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I think "like it or leave it" isn't really a useful response, and it takes the discussion into the realm of politics. I'm not going to debate the politics, but
by nirvana 15y ago
I think "like it or leave it" isn't really a useful response, and it takes the discussion into the realm of politics. I'm not going to debate the politics, but since I did "leave it", I thought it might be enlightening to share a bit of my experience. (Leaving the USA had nothing to do with unemployment insurance.)
It is not difficult to find first world situations that don't involve burdensome taxes or regulations. One strategy would be to domicile your business in a country that doesn't tax worldwide corporate income, only local income. Believe it or not, most countries meet this criteria. Banking in a second country and living in a third, where the latter doesn't tax your worldwide income (like the USA does, but again, the US is the exception rather than the rule) would result in you effectively living tax free. (A US citizen, owing for their worldwide income would have to pay taxes on the amount earned above the living-aboard exemption.)
Further, even if we decided that we wanted to bring our business back into the USA, the USA does not want us to be located here... because at some of our founders are not US citizens and the hassle and cost of importing a foreign entrepreneur to the USA is much higher than it is for many other competitive countries.[1] There are first world countries that, believe it or not, are welcoming to entrepreneurs who want to relocate there.
So, while I'm not going to go into specifics because if I did, the possible combinations are more than could be discussed here, I can say with first hand experience that there are many, many options for doing this.
[1] Just coming in for a short term stay was more ordeal than I like to put up with, and more than we've experienced with any other country.
- krschultz 15y agoI don't throw out the 'love it or leave it' for 99% of posts on almost all issues, but when a person equates taxation with theft, it's just a lost cause. We can and should debate what to do with our tax money, but fundamentally the system always ends up in a state where some people are unhappy with some of the spending. There is no way to reconcile what those on the far right and far left want. We end up somewhere inbetween and that means at the end of the day some people are unsatisfied. Those people still need to pay taxes or the system falls apart. For those people there are two solutions. Convince people to agree with you and change the policy, or leave the country. (Of course another option is to just whine about it.)
- temphn 15y agoTaxation is only feasible because the authorities have guns and use them to jail tax resisters. And 100% taxation is quite literally slavery. Do you seriously disagree with either of those two points? No one signed up for continual boiling of the frog. Many, many millions of people in this country oppose this kind of divisive policy. A poor statesman rams it down people's throats by brute force. The consequence is that when the other party gets hold of the apparatus of state, turnabout is fair play. Is that really what you want?
- burgerbrain 15y agoYour "love it or leave it" attitude towards taxation assumes that all individuals should for some reason resign themselves to the sovereignty of the Unites States Federal Government. My chosen geographic location is not an admission of consent to be 'taxed' by men with guns. Edit: Oh cool, looks like I stepped on somebodies toes, they went back and downvoted all my currently votable comments at once. So tell me Mr Revenge Voter. What here do you actually disagree with?
- mquander 15y agoI downvoted you because, although I am sort of interested in potential government support for entrepreneurs, I have zero interest in reading an argument about whether countries have a right to tax their citizens. This is HN, not prisonplanet.com.
- burgerbrain 15y agoWell I hope you took the time to downvote this entire thread then. What is a citizen anyway though? Edit: I just looked up prisonplanet.com. Interesting how extreme left-wing positions (I am an anarchist) can be easily mistaken for extreme right-wing positions, such as those of Alex Jones.
- mquander 15y agoYou can bet that I downvoted the majority of it. (Although I upvoted your comment below about American exceptionalism regarding taxing the assets of expatriates, since afaik it's accurate and it's informative.)