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I know that, and that's why I'd likely make a terrible entrepreneur. Businesses have to take every advantage they can, because their competition will. People a

I know that, and that's why I'd likely make a terrible entrepreneur. Businesses have to take every advantage they can, because their competition will. People and businesses don't leave a country because "they feel the value proposition is insufficient". They leave because they've already used all the resources and infrastructure the country has to offer, and now it's payback time. Only problem is, payback time is voluntary, so of course most of them go elsewhere. I don't know enough about the difference in tax rates between Belgium and France, but somehow I doubt that Belgium is some sort of tax free haven where public utilities are made with fairy dust and bunny kisses. Public service costs money, and sure there is much waste in most systems and there are differences, but in the end it will cost.

DigitalJack 14y ago
But it isn't as if they hadn't been paying all along. It's a complete mischaracterization to say these people have "used all the resources and infrastructure and now it's payback time." It's been payback time all along. It's a pay as you go system. He is moving, and thus won't be using anymore of the resources, and thus shouldn't have to pay for what he is no longer using. Just fyi, from what I've read, Belgium's top rate is 50% vs France's soon to be 75%. I don't recall if the tiers occur at the same earnings level. I assume that what I've read is accurate but I haven't cared enough to follow up on it.
- purplelobster 14y ago
  In another post I likened the government with an investor. It invests in you and everyone else, and thus owns part of what you create with that investment. The difference is, if I receive venture capital for a share of my business, I don't get to decide one day that I've paid enough to them and take my business elsewhere. Why should it work differently in society? Society invests in everyone, but not everyone makes it big. For the system to function, you need to hold up your end of the bargain. Instead, we get a race to the bottom. It's particularly apparent in the US, where even individual states try to steal businesses from other states with lower tax rates and perks.
  - DigitalJack 14y ago
    That is an interesting take. I feel like you have the relationship backward though. The taxpayer is investing in government. I am purchasing (renting really) the use of infrastructure and police protection. Except it is compulsory, so it isn't even fair to call it investing. It is far more akin to the cliche of the mafia extorting protection money. You pay the mob, they keep lowlifes away from your business. You don't pay, you are punished, severely. I feel no more allegiance to my government than I do my local grocery store. Actually I probably feel more for the grocery store because they are much better at what they do than the government is at what it is doing. And I have some choice. If the quality goes down at my current store, I will take my business elsewhere. I certainly don't think I should keep sending money to the old grocery store when I've moved on to a new one. And that is the way the law is written in the US. You pay taxes for the current year. It's not indentured servitude.
    - purplelobster 14y ago
      Why do you think my view is backwards specifically? Can we agree that businesses and individuals in general tend to succeed according to the power law? On average, in a population, there will be a very few extremely successful individuals, a moderate amount of fairly successful, and a vast majority that aren't very successful. All evidence from every society of every corner of this world seems to indicate this. I think this holds true with both businesses and individuals if left by their own accord. If this assumption is true, it would be impossible to look at society membership as a simple "fee" or renting. This will simply hit a majority of people disproportionately hard. In my world, it makes much more sense to take an analogy from the investing world. Investors have to invest in many duds before getting a payoff. If investors simply required a one-time fee for helping a company out, they could simply not exist unless that fee was extremely large. You might want to argue