4 ms·

Actually, wealthy people are even better off with the current system where they can hide their wealth in a number of competing low tax regimes in the outskirts

Actually, wealthy people are even better off with the current system where they can hide their wealth in a number of competing low tax regimes in the outskirts of the world. It would actually be funny to see this thing coming true, and then turning to a prime terrorist target. Where would they build their defense missiles, in the basement? In any case, despite the ridiculousness of the idea, this shows that the current sovereign-state compartmentalization of the earth is no longer the best way to run it and we need worldwide cooperation to both fight tax evasion and allow greater mobility of people and goods. Isolating the rich from the masses is only a good idea in the sense that it ends in an explosive way, like the french and bolshevik revolution.

jasonzemos 15y ago
Exactly. If you want your wealth to be truly secure, you'd have to store it on your island, otherwise it would be accessible to the same governments you're trying to keep it away from. Wealth doesn't defend itself though, and a bunch of rich guys might think they're slick but even a rag-tag pontoon of somali pirates is going to have more battle experience: so you'd have to hire a small mercenary force to guard the place. How much will you pay them? What's stopping them from killing you and taking the place over for themselves? I can't see how paying taxes is the biggest driving force for this idea. I think these people want the freedom and power of an aristotelian-scale democracy without dealing with the majority of idiots that affect our lives every day.
markkat 15y ago
Why not just have one extremely low tax regime? They can still keep their cash where they like, but without the effort of evading taxation. Also, why do they need to live at this place? If they had visa treaties, this citizenship could be essentially digital. Or, if there was a locale, you could just have an address there.
- ristretto 15y ago
  What makes you think that "keeping their cash there" is beneficial to any society? I am obviously getting political here, but money for its own sake should not be a goal. Money should be invested or taxed.
  - markkat 15y ago
    >Money should be invested or taxed. Agreed. But there is what should be done, and what is done. I don't think this is anyway admirable, or of any benefit to society, (it's basically taking wealth harvested within a system out of that system) but I do see that it might be a possible solution for a perceived problem that exists for very wealthy individuals.
    - bd_at_rivenhill 15y ago
      You're ignoring one particularly American problem, which is that Americans who harvest wealth outside the system of their country of citizenship are still required to pay taxes to it. I suspect that these sort of proposals would probably go away if rich Americans who moved to Hong Kong or Singapore were not expected to continue paying into Uncle Sam's coffers.
  - dualogy 15y ago
    Why should I make any at all if at the end of a long productive life you jump out from a corner and says how these fruits should be deployed? For kicks? I might, and many more able than me do -- but there's a breaking point for everyone. And I found that the tax-man much more resembles that old cliche about the "greedy", the "rich", the capitalists -- it's the taxman that truly can never get enough, never tax enough, never borrow enough, just to keep their own fairytale reality going another day or decade.

jasonzemos 15y ago

Exactly. If you want your wealth to be truly secure, you'd have to store it on your island, otherwise it would be accessible to the same governments you're trying to keep it away from. Wealth doesn't defend itself though, and a bunch of rich guys might think they're slick but even a rag-tag pontoon of somali pirates is going to have more battle experience: so you'd have to hire a small mercenary force to guard the place. How much will you pay them? What's stopping them from killing you and taking the place over for themselves? I can't see how paying taxes is the biggest driving force for this idea. I think these people want the freedom and power of an aristotelian-scale democracy without dealing with the majority of idiots that affect our lives every day.

markkat 15y ago

Why not just have one extremely low tax regime? They can still keep their cash where they like, but without the effort of evading taxation. Also, why do they need to live at this place? If they had visa treaties, this citizenship could be essentially digital. Or, if there was a locale, you could just have an address there.

ristretto 15y ago
What makes you think that "keeping their cash there" is beneficial to any society? I am obviously getting political here, but money for its own sake should not be a goal. Money should be invested or taxed.
- markkat 15y ago
  >Money should be invested or taxed. Agreed. But there is what should be done, and what is done. I don't think this is anyway admirable, or of any benefit to society, (it's basically taking wealth harvested within a system out of that system) but I do see that it might be a possible solution for a perceived problem that exists for very wealthy individuals.
  - bd_at_rivenhill 15y ago
    You're ignoring one particularly American problem, which is that Americans who harvest wealth outside the system of their country of citizenship are still required to pay taxes to it. I suspect that these sort of proposals would probably go away if rich Americans who moved to Hong Kong or Singapore were not expected to continue paying into Uncle Sam's coffers.
- dualogy 15y ago
  Why should I make any at all if at the end of a long productive life you jump out from a corner and says how these fruits should be deployed? For kicks? I might, and many more able than me do -- but there's a breaking point for everyone. And I found that the tax-man much more resembles that old cliche about the "greedy", the "rich", the capitalists -- it's the taxman that truly can never get enough, never tax enough, never borrow enough, just to keep their own fairytale reality going another day or decade.