So I'm going to rant about taxes because this is what the underlying issue is: the ultra-wealthy increasingly not contributing to the societies that made their

So I'm going to rant about taxes because this is what the underlying issue is: the ultra-wealthy increasingly not contributing to the societies that made their wealth possible and continue to make it possible. I'm reminded of the talk about the tax cuts passed last year. One of the reasons given for cutting the corporate tax rate is double taxation (paying corporate taxes then taxes on dividends). Australia has had a system for years that solves this problem. The concept is dividend franking. What this means is that if a company pays 30% corporate taxes on $1 and then passes you the remaining $0.70 as a dividend, you're actually getting two things: - Income of $1 - Credit for $0.30 tax paid If you're an offshore investor that tax credit gains you nothing. You don't need to file a tax return. You've paid $0.30 in taxes. If you're resident then if your marginal rate of tax is lower than 30% you'll get a refund on the difference. If it's 30%, no difference. If it's more than 30% you'll pay a little more. If the US/EU adopted such a system and also applied it in some form to capital gains a lot of these problems would simply go away. By this I mean that some form of withholding taxes are retained from capital gains that you get credit for in your taxes. This is a little trickier than dividends because you have to work out a cost basis but this is a solvable problem. Then you combine that with: - Revenue apportionment of profit. If you earn x% of your revenue in country A then country A taxes x% of your profit; and - Loans taken out in country A for $x when an entity has untaxed profits in country B is the same as repatriating $x. Then you have a much improved situation (IMHO). It also means things like buying citizenship, at least for tax purposes, largely goes away so who cares? Also, other than outright citizenship there are a number of so-called golden visa programs that give you a path to citizenship but are often much cheaper.