a country like France with an overall good quality of life. I would say most people don't.
What is important isn't the taxe rate, but the fact that, even with high taxe rate these people still manage to have a greater income that most of the population.
Plus more taxes, means more public services, public services that also benefit star footballers (do we even need those?) and neurosurgeons. For instance if there is a better public health care system, everyone (including the rich) won't have to pay for private health insurance, so they spend less money.
That's not how people who studies and works hard to reach incomes in the 100k€'s think. Societies where people are just paid what the government think they need have existed, they all failed because ultimately money DOES motivates people quite a bit.
Those won't be replaced, they'll just move across the border (every single country around France has lower taxes) and enjoy lower taxes while still being shareholders of their French business. Except when they need to invest, they'll likely look around their new host country because that's where they are.
Studies find happiness stops being related with money at some point (5000€ per month if I remember correctly). Maybe we can stop listening to rich people and just studies about happiness...
I'd say, it all comes to the society we want. Do we want to keep believing that being richer than everyone else is a good way of life or not ? If not giving back money to the community seems a good start...
Past societies failed for a large number of reasons, including money accumulation. What society do you have in mind exactly.
Taxing more rich people is also making them pay for their part in climate change, as they are the biggest contributors to it at an individual level.
Lastly it all comes to do we want or not move away from the liberal capitalism? France is the 7th economic power in the world, it should be able to switch if it wants to. And in the end it isn't to the rich to decide that, but if they don't want to be French anymore, they should quit as the bunch of crybabies they are (if you know what I mean :).
But humans don't base their entire life on studies, otherwise nobody would ever smoke, drink, go on holidays (dangerous and costly!) or have children (ruinous and time consuming). Societies have to be built based on the reality of humans, not some ideal human. The history of every communist experiment shows that it doesn't work.
That's a moral argument, not an economical or ecological argument. If climate change is what you want to fix, you need a carbon tax, not taxing the rich. (this will end up somewhat taxing the rich too, but as a side-effect)
Again it's a moral argument. France is part of the EU, it needs to trade and commerce with the world, it is heavily in debt and relies on foreign investors to pays the bills. You can't just ignore the world, shut down every border and run your own little economic experiment. This will fail like it always has.
You are driving hard the trickle down shitonomics. It doesn't work. So just stop it and read up the subject.
If no one else wants to take over key industries, i am happy for the government go bring them under public ownership for a peppecorn. If they leave, they had no loyalty to either their employees nor the country. I don't want such people here anyway. This is what UK is planning to do with railways (privatising them was a complete disaster) and energy companies (UK bills are some of the highest in eurozone yet bit energy companies are reporting profits after profits).
Local profits should stay in their local countries so fuck all those non-doms if they want to leave. I am going to be happy when the government finally takes over franchises that were designed to be asset stripped with impunity.
It was only 5 years ago that we got button operated doors on westbound london trains. 5 fucking years ago. Previously you had to pull down the window and open the door from the outside by sticking your hand out. What in victorian hell do we live in in 2018?
If the mega rich leave, good i will be singing and dancing as the government finally take sover key industries and its going to be less under effect from whims of their retarded ceos (looking at musk here).
With this kind of thinking you won't change nothing, because of the economic entanglement of countries worldwide. Economic links that should leads to world peace and benefit to all. But what do we see of the promises of worldwide liberal capitalism ? Wars, nations corrupted by companies, world organisations ill-organised to benefit the rich countries, wealth concentration, mass media manipulation, tech ownership concentration and so on. There are some good things either, don't get me wrong (like technological progress and an overall better life condition for most people).
But without moral arguments all this described above will just continue as it is. We should arg about what is moral and what isn't and agree on this before trying to find solutions I think... Like is it moral or 'good' to have 100 000 times more wealth than an another person ?
And the biggest mistake is thinking that your arguments aren't morals and ideological either, because they are. Where did I say 'shut all borders’? I didn't say that. I say taxe the rich and good riddance if they leave and 'pouf' it's closing the borders like we set the north Korean regime in France. That's a bit farfetched, don't you think ? An economic system is a tool not an end. If you can't do the thing you want with the one you have, just look for another one.
Yes societies should be based on what humans wants : having food and shelter, taking good care of kids, and have a meaningful life (like having fun, enjoying things). Not being rich but be safe mostly. You think the occidental capitalist society is made for healthy people ? That's naive, it's made for depressed an addicted workers, who will be unsecured enough to not leave their job, sick and depressed to buy useless shits, insurances and meds. It's also made for social inadapted persons who are willing to do 'whatever it takes' to rise above the others. And yes it is not a moral society, because it just can't stand any moral criticism to a point to discard climate change as if it was a religious belief. Climate change is a phenomenon that have known causes and we know that some entities are more responsible for it than others.
The fun thing is human do need moral at a personal level to function properly...
You talk about communism, I'm pretty sure everybody agree that the kind of communism that was wasn't good at all, because it gets power away from people rather than granting the power to people. And as a comparison, we tried to let the market free and unregulated in France (19th century) : it was a 'fun' time where children were put to work, workers weren't allowed to have free time because they were 'lazy' and they were scarcely paid because working 12h a day wasn't apparently enough to gain more money according to the market. All this was and still is bs.