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The way I think of it, if you have a business that's easy to just pick up and move to Dubai, you've already done it. It's not as if tax is on the whole some sor

The way I think of it, if you have a business that's easy to just pick up and move to Dubai, you've already done it. It's not as if tax is on the whole some sort of cliff; people have been able to leave the UK for a long time, and there isn't some particular tax that will push out everyone if it's enacted. So whatever exodus occurs will be on the margin, where a few people throw up their hands and go "oh I've had enough". At the same time, you have plenty of things tying people down: friends and family, business opportunities, kids in school.

supportengineer 1y ago
The same logic applies to California. I know a wealthy guy who would save a million a year in taxes by moving to Nevada or Washington state, but he just... hasn't. He's been talking about it for years, but no action. Because when it comes right down to it, it's too much disruption/change.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Massachusetts had an increase in millionaires move there after increasing their taxes. It's all bluster that the wealthy will leave. Where will they go? Talk is cheap.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    In the specific case of Massachusetts, living in New Hampshire (no income tax or sales tax) instead is pretty practical for a lot of people. Doesn't help you that much if you commute to an MA employer but I know a lot of people who did commute in from NH and, these days, a lot of people who became officially remote workers in NH. Of course, there are lots of other reasons why out-of-staters might choose to move to MA.
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      So you close the gap with policy as you find folks attempting to evade it. You'll always have leakage, it's inevitable, but not an excuse to not implement progressive tax policy on the highest levels of income and wealth. Puerto Rico has very favorable income tax treatment, but outside of some crypto bros, hasn't moved the HNW or high income migration needle, for example.
      - ghaff 1y ago
        I'm not sure why you consider living in NH evading anything. There are policies related to actually spending a lot of work time in other states, including MA. NH has established policies that generally work for them--and generally provide fewer services in exchange for lower taxes which seems like a valid choice to me.
        toomuchtodo 1y ago
        I only consider it evading if claiming residency in a low or no tax jurisdiction while still maintaining business activity or presence in the jurisdiction in scope for the taxes we're discussing. If you live in NH, work in NH, and have no nexus or economic activity derived from MA, carry on. NY sources taxes to the employer's office location in NY if a worker works remotely under certain circumstances, for example [1]. If geography can be used to shift or avoid tax exposure to income, I see no problem with using the law to prevent that, depending on the target outcome. My global income is subject to US federal taxes, regardless of my residency (although foreign exclusions apply under a reasonable income threshold, ~$120k/year, under the assumption I am paying taxes where I reside outside the US) [2]. [1] https://www.anchin.com/articles/remote-workers-and-the-convenience-rule-new-york-tax-implications-you-cant-ignore/ https://www.anchin.com/articles/remote-workers-and-the-conve... [2] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/foreign-earned-income-exclusion https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...
        ghaff 1y ago
        At my former company, remote employees did increasingly have to track significant time in-person at other company locations--but if you're really working remotely.... MA did try to wrest taxes from NH-resident employees when they went remote en masse during COVID but I don't think they succeeded. (The official company HQ wasn't even in MA although they had a large facility and a lot of senior people there.) I'm not sure how you reasonably allocate state/local taxes other than by physical presence. Any reasonably large company has an economic nexus in many states and even countries.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- dfxm12 1y ago
  Don't discount the possibility that living in that part of California is great and this guy is just virtue signaling.
  - latexr 1y ago
    > virtue signaling I wouldn’t call moving to another place to pay less in taxes a virtue.
    - iwontberude 1y ago
      I complain about taxes to make my friends in Texas feel better about the raw deal they’ve got. I don’t mind paying high taxes personally. It’s more than virtue signaling, it’s about giving people something to be proud of.
      - jansan 1y ago
        > it’s about giving people something to be proud of. Are you talking about the very generous pensions for government officials?
      - ambicapter 1y ago
        Are you doing your friends a favor by pretending that the raw deal they're getting is great?
        iwontberude 1y ago
        Yes because they can’t move ever
  - SilverElfin 1y ago
    Or maybe it’s just below bad enough to overcome the network effects of living in the Bay Area.
- cassepipe 1y ago
  Also, if you have millions, does an extra million make a difference ? A even bigger house ? Boat ? You can already have all the space you need, you can eat everywhere and go wherever you want for holidays... Is it worth the hassle ?
  - bluecalm 1y ago
