4 ms·
> Simply put, people vote with their feet, and the rich have the best shoes money can buy. I have been on vacations on Malta. It is a nice place for a vacation
by kartan 7y ago
> Simply put, people vote with their feet, and the rich have the best shoes money can buy.
I have been on vacations on Malta. It is a nice place for a vacation, but it is not the most interesting place in the world to live in.
Rich people are rich because they have access to luxury items, health care, transportations systems, etc. For all that to exist a complex society is needed where citizens have education, transport, health care, food safety, clean water, rule of law... and all that costs money, a lot of it.
If rich people leave that society, how rich are they? How easy is to just tax the business that produces wealth?
Malta, as a nice place as it is, cannot produce super-rich people. Is Malta decides to isolate itself it just becomes an inhabitable rock in the middle of the Mediterranean. The same goes for more tax havens.
Rich people will vote with their feet, but the economy will not care. Taxes are needed to generate any wealth independently of the tantrum of a few rich people.
- floatingatoll 7y agoIn a just world, the 100 countries signed on to the information sharing agreement would embargo travel to and from Malta and other countries that support evasion, with passport seizures at the border when their citizens enter with Malta passport stamp pending the outcome of a criminal investigation into their reason for visiting.
- Zarath 7y agoSounds like a great world!
- floatingatoll 7y agoI hope someday to be befriended by a wealthy person, so that I can better empathize with the trauma that such a policy would inflict on them, but I am poor because I funded someone’s book and have never known anyone rich enough to care about avoiding taxes. Perhaps someday I will have such a friend, but not today. Based on your reaction, I envy you that :(
- kgwgk 7y ago> [Malta] it is not the most interesting place in the world to live in. Rich people are rich because they have access to [...] If rich people leave that society, how rich are they? So you want to prevent rich people from moving to low-tax jurisdictions for their own good? How kind of you!
- karambazh 7y agoI agree with you that Malta may be not as vivid as London. However, its citizenship is still good for moving anywhere else in Europe, isn't it? I mean, it takes 1 year to "buy" it and then there is no need to reside there. (You may check it yourself, there is a detailed brochure here https://www.greenlion-immigration.com/countries/malta/ https://www.greenlion-immigration.com/countries/malta/)