

Six months in a welfare state - Reflections on Higher Taxes - negamax
http://mohit.me/logs/higher_taxes_for_welfare_a_long_road_destined_to_common_failure.html

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Zenst
Ireland may have high personal TAX's like a very high VAT level etc, on the
other hand the company TAX aspect is rather enticing for many large companies
and with that it is very much a case of robbing people to pay companies to pay
people. So in effect Ireland is a bit unbalanced and sadly it will take a
while to get that balance back.

Yes you can blame the goverment, if say people had no TAX and companies had a
silly high TAX would the people speak up for the companies, nope and who would
blame them. Now companies in Ireland will just brow beat goverments into
keeping things sweet with them TAX wise or they will go emo and pull out the
country/cut jobs.

As for goverment staff working to rule, well they don't get performance pay
rises, many don't even get pay rises these days and in effect getting pay cuts
every day the cost of food and other indirect TAX's go up. Customer service
wise they are not paid enough to care and have no motivation to engage that
avenue. You do get the good one, usualy new to the job and still not had the
life sucked out of them, sad is it not.

So in short yes you can stick it too the man but in effect your only sticking
it to yourself and the only winners will be the share holders, who are
innocent money investors who don't even know you and may well be part of your
pension, if you have a private one.

Company TAX is a fine balance, Russia lower there high TAX rate and got more
income from it, Ireland lowered there's way too low and inticed many companies
to setup there and now they are somewhat peer preasured by the monster they
created into not doing any changes fast and drastic.

Still perk there is plenty of cheap housing that with the lifetime of a
mortgage the World population will do it's best in increasing and with that
drive up the costs even more.

~~~
amalag
I like to consider a low corporate tax, maybe even 0, but taxes on all types
of income. If the corporate profits are in the corporation, then it is just a
collection of people, but when the money comes out of the corporation (to a
CEO or other shareholders) it can be taxed appropriately. And no preferential
treatment for capital gains or carried interest.

~~~
Zenst
A interesting and maybe workable approach, though I do see the flaw in that
companies can sometimes just hold onto the money and let it build up at which
point it is not being taxed until that hold up stops. Bit like a beaver
building a dam it stems the flow and in this case impacts the currency itself.
You alsohaveto ring fence moneys earned in countries better as currently the
ability to have all sales routed via one country and released the bulk of the
money via those countries. This is easier in the internet times as you can
sell and operate anywere in the World. Google sell from Ireland to the UK and
with that for the UK economey it is leaking money out of the UK system.

But the real crux is just look at Ireland, they have a realy low company TAX
rate and if that was even lower Ireland would still be cash poor and that
money is not filtering into teh Irish economy. Money is like a river and
companies are upstream and can divert and dam up area's and vary there impact
upon supply to the stage that the people downstream can have droughts like
they are now in Ireland.

So most countries count housing values to prope up the books moraly and thats
fine until there is a crash and then the impact upon the country is beyond
those individuals who own the various impacted homes. With that housing in
Ireland is not cheap, its just a saner price having been overpriced. Large
corporations still in Ireland, still making money, real impact is the sudden
drop of the entire construction industry and knock on effect which dominoes.

Still I always find it funny how companies can find TAX loopholes in a game
run by the goverment who also write the rules for the game and can change
those rules at any time as well. Yet the goverment still loose, kinda messed
up right there I'd say and does back up how ineffecient goverments are. Heck
if you worked in goverment and had your upper managment changed every time you
just about got used to the last lot and you pay the price for there mistakes
and in effect seagull managment mentality. Well hard to see how it truely does
work beyond being a juggerling act defering things for the next person to step
into the role of goverment.

~~~
amalag
I am not sure if low tax rates cause them not to spend. I do see how
corporations could accumalate a lot of cash and power though.

