6 ms·

> tax and legal purposes This may be terribly naive, but doesn't that make the business de-facto illegal? What kind of legitimate business deserves to buck pay

> tax and legal purposes This may be terribly naive, but doesn't that make the business de-facto illegal? What kind of legitimate business deserves to buck paying into the systems that support them? As a default I want to disagree, but I would like to know what business needs to operate outside of these constraints. Surely the businesses utilizing the favours of banks like Cayman are not being operated within tyrannical countries (which is the first and only reasoning I can see for operating in the manor you prescribed). The very fact that they operate this way seems shady to me.

seibelj 7y ago
I still can’t believe it’s legal to move from SF to Texas if you were born and raised in SF. You owe the good people of San Francisco repayment for raising and nurturing you. Leaving after all that education and local services is a corrupt tax-dodge into a state without income tax.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  I'm not American, and most people aren't. You might need to tailor your metaphor. That said, I disagree. Context matters. The comment above isn't talking about moving a business, it's only talking about operating with as little fiscal impunity as possible. Or at least it reads that way—which is why I was asking for more input.
- jxramos 7y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Un...
  - seibelj 7y ago
    There’s legality and morality. Moving all my wealth to Cayman (or Texas) may be 100% legal but I thought we were debating ethics. All of these HNers decamping from NYC and SF to Florida and Texas are horrible awful people depriving the local governments of California and New York their deserved taxes!
    - tossAfterUsing 7y ago
      When you say "deserved taxes", what precisely is the reasoning behind this deservedness? it seems to me that there's no reasonable way to lay claim to the work product of another person without being a total jerk... maybe i'm mistaken.
      - seibelj 7y ago
        It's mind blowing to me that people get angry about moving wealth to a lower tax country like Cayman, but are totally milquetoast about moving someplace within the same country that has the same effect of lowering one's effective taxation. If you are worked up about this Cayman thing, then you should be apoplectic if your neighbor moves to Texas or Florida. What horrible, disgusting people who are leaving their former communities to rot! They raised taxes on the rich in order to transfer more wealth to the community, and then the rich up and leave! Such completely selfish actions are galling and it fills me with anger, as it should any self-respecting person. We need the government to track where people live each day, and then make them pay their taxes proportional to where they lived for the rest of their lives. It's only fair to the communities that protected and nurtured them. We need to outlaw each and every tax dodge. Clipping coupons deprives the state of their sales tax, as the total price is on goods is lowered which reduces the total tax bill, which is why I'm against coupons. How long will we allow this madness to continue?
        stjohnswarts 7y ago
        LOL maybe those communities should adopt some sane taxing policies instead of going all in on Nimbyism and "Imma take all your stuff because I know better how to dole it out".
        cm2187 7y ago
        Well, it’s called competition and I think it is a healthy feedback force.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Texas receives more federal dollars than it contributes. The real tax dodge is perpetrated by state governments that manipulate the federal budget to their benefit.
  - stjohnswarts 7y ago
    That's a lie. Texas pays more in federal taxes than it receives.
    - youdontknowtho 7y ago
      Thats not a lie, Texas breaks even some years and not on others. The surrounding states are wildly dependent on federal money at the same time they insult the people of the states that contribute to their own upkeep.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  > I still can’t believe it’s legal to move from SF to Texas if you were born and raised in SF. You owe the good people of San Francisco repayment for raising and nurturing you. Leaving after all that education and local services is a corrupt tax-dodge into a state without income tax. Lol you again. How many times must you hear this to understand: Total freedom implies freedom of movement. You do not own people. You never will. You have no moral basis.
  - ChainOfFools 7y ago
    pretty sure OP was sarcastically trying to highlight the possibility that some premises may not be safe to leave unexamined. though tone is much more something I'd expect to see on Reddit than HN, it's a valid criticism.
    - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
      No. He has repeatedly made the same comment (or "meme", "canard"). It is not insightful commentary; it is not much more beyond propaganda at this point. California has made horrible financial decisions for over a decade. To pretend it is somehow moral to trap people and their wealth to those decisions is complete insanity. Also it won't work, to point out the obvious.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Pleased to see the "no borders" argument being made, but the more important one is to the south of California.
- hedvig 7y ago
  Terrible analogy.
CaymanCruiser 7y ago
>This may be terribly naive, but doesn't that make the business de-facto illegal? What kind of legitimate business deserves to buck paying into the systems that support them? As a default I want to disagree, but I would like to know what business needs to operate outside of these constraints. These constraints that you speak of are entirely arbitrary (geographical delineation) and were designed for a time before the internet. I would instead ask the question why Western governments are refusing to get with the changing tides and reform their archaic taxation codes to account for an increasingly globalised economy. >Surely the businesses utilizing the favours of banks like Cayman are not being operated within tyrannical countries (which is the first and only reasoning I can see for operating in the manor you prescribed). Not at all. There certainly exists a subgroup of individuals, companies, and institutions that operate in jurisdictions where there is a huge amount of uncertainty, but there is also a very large contingent that offshores their business to reduce regulatory burden and reduce tax liabilities, many of whom are individuals and companies that you and I have heard of. I doubt they will be using Cayman National Bank though, it is more likely that they will be using banks that you and I have also heard of like Barclays or DBS.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  I'm sorry but that just sounds absurdly reductive to me. It makes a gross assumption that people are incapable of keeping their government in check. Perhaps, in spite of my own cynicism, I believe people are capable of deciding how they want their societies to run (also in spite of our hiccups here in the Western world). So again: why do such businesses deserve to operate with such impunity? A natural function of business is risk. Subverting reasonable social good is an active harm that is reasonable given the circumstances (like an ambulance or fire truck asserting the right of way on a city street), but I fail to see why that should apply to any and all business. I'll be happy to be convinced otherwise—but I doubt I will be. I know you're speaking out under the condition of anonymity, so I won't ask which business you're operating or employed by but I am immensely curious about which industry you're representing. It would help much in understanding your perspective.
  - Concrescator 7y ago

seibelj 7y ago

I still can’t believe it’s legal to move from SF to Texas if you were born and raised in SF. You owe the good people of San Francisco repayment for raising and nurturing you. Leaving after all that education and local services is a corrupt tax-dodge into a state without income tax.