    Well for Norway specifically they have 1.1% wealth tax and humongous 37% capital gain tax (of course it's lower for real estate because Europeans like fighting stock investments). If you have say 4 million USD and invest in stocks expecting say 7% per year you will pay 103k USD in cap gain tax and then 44k in wealth tax for a grand total of almost 150k/year. That's enough to fund Switzerland lifestyle let alone life in multiple other countries that levy 0 or close to 0 cap gain tax for long term gains. It's difference between comfortable retirement and having to work. Maybe it doesn't make much difference if you're very wealthy but for those who just managed to get financial independence it's huge.
    - iamacyborg 1y ago
      > If you have say 4 million USD and invest in stocks expecting say 7% per year you will pay 103k USD in cap gain tax and then 44k in wealth tax for a grand total of almost 150k/year. That’s only on realised gains, surely? And if that’s the case, it’s likely cheaper than having worked for that income.
      - bluecalm 1y ago
        Realizing every year vs realizing at the end produces about 1% annualized return difference with those rates over 10 years. It's sure significant but not huge. In practice you are likely to be somewhere in the middle. >>And if that’s the case, it’s likely cheaper than having worked for that income. How is that relevant? You are investing money already heavily taxed as income before. Anyway, I am just pointing out it makes a significant difference for someone who struck a bit of gold and gained financial independence but is not yet rich.
- p_ing 1y ago
  The Starbucks CEO lives in California and flies to Washington state every week. He could move and supposedly save money (no income tax in WA, but there are some Capital Gains taxes).
  - SilverElfin 1y ago
    The reason not to move to WA is the capital gains tax in WA is unpredictable. Someone else had explained that it’s actually against the state’s constitution but was upheld by the one sided state courts. And the legislators adjusted the rates upward once already even though it’s a very new tax. The state budget is in a bad shape and expected to get worse, so it’s likely they’ll keep increasing the tax every year.
    - triceratops 1y ago
      The stock market is growing, salaries aren't. Makes sense to tax the former and not the latter.
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  He may have found a clever way to structure his tax exposure.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  If there is anything as inevitable as death and taxes, it's "wealthy people complaining about taxes." Every year, the usual articles make the rounds about how all these wealthy people are moving out of California because they're sad about their taxes, and every year it doesn't significantly happen. I'm starting to think the "moving out of California" meme is just a media re-run that the wealthy get together and fund every year, and then it's back to sipping their wine in their mansions in Beverly Hills and Atherton.
  - klipt 1y ago
    California actually has very low property taxes. Which according to economists is the wrong way around: it's better to have taxes on land (because it doesn't discourage land existing - land is fixed) than to have taxes on work income (which on the margin, discourages working)
    - abirch 1y ago
      Property taxes usually pay for schools and there can be lines for CA schools.
      - jerlam 1y ago
        Depends on the area. In the wealthy SF Bay Area, the schools are closing due to lack of enrollment. SF is "the most childless major city". Schools are drastically underfunded due to Prop 13 and the state kicks in a lot of money to make up for the difference.
    - SilverbeardUnix 1y ago
      Land value tax would solve most problems in California.
      - zdragnar 1y ago
        I wonder what percentage of people in California would go bankrupt if LVT were passed implemented there. Anyone, residential or commercial, with a mortgage would simultaneously find a massive amount of their net value erased while stuck with huge monthly payments on top of massively increased tax bills, unable to sell assuming the higher taxes drive down property prices.
- jvalencia 1y ago
  California refineries are set to shut down and it has huge implications for the state: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/business/energy-environment/california-gas-prices-oil-refineries.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/business/energy-environme...
  - klooney 1y ago
    They are irreplaceable assets that would probably cost north of a trillion dollars if someone tried to build them today, and the oil refining countries club is pretty exclusive. Wildly shortsighted from a big picture national capacity point of view.
- gadders 1y ago
  There are businesses (such as hedge funds) that seem to have left New York and Chicago and moved to Miami, though?
- Spooky23 1y ago
  I know a few people in New York like this. At the end of the day, home is home and Nevada is Nevada. The people who actually act on this stuff are usually not really wealthy, mostly just retirees finding themselves with a windfall of time and cash, who usually don’t math well.
- jama211 1y ago
  It’s also just probably a place he wants to live. Where you live and if you like it or not plays a huge role in life satisfaction. You couldn’t pay me to live in Nevada personally, not at double my income.
- aeternum 1y ago
  Another way to look at it is taxes aren't quite high enough yet to justify it. Many that are wealthy see the california tax as just another expense in return for good weather. The moving will absolutely happen, and it isn't all or nothing. If you're very wealthy the CA tax board already tracks the number of days you spend in CA so the choice will be to spend fewer.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  Live in Nevada just to reduce my tax burden? Unless I was financially desperate (in which case my tax burden is probably low), then it's a hard no.