that the successful people rightly deserve their exponential wealth, but I believe that circumstance and chance is a large factor in success, and I also believe that it's in the best interest of the successful to fund the failures to some degree. Again, all evidence I've seen points to high income inequality being the main perpetrator in criminality, unhappiness and overall societal disfunction. Full disclosure: I grew up in Sweden, so my view on government will probably be fundamentally different from yours. The Swedish system has many problems but also many benefits. I have seen enough benefits that I would gladly pay the high tax rate, yet there are many in Sweden who don't.
- jtheory 14y ago
  How much in taxes did you pay during the first 19 or so years of your life, though? Enough to fund your medical care, education, etc. during that time? Taxes can't work as a real pay-as-you-go system. The times in your life when you're directly consuming the most services are pretty much the times when you're not capable of paying much in taxes -- you're too young to work, still in school, sick, old, disabled, etc.. The people earning the most money, and the most able to pay taxes, are done with their education, in good health, and generally very capable of taking care of themselves. Especially at the beginning of that period of their lives, it seems extremely unlikely that they've already paid enough into the system to cover services they've already consumed. At some point (ideally) they'll pay off the debt from their pre-work lives and start paying down the services they'll need after retirement... again, though, this is not at all pay as you go. (And of course this is ignoring taxes that fund more general and/or indirect benefits -- like economic infrastructure -- but those can be thought of more as pay-as-you-go).
  - ericd 14y ago
    My parents paid for everything I directly consumed for the first 20 years (besides my meager earnings from jobs), except for my public schooling, which is paid for by their property taxes rather than federal taxes. I owe them a debt much more than I owe the government for the things directly consumed. I imagine that this is how it works for many middle class families - children generally aren't large marginal consumers of Federal resources, unless I'm missing something significant. Their healthcare certainly isn't that significant (generally some antibiotics and vaccines), and is generally covered by private insurance.
    - jtheory 14y ago
      The property taxes = education bit is quite US-specific, but still -- property taxes are paid by the people with the most property -- not the ones with the most children. (Outside the US from what I've seen education is not normally linked to property taxes). But the same argument holds true; if you assume your parents are paying for you with the money they put in, are you sure they paid their own If your parents paid enough in taxes to cover your education (and assuming someone else in turn funded their "public" education, etc.), that's obviously not always the case. I should add that government services for children (like daycare and significant tax breaks to parents, in France) can be much more significant than in the US. Children's healthcare is another thing that's not used in proportion to how it's paid -- there's a chunk of the population whose kids will only ever need a few jabs and stitches now and then (so those kids don't "owe" much). Then there are a few kids who will require thousands or millions of dollars worth of care -- including special schooling, etc., not just direct healthcare, and the problems they have may mean they will never contribute anything back. That gets at the whole point of all this -- yes, of course some people pay more than they consume, because these are services intended to make life more fair. Imagine if your parents didn't pay enough property taxes to fund your schooling, so you didn't get to go. Or if you have a child with severe disabilities, and you have to leave your job to care for them and build every ramp you need by yourself (or mortgage your house to pay for medical treatment). If the people who would otherwise be covering the difference all stop paying once they've covered their own services, that leaves a heavier burden on the people left. If enough of the lucky ones check out, services-for-all simply disappear.

