(Don’t take this map too seriously, I found it on another social media, not an academic paper).
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“If we tax the rich, they just move to another country!1!!1!”
Yea, we will tax them there too. And take half of your hoard when they move. You stole long enough from us…
The rich are rich because they own real physical assets, like the supermarkets, utilities, factories, etc. It is very difficult for them to move these assets with them overseas.
A really good example of this is Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch who owned the Chelsea FC. The UK government sanctioned and froze Abramovich’s assets due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and Abramovich was forced to give away Chelsea FC.
I hate that argument.
“People who are taking more than they give will leave if we ask them to pay their fair share!”
Fucking grand, get out. Or better yet, pay up. Best case, pay and leave.
Let’s all sign international tax agreement so the rich can’t flee, and if they do : requisition by the workers. Seems fair to me.
Who cares if they flee. The people shall then take control of their assets they leave behind!
The real estate, factories, etc they leave behind. Leave it to the people!
Shoutout Norway.
Tax wealth, not work.
Taxing the wealth would be repeating history and policy mistakes. They already tried since decades ago. They all abolished it because it doesn’t work. It’s 1) difficult to execute and 2) impossible to calculate.
Sounds like a bunch of lame, unsupported excuses to me. Tax them hard!
And if they want to leave, let them leave. America is the primary market everybody wants. If you want to move your company to avoid paying taxes, go ahead, but your access to the American market will end, and the government will confiscate ALL your American assets. Good luck making the same profit in the rest of the world.
And tax churches, too.
That’s still a lot of delusional temporarily embarrassed millionaires…
Now find a map of wealth inequality and see how well they correlate.
What’s going in Estonia?
Probably progress being made such that people are fine with the status quo
Assuming it’s true, I love that countries like Norway, Finland, and Baltic states have responses closer to 50%, implying better democratic representation of taxation policies. I see this as less of “wealth inequality” and more of “political inequality”.
In Denmark we have something called top tax where everyone over a certain income level are taxed a little over 50% of their income.
Unless, of course, you are a mega-rich corporation, then you pay 4% tax or less because you have the power to take your business elsewhere if you get offended and your 4% tax or less still contributes a pretty significant amount to our country, so no one dares to put pressure on you to contribute what you owe to society. 🫠
So it isn’t exactly perfect. Those who are rich enough get to do whatever they want even in a system that is otherwise built to support the collective.
It sometimes pisses me off to know how easily most of our issues could be solved if companies like Mærsk and Novo Nordisk paid one or two percent more in taxes. Not even close to what they actually owe, but just one or two percent more. It could be a fucking game changer for our healthcare and educational system.
I feel like the percentages should be higher in Denmark, but I don’t think people think about corporations getting to cheat the system when they are asked this question. They think about the well off civilians among us who already pay over half of their income in taxes and they will probably feel like it would be unfair to have to pay even more. At that point the thought would go to: why the fuck did I even get this degree, took on this responsibility and worked these hours if at the end of the day I have the same money after tax as a school teacher?
I can’t speak for all the other Nordic countries, though I suspect similar constellations there.
@Nangijala hard agree. Same in Holland, low corporate taxes, it’s the Delaware of Europe. Royal Dutch Shell paying 1% more could probably get everyone free education, no more study loans etc. Another 1% could give them all free and 100% funded basic health care insurance, no more “private contributions”.
Re: Denmark and Maersk etc, the deal is usually “look we don’t want to pay more than 4%, otherwise we’ll move to Poland and we’ll take all the jobs with us”, and the Danish govt gives in. BUT - Maersk is huge, billions of dollars. Lots of boats, lots of workers. But here’s the question - how many Danes work for Maersk? The vast majority are sailors from Russia, Phillipines, China, India, etc. ? Would anything change for them if Maersk would exit to say Warsaw, and pay their 4% tax there? No. How many Danes? Only a small percentage of Maersk staff. So why not say to Maersk: look, 30% tax like everyone else or just go fuck off. Take the risk. It’s a lot smaller than you think.
The people of Russia, Turkey, and Germany can tell they’ve been swindled by the Oligarchs for far too long!
And spain, don’t forget spain.
Yes. And many of them, especially Catalans (wink), have some decent firsthand experience on what the people taking control of the means of production looks like.