bko 1y ago
Yes it happens on the margin and once you have roots, it's unlikely you'll leave. But these kinds of things happen all at once and it's hard to reverse. If you look at Detroit which was a manufacturing hub for a long time, it would be difficult to imagine a world in which they were irrelevant. All these people built lives there and there was all this specialization and industry there. And it worked well until it didn't. Once a place loses its dynamism and people have had enough, it'll be very hard to get them back
- jgeada 1y ago
  Because that was when the factories & their support infrastructure moved, not when a handful of entitled wealthy moved. Note also that while the factories moved to China, the wealthy stayed right here in the US, & didn't go where their money was spent. Different scale, different consequences.
beloch 1y ago
In theory, relatively poor people should be easy to coerce into different behaviours with taxes. In practice, that doesn't appear to be true. e.g. We've seen that carbon taxes on fuel don't really change vehicle purchases or behaviour at the pumps to a large degree unless the taxes are set very high. It shouldn't surprise anyone that wealthier folk aren't moving to different countries over a tax that is smaller to them, in relative terms, than carbon taxes are to the poor. What is money for, after all, if not to enable you to live the life you want to live? If you need to move to Dubai to avoid taxes, how can you consider yourself wealthy?
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
Tax on businesses is separate from personal wealth and income taxes. You can run IKEA from Switzerland if you want, as long as ikea pays its taxes for each country it operates in. So billionaires can definitely shop for good deals on personal wealth, they can negotiate directly with Swiss Cantons about that.
jdietrich 1y ago
Until April of this year, it was possible for a foreign national to be resident but not domiciled in the UK. Any income they earned in the UK would be subject to UK tax, but income earned abroad would not be. These non-domiciled foreign nationals could "live" in Dubai (or any other country) for tax purposes, but actually live in the UK in every practical sense. The removal of this non-domiciled status is clearly far more significant than a normal tax increase. The UK was a uniquely attractive destination for the super-rich, because they could enjoy all the amenities of living in London with no real concerns about the tax implications. It is plausible that many of those people will decide to pay UK tax rather than move abroad, but we are talking about an exceptionally highly-mobile group who have already made the decision to move country, many primarily or solely for tax reasons.
- whatshisface 1y ago
  Isn't the defining characteristic of the wealthiest demographic their ability to pay for things that they want (like living in London) without any concern over the cost of doing it?
  - earnesti 1y ago
    I don't think these people would be superrich if they wouldn't be optimizing their taxes, at least at some level. I would guess taxes are the typically the biggest single expense the really rich people pay.
    - tristramb 1y ago
      I would have thought that being superrich would free you from worrying about 'optimizing your taxes'.
      - grues-dinner 1y ago
        I would think so, but perhaps for the people who are self-defined by the magnitude of their wealth they become more and more obsessed by it as their expenditures on "real" things dwindles in comparison.
gadders 1y ago
>>where a few people throw up their hands and go "oh I've had enough". Yes, it's called the Laffer Curve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  The fact that there is an optimal tax rate somewhere between 0 and 100% seems so obvious as to hard be worth a name. Especially when no-one knows the shape of the curve. Or am I missing something?
  - gadders 1y ago
    It's obvious to us. It's not obvious to governments that think tax rates can go up and up without the tax income going down.
georgeecollins 1y ago
It also seems kind of short sighted to assume that there are no risks to having wealth in Dubai or citizenship there. I am not throwing shade at Dubai. The UK has been a peaceful prosperous place for over two hundred years. The future is unknown but I would assume Dubai carries some risk premium.
jordanb 1y ago
I remember reading Huey Long's book. The oil companies were threatening to leave Louisiana. He asked them "you going to take the oil with you?"
varjag 1y ago
Right. We have some wealthy friends here in Norway who's also bemoaning the taxes and always bringing up moving someplace like Switzerland. Except it's never going to happen: in the kind of business they are (very mundane, not any kind of natsec) once you moved out you're an outsider.
burnte 1y ago
It's the same thing with tiny tax cuts. No business person is saying, "I'd love to hire 30 more people to fulfil customer orders, but I need a 2% reduction in my top marginal income tax rate to be able to afford that!" No one pays wages out of their post-tax personal income. Either you have the incoming business to support hiring more people or you don't. If you do, then those wages and employee taxes go in your "costs" column and is a legit business expense you wouldn't pay taxes on. Yes a tax environment can be oppressive and make hiring unattractive, but that's not what is relevant to those "cut taxes and I'll hire more people" debates. It's pure nonsense. A drop from 42% to 40% top marginal tax rate is not going to kick off a hiring boom.

