6 ms·
Small island nations (or smaller countries in general) don't have the muscle large nations do. You're not going to build a production facility for cars on Malta
by charlesdm 8y ago
Small island nations (or smaller countries in general) don't have the muscle large nations do. You're not going to build a production facility for cars on Malta, for example.
There is nothing wrong with them having a beneficial tax system if it means people will relocate and spend money there while paying (some) tax.
What does a country like Malta, Cyprus or Monaco honestly have to lose by being a tax haven?
- velcro 8y agoAgreed. Smaller nations/states almost have to do that to remain competitive. Especially the newer EU member states that have been experiencing an incredible amount of brain-drain i.e. people moving to bigger/"richer" countries. Bigger countries profit from that while smaller die out - unless they make themselves more attractive somehow. To some extent its happening within bigger countries as well with urbanisation - in Germany for example villages that are not close to bigger urban centres have the same problem. Whether you call it a "tax haven" or subsidising - in practice its virtually the same thing. Of course you need some rules in place to prevent creative tax practices by multinationals (like linking taxation to physical presence) - but its a do or die sort of thing.
- fukubish 8y ago> There is nothing wrong with them having a beneficial tax system [...] Yes there is. I wish we could throw them out of the union already.
- charlesdm 8y agoCyprus, Ireland, Hungary, (for now) the UK, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia etc all have relatively low corporate tax rates and beneficial tax systems. Shall we also throw them out while we're at it?
- fukubish 8y agoThe greatest failure of the EU is it's inability to create fair taxation and fair competition within it's so called "free trade zone".
- jandrese 8y agoThe Euro is living proof that a shared currency with individual monetary policy is a lot of trouble in the long run. Greece is still learning this lesson.
- geezerjay 8y agoTruth be told, the majority of Greece's problems sprung from how past greek governments cooked the state's books to hide its perpetually massive deficit and ever increasing debt in order to keep borrowing more cash and keep the structural deficit high.
- charlesdm 8y agoThe fact that Europe didn't even check the books (or worse, didn't care about their accounting) is more worrying, though!
- geezerjay 8y agoWhat do you mean? Europe doesn't have the right to just waltz into a member state's finance ministry and rummage through the documents.
- jandrese 8y agoAnd that's the fundamental problem with the shared currency without shared monetary policy. Someone cheats and it makes a huge mess for everybody.
- charlesdm 8y agoAnd yet, it seems like basic due diligence seems like a good approach when "acquiring" an extra member state when one bad member can bring the whole house down.
- jpatokal 8y agoDyson may have missed your memo: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/23/dyson-to-begin-construction-of-singapore-electric-car-factory-in-december-production-begins-in-2021/ https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/23/dyson-to-begin-construc...
- dmos62 8y ago> What does a country like Malta, Cyprus or Monaco honestly have to lose by being a tax haven? Simplisticly speaking, they only gain from being tax havens. Point is that everyone else looses. Taxing is a zero-sum situation where if you pay taxes in one place, you don't pay them somewhere else. So this is a nonsensical, because essentially the other countries' taxes are rendered optional. Why pay the whole thing, when you can do some corporate gymnastics and pay less to a tax haven? It comes down to what in the socialist context is referred to as solidarity. In this case, if you want to tax something, everyone has to agree to that. If there are notable exceptions, it doesn't work. Malta is an example of a notable exception.