52-6F-62 7y ago
I'm not American, and most people aren't. You might need to tailor your metaphor. That said, I disagree. Context matters. The comment above isn't talking about moving a business, it's only talking about operating with as little fiscal impunity as possible. Or at least it reads that way—which is why I was asking for more input.
jxramos 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Un...
- seibelj 7y ago
  There’s legality and morality. Moving all my wealth to Cayman (or Texas) may be 100% legal but I thought we were debating ethics. All of these HNers decamping from NYC and SF to Florida and Texas are horrible awful people depriving the local governments of California and New York their deserved taxes!
  - tossAfterUsing 7y ago
    When you say "deserved taxes", what precisely is the reasoning behind this deservedness? it seems to me that there's no reasonable way to lay claim to the work product of another person without being a total jerk... maybe i'm mistaken.
    - seibelj 7y ago
      It's mind blowing to me that people get angry about moving wealth to a lower tax country like Cayman, but are totally milquetoast about moving someplace within the same country that has the same effect of lowering one's effective taxation. If you are worked up about this Cayman thing, then you should be apoplectic if your neighbor moves to Texas or Florida. What horrible, disgusting people who are leaving their former communities to rot! They raised taxes on the rich in order to transfer more wealth to the community, and then the rich up and leave! Such completely selfish actions are galling and it fills me with anger, as it should any self-respecting person. We need the government to track where people live each day, and then make them pay their taxes proportional to where they lived for the rest of their lives. It's only fair to the communities that protected and nurtured them. We need to outlaw each and every tax dodge. Clipping coupons deprives the state of their sales tax, as the total price is on goods is lowered which reduces the total tax bill, which is why I'm against coupons. How long will we allow this madness to continue?
      - stjohnswarts 7y ago
        LOL maybe those communities should adopt some sane taxing policies instead of going all in on Nimbyism and "Imma take all your stuff because I know better how to dole it out".
        cm2187 7y ago
        Well, it’s called competition and I think it is a healthy feedback force.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Texas receives more federal dollars than it contributes. The real tax dodge is perpetrated by state governments that manipulate the federal budget to their benefit.
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  That's a lie. Texas pays more in federal taxes than it receives.
  - youdontknowtho 7y ago
    Thats not a lie, Texas breaks even some years and not on others. The surrounding states are wildly dependent on federal money at the same time they insult the people of the states that contribute to their own upkeep.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
> I still can’t believe it’s legal to move from SF to Texas if you were born and raised in SF. You owe the good people of San Francisco repayment for raising and nurturing you. Leaving after all that education and local services is a corrupt tax-dodge into a state without income tax. Lol you again. How many times must you hear this to understand: Total freedom implies freedom of movement. You do not own people. You never will. You have no moral basis.
- ChainOfFools 7y ago
  pretty sure OP was sarcastically trying to highlight the possibility that some premises may not be safe to leave unexamined. though tone is much more something I'd expect to see on Reddit than HN, it's a valid criticism.
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    No. He has repeatedly made the same comment (or "meme", "canard"). It is not insightful commentary; it is not much more beyond propaganda at this point. California has made horrible financial decisions for over a decade. To pretend it is somehow moral to trap people and their wealth to those decisions is complete insanity. Also it won't work, to point out the obvious.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Pleased to see the "no borders" argument being made, but the more important one is to the south of California.
hedvig 7y ago
Terrible analogy.

CaymanCruiser 7y ago

>This may be terribly naive, but doesn't that make the business de-facto illegal? What kind of legitimate business deserves to buck paying into the systems that support them? As a default I want to disagree, but I would like to know what business needs to operate outside of these constraints. These constraints that you speak of are entirely arbitrary (geographical delineation) and were designed for a time before the internet. I would instead ask the question why Western governments are refusing to get with the changing tides and reform their archaic taxation codes to account for an increasingly globalised economy. >Surely the businesses utilizing the favours of banks like Cayman are not being operated within tyrannical countries (which is the first and only reasoning I can see for operating in the manor you prescribed). Not at all. There certainly exists a subgroup of individuals, companies, and institutions that operate in jurisdictions where there is a huge amount of uncertainty, but there is also a very large contingent that offshores their business to reduce regulatory burden and reduce tax liabilities, many of whom are individuals and companies that you and I have heard of. I doubt they will be using Cayman National Bank though, it is more likely that they will be using banks that you and I have also heard of like Barclays or DBS.

52-6F-62 7y ago
I'm sorry but that just sounds absurdly reductive to me. It makes a gross assumption that people are incapable of keeping their government in check. Perhaps, in spite of my own cynicism, I believe people are capable of deciding how they want their societies to run (also in spite of our hiccups here in the Western world). So again: why do such businesses deserve to operate with such impunity? A natural function of business is risk. Subverting reasonable social good is an active harm that is reasonable given the circumstances (like an ambulance or fire truck asserting the right of way on a city street), but I fail to see why that should apply to any and all business. I'll be happy to be convinced otherwise—but I doubt I will be. I know you're speaking out under the condition of anonymity, so I won't ask which business you're operating or employed by but I am immensely curious about which industry you're representing. It would help much in understanding your perspective.
- Concrescator 7y ago