supportengineer 1y ago

The same logic applies to California. I know a wealthy guy who would save a million a year in taxes by moving to Nevada or Washington state, but he just... hasn't. He's been talking about it for years, but no action. Because when it comes right down to it, it's too much disruption/change.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Massachusetts had an increase in millionaires move there after increasing their taxes. It's all bluster that the wealthy will leave. Where will they go? Talk is cheap.
- ghaff 1y ago
  In the specific case of Massachusetts, living in New Hampshire (no income tax or sales tax) instead is pretty practical for a lot of people. Doesn't help you that much if you commute to an MA employer but I know a lot of people who did commute in from NH and, these days, a lot of people who became officially remote workers in NH. Of course, there are lots of other reasons why out-of-staters might choose to move to MA.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    So you close the gap with policy as you find folks attempting to evade it. You'll always have leakage, it's inevitable, but not an excuse to not implement progressive tax policy on the highest levels of income and wealth. Puerto Rico has very favorable income tax treatment, but outside of some crypto bros, hasn't moved the HNW or high income migration needle, for example.
    - ghaff 1y ago
      I'm not sure why you consider living in NH evading anything. There are policies related to actually spending a lot of work time in other states, including MA. NH has established policies that generally work for them--and generally provide fewer services in exchange for lower taxes which seems like a valid choice to me.
      - toomuchtodo 1y ago
        I only consider it evading if claiming residency in a low or no tax jurisdiction while still maintaining business activity or presence in the jurisdiction in scope for the taxes we're discussing. If you live in NH, work in NH, and have no nexus or economic activity derived from MA, carry on. NY sources taxes to the employer's office location in NY if a worker works remotely under certain circumstances, for example [1]. If geography can be used to shift or avoid tax exposure to income, I see no problem with using the law to prevent that, depending on the target outcome. My global income is subject to US federal taxes, regardless of my residency (although foreign exclusions apply under a reasonable income threshold, ~$120k/year, under the assumption I am paying taxes where I reside outside the US) [2]. [1] https://www.anchin.com/articles/remote-workers-and-the-convenience-rule-new-york-tax-implications-you-cant-ignore/ https://www.anchin.com/articles/remote-workers-and-the-conve... [2] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/foreign-earned-income-exclusion https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...
        ghaff 1y ago
        At my former company, remote employees did increasingly have to track significant time in-person at other company locations--but if you're really working remotely.... MA did try to wrest taxes from NH-resident employees when they went remote en masse during COVID but I don't think they succeeded. (The official company HQ wasn't even in MA although they had a large facility and a lot of senior people there.) I'm not sure how you reasonably allocate state/local taxes other than by physical presence. Any reasonably large company has an economic nexus in many states and even countries.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
dfxm12 1y ago
Don't discount the possibility that living in that part of California is great and this guy is just virtue signaling.
- latexr 1y ago
  > virtue signaling I wouldn’t call moving to another place to pay less in taxes a virtue.
  - iwontberude 1y ago
    I complain about taxes to make my friends in Texas feel better about the raw deal they’ve got. I don’t mind paying high taxes personally. It’s more than virtue signaling, it’s about giving people something to be proud of.
    - jansan 1y ago
      > it’s about giving people something to be proud of. Are you talking about the very generous pensions for government officials?
    - ambicapter 1y ago
      Are you doing your friends a favor by pretending that the raw deal they're getting is great?
      - iwontberude 1y ago
        Yes because they can’t move ever
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  Or maybe it’s just below bad enough to overcome the network effects of living in the Bay Area.
cassepipe 1y ago
Also, if you have millions, does an extra million make a difference ? A even bigger house ? Boat ? You can already have all the space you need, you can eat everywhere and go wherever you want for holidays... Is it worth the hassle ?
- bluecalm 1y ago
  Well for Norway specifically they have 1.1% wealth tax and humongous 37% capital gain tax (of course it's lower for real estate because Europeans like fighting stock investments). If you have say 4 million USD and invest in stocks expecting say 7% per year you will pay 103k USD in cap gain tax and then 44k in wealth tax for a grand total of almost 150k/year. That's enough to fund Switzerland lifestyle let alone life in multiple other countries that levy 0 or close to 0 cap gain tax for long term gains. It's difference between comfortable retirement and having to work. Maybe it doesn't make much difference if you're very wealthy but for those who just managed to get financial independence it's huge.
