The EU’s tax haven agenda is a show of futile and cynical window
dressing put there to impress the gullible while doing nothing
fundamental about the problem, which is systemic. If a tax is vulnerable
to avoidance and evasion, it will be avoided and evaded. The EuroTax,
VAT, is a perfect example, with leakage rates of over 30% in some EU
member countries. It has been known for the past three centuries that
taxes on real estate ie land, cannot be avoided or evaded; land cannot
be hidden or moved to a tax haven. Those responsible for EU tax policy
have no excuse for not understanding this, since land value taxes were
widespread in Europe before World War One, the fundamental ideas having
been rediscovered in modern times by the French Physiocrats and Henry
George. The ideas of Henry George were picked up with enthusiasm in
Germany and Denmark.
I got involved in a discussion with a Youtuber called “Philosophy all along”. This was in connection with criticism of Trump’s policy of deporting illegal migrants, which he argued would be bad for the economy as it would reduce demand. This implies that there is a need to import people to sustain demand. There is no obvious reason why a population should not be able to consume everything that the same population produces. If it can not, then something else is going on. It is a basic principle that wages are the least that workers will accept to do a job. Wages are a share of the value added by workers through their wages. The remainder is distributed as economic rent, after government has taken its cut in taxes. Monopoly profit is a temporary surplus that after a delay gets absorbed into economic rent. Land values in Silicon Valley are an example of this; it's like a gold rush. The miners get little out of it. Rent and tax syphon purchasing power away from those who produce the g...
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