DigitalJack 14y ago

But it isn't as if they hadn't been paying all along. It's a complete mischaracterization to say these people have "used all the resources and infrastructure and now it's payback time." It's been payback time all along. It's a pay as you go system. He is moving, and thus won't be using anymore of the resources, and thus shouldn't have to pay for what he is no longer using. Just fyi, from what I've read, Belgium's top rate is 50% vs France's soon to be 75%. I don't recall if the tiers occur at the same earnings level. I assume that what I've read is accurate but I haven't cared enough to follow up on it.

purplelobster 14y ago
In another post I likened the government with an investor. It invests in you and everyone else, and thus owns part of what you create with that investment. The difference is, if I receive venture capital for a share of my business, I don't get to decide one day that I've paid enough to them and take my business elsewhere. Why should it work differently in society? Society invests in everyone, but not everyone makes it big. For the system to function, you need to hold up your end of the bargain. Instead, we get a race to the bottom. It's particularly apparent in the US, where even individual states try to steal businesses from other states with lower tax rates and perks.
- DigitalJack 14y ago
  That is an interesting take. I feel like you have the relationship backward though. The taxpayer is investing in government. I am purchasing (renting really) the use of infrastructure and police protection. Except it is compulsory, so it isn't even fair to call it investing. It is far more akin to the cliche of the mafia extorting protection money. You pay the mob, they keep lowlifes away from your business. You don't pay, you are punished, severely. I feel no more allegiance to my government than I do my local grocery store. Actually I probably feel more for the grocery store because they are much better at what they do than the government is at what it is doing. And I have some choice. If the quality goes down at my current store, I will take my business elsewhere. I certainly don't think I should keep sending money to the old grocery store when I've moved on to a new one. And that is the way the law is written in the US. You pay taxes for the current year. It's not indentured servitude.
  - purplelobster 14y ago
    Why do you think my view is backwards specifically? Can we agree that businesses and individuals in general tend to succeed according to the power law? On average, in a population, there will be a very few extremely successful individuals, a moderate amount of fairly successful, and a vast majority that aren't very successful. All evidence from every society of every corner of this world seems to indicate this. I think this holds true with both businesses and individuals if left by their own accord. If this assumption is true, it would be impossible to look at society membership as a simple "fee" or renting. This will simply hit a majority of people disproportionately hard. In my world, it makes much more sense to take an analogy from the investing world. Investors have to invest in many duds before getting a payoff. If investors simply required a one-time fee for helping a company out, they could simply not exist unless that fee was extremely large. You might want to argue that the successful people rightly deserve their exponential wealth, but I believe that circumstance and chance is a large factor in success, and I also believe that it's in the best interest of the successful to fund the failures to some degree. Again, all evidence I've seen points to high income inequality being the main perpetrator in criminality, unhappiness and overall societal disfunction. Full disclosure: I grew up in Sweden, so my view on government will probably be fundamentally different from yours. The Swedish system has many problems but also many benefits. I have seen enough benefits that I would gladly pay the high tax rate, yet there are many in Sweden who don't.
jtheory 14y ago
How much in taxes did you pay during the first 19 or so years of your life, though? Enough to fund your medical care, education, etc. during that time? Taxes can't work as a real pay-as-you-go system. The times in your life when you're directly consuming the most services are pretty much the times when you're not capable of paying much in taxes -- you're too young to work, still in school, sick, old, disabled, etc.. The people earning the most money, and the most able to pay taxes, are done with their education, in good health, and generally very capable of taking care of themselves. Especially at the beginning of that period of their lives, it seems extremely unlikely that they've already paid enough into the system to cover services they've already consumed. At some point (ideally) they'll pay off the debt from their pre-work lives and start paying down the services they'll need after retirement... again, though, this is not at all pay as you go. (And of course this is ignoring taxes that fund more general and/or indirect benefits -- like economic infrastructure -- but those can be thought of more as pay-as-you-go).
- ericd 14y ago
  My parents paid for everything I directly consumed for the first 20 years (besides my meager earnings from jobs), except for my public schooling, which is paid for by their property taxes rather than federal taxes. I owe them a debt much more than I owe the government for the things directly consumed. I imagine that this is how it works for many middle class families - children generally aren't large marginal consumers of Federal resources, unless I'm missing something significant. Their healthcare certainly isn't that significant (generally some antibiotics and vaccines), and is generally covered by private insurance.
  - jtheory 14y ago
    The property taxes = education bit is quite US-specific, but still -- property taxes are paid by the people with the most property -- not the ones with the most children. (Outside the US from what I've seen education is not normally linked to property taxes). But the same argument holds true; if you assume your parents are paying for you with the money they put in, are you sure they paid their own If your parents paid enough in taxes to cover your education (and assuming someone else in turn funded their "public" education, etc.), that's obviously not always the case. I should add that government services for children (like daycare and significant tax breaks to parents, in France) can be much more significant than in the US. Children's healthcare is another thing that's not used in proportion to how it's paid -- there's a chunk of the population whose kids will only ever need a few jabs and stitches now and then (so those kids don't "owe" much). Then there are a few kids who will require thousands or millions of dollars worth of care -- including special schooling, etc., not just direct healthcare, and the problems they have may mean they will never contribute anything back. That gets at the whole point of all this -- yes, of course some people pay more than they consume, because these are services intended to make life more fair. Imagine if your parents didn't pay enough property taxes to fund your schooling, so you didn't get to go. Or if you have a child with severe disabilities, and you have to leave your job to care for them and build every ramp you need by yourself (or mortgage your house to pay for medical treatment). If the people who would otherwise be covering the difference all stop paying once they've covered their own services, that leaves a heavier burden on the people left. If enough of the lucky ones check out, services-for-all simply disappear.