  - iamacyborg 1y ago
    > If you have say 4 million USD and invest in stocks expecting say 7% per year you will pay 103k USD in cap gain tax and then 44k in wealth tax for a grand total of almost 150k/year. That’s only on realised gains, surely? And if that’s the case, it’s likely cheaper than having worked for that income.
    - bluecalm 1y ago
      Realizing every year vs realizing at the end produces about 1% annualized return difference with those rates over 10 years. It's sure significant but not huge. In practice you are likely to be somewhere in the middle. >>And if that’s the case, it’s likely cheaper than having worked for that income. How is that relevant? You are investing money already heavily taxed as income before. Anyway, I am just pointing out it makes a significant difference for someone who struck a bit of gold and gained financial independence but is not yet rich.
p_ing 1y ago
The Starbucks CEO lives in California and flies to Washington state every week. He could move and supposedly save money (no income tax in WA, but there are some Capital Gains taxes).
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  The reason not to move to WA is the capital gains tax in WA is unpredictable. Someone else had explained that it’s actually against the state’s constitution but was upheld by the one sided state courts. And the legislators adjusted the rates upward once already even though it’s a very new tax. The state budget is in a bad shape and expected to get worse, so it’s likely they’ll keep increasing the tax every year.
  - triceratops 1y ago
    The stock market is growing, salaries aren't. Makes sense to tax the former and not the latter.
SilverElfin 1y ago
He may have found a clever way to structure his tax exposure.
ryandrake 1y ago
If there is anything as inevitable as death and taxes, it's "wealthy people complaining about taxes." Every year, the usual articles make the rounds about how all these wealthy people are moving out of California because they're sad about their taxes, and every year it doesn't significantly happen. I'm starting to think the "moving out of California" meme is just a media re-run that the wealthy get together and fund every year, and then it's back to sipping their wine in their mansions in Beverly Hills and Atherton.
- klipt 1y ago
  California actually has very low property taxes. Which according to economists is the wrong way around: it's better to have taxes on land (because it doesn't discourage land existing - land is fixed) than to have taxes on work income (which on the margin, discourages working)
  - abirch 1y ago
    Property taxes usually pay for schools and there can be lines for CA schools.
    - jerlam 1y ago
      Depends on the area. In the wealthy SF Bay Area, the schools are closing due to lack of enrollment. SF is "the most childless major city". Schools are drastically underfunded due to Prop 13 and the state kicks in a lot of money to make up for the difference.
  - SilverbeardUnix 1y ago
    Land value tax would solve most problems in California.
    - zdragnar 1y ago
      I wonder what percentage of people in California would go bankrupt if LVT were passed implemented there. Anyone, residential or commercial, with a mortgage would simultaneously find a massive amount of their net value erased while stuck with huge monthly payments on top of massively increased tax bills, unable to sell assuming the higher taxes drive down property prices.
jvalencia 1y ago
California refineries are set to shut down and it has huge implications for the state: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/business/energy-environment/california-gas-prices-oil-refineries.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/business/energy-environme...
- klooney 1y ago
  They are irreplaceable assets that would probably cost north of a trillion dollars if someone tried to build them today, and the oil refining countries club is pretty exclusive. Wildly shortsighted from a big picture national capacity point of view.
gadders 1y ago
There are businesses (such as hedge funds) that seem to have left New York and Chicago and moved to Miami, though?
Spooky23 1y ago
I know a few people in New York like this. At the end of the day, home is home and Nevada is Nevada. The people who actually act on this stuff are usually not really wealthy, mostly just retirees finding themselves with a windfall of time and cash, who usually don’t math well.
jama211 1y ago
It’s also just probably a place he wants to live. Where you live and if you like it or not plays a huge role in life satisfaction. You couldn’t pay me to live in Nevada personally, not at double my income.
aeternum 1y ago
Another way to look at it is taxes aren't quite high enough yet to justify it. Many that are wealthy see the california tax as just another expense in return for good weather. The moving will absolutely happen, and it isn't all or nothing. If you're very wealthy the CA tax board already tracks the number of days you spend in CA so the choice will be to spend fewer.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
Live in Nevada just to reduce my tax burden? Unless I was financially desperate (in which case my tax burden is probably low), then it's a hard no.

bko 1y ago

Yes it happens on the margin and once you have roots, it's unlikely you'll leave. But these kinds of things happen all at once and it's hard to reverse. If you look at Detroit which was a manufacturing hub for a long time, it would be difficult to imagine a world in which they were irrelevant. All these people built lives there and there was all this specialization and industry there. And it worked well until it didn't. Once a place loses its dynamism and people have had enough, it'll be very hard to get them back

jgeada 1y ago
Because that was when the factories & their support infrastructure moved, not when a handful of entitled wealthy moved. Note also that while the factories moved to China, the wealthy stayed right here in the US, & didn't go where their money was spent. Different scale, different consequences.

beloch 1y ago

In theory, relatively poor people should be easy to coerce into different behaviours with taxes. In practice, that doesn't appear to be true. e.g. We've seen that carbon taxes on fuel don't really change vehicle purchases or behaviour at the pumps to a large degree unless the taxes are set very high. It shouldn't surprise anyone that wealthier folk aren't moving to different countries over a tax that is smaller to them, in relative terms, than carbon taxes are to the poor. What is money for, after all, if not to enable you to live the life you want to live? If you need to move to Dubai to avoid taxes, how can you consider yourself wealthy?

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

Tax on businesses is separate from personal wealth and income taxes. You can run IKEA from Switzerland if you want, as long as ikea pays its taxes for each country it operates in. So billionaires can definitely shop for good deals on personal wealth, they can negotiate directly with Swiss Cantons about that.

jdietrich 1y ago

Until April of this year, it was possible for a foreign national to be resident but not domiciled in the UK. Any income they earned in the UK would be subject to UK tax, but income earned abroad would not be. These non-domiciled foreign nationals could "live" in Dubai (or any other country) for tax purposes, but actually live in the UK in every practical sense. The removal of this non-domiciled status is clearly far more significant than a normal tax increase. The UK was a uniquely attractive destination for the super-rich, because they could enjoy all the amenities of living in London with no real concerns about the tax implications. It is plausible that many of those people will decide to pay UK tax rather than move abroad, but we are talking about an exceptionally highly-mobile group who have already made the decision to move country, many primarily or solely for tax reasons.

whatshisface 1y ago
Isn't the defining characteristic of the wealthiest demographic their ability to pay for things that they want (like living in London) without any concern over the cost of doing it?
- earnesti 1y ago
  I don't think these people would be superrich if they wouldn't be optimizing their taxes, at least at some level. I would guess taxes are the typically the biggest single expense the really rich people pay.
  - tristramb 1y ago
    I would have thought that being superrich would free you from worrying about 'optimizing your taxes'.
    - grues-dinner 1y ago
      I would think so, but perhaps for the people who are self-defined by the magnitude of their wealth they become more and more obsessed by it as their expenditures on "real" things dwindles in comparison.

gadders 1y ago

>>where a few people throw up their hands and go "oh I've had enough". Yes, it's called the Laffer Curve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

hermitcrab 1y ago
The fact that there is an optimal tax rate somewhere between 0 and 100% seems so obvious as to hard be worth a name. Especially when no-one knows the shape of the curve. Or am I missing something?
- gadders 1y ago
  It's obvious to us. It's not obvious to governments that think tax rates can go up and up without the tax income going down.

georgeecollins 1y ago

It also seems kind of short sighted to assume that there are no risks to having wealth in Dubai or citizenship there. I am not throwing shade at Dubai. The UK has been a peaceful prosperous place for over two hundred years. The future is unknown but I would assume Dubai carries some risk premium.

jordanb 1y ago

I remember reading Huey Long's book. The oil companies were threatening to leave Louisiana. He asked them "you going to take the oil with you?"

varjag 1y ago

Right. We have some wealthy friends here in Norway who's also bemoaning the taxes and always bringing up moving someplace like Switzerland. Except it's never going to happen: in the kind of business they are (very mundane, not any kind of natsec) once you moved out you're an outsider.

burnte 1y ago

It's the same thing with tiny tax cuts. No business person is saying, "I'd love to hire 30 more people to fulfil customer orders, but I need a 2% reduction in my top marginal income tax rate to be able to afford that!" No one pays wages out of their post-tax personal income. Either you have the incoming business to support hiring more people or you don't. If you do, then those wages and employee taxes go in your "costs" column and is a legit business expense you wouldn't pay taxes on. Yes a tax environment can be oppressive and make hiring unattractive, but that's not what is relevant to those "cut taxes and I'll hire more people" debates. It's pure nonsense. A drop from 42% to 40% top marginal tax rate is not going to kick off a hiring boom.