Americans renouncing citizenship to become British over taxes

[Zoraptor]

Pretty much ^^^ exactly. Most governmental spending, even 'wasteful' spending tends to at least get spent directly in the economy. If you do as has been happening a lot in Europe and both cut spending massively- thus raising unemployment- and increase taxes then you aren't going to get growth any time soon because you're hitting your core employed workforce at both ends by shrinking it and by wringing more tax from it. There's only a finite amount of money and those policies reduce how much is available. The flow on to businesses that rely on that discretionary and even non-discretionary spending just depresses things further, as they fail because their customers have no money or confidence.

 

The amount of pandering to credit agencies and the like- who were singularly useless at very best when it came to correctly rating the institutions largely responsible for the financial problems- is pretty ridiculous.

[BruceVC]

 

To be fair the intention of austerity is not suppose to be failure. Reduce  government and wasteful spending and then get people and companies  to reinvest in the economy to allow growth. But what is happening is governments are implementing there own austerity measures so you naturally have jobs losses in the public sector but the private sector is reluctant to reinvest or hire new people so economies are stagnant. I don't believe this is a fault of austerity.

I think you're confusing what people who hype austerity measures say and what austerity measures actually do.

 

People who hype austerity proclaim that companies are too nervous about uncertainty, so they are not spending money and that by cutting programs, more people/businesses will suddenly invest/spend money. They typically use immeasurable variables in their arguments(like "confidence" and "uncertainty") and engage in a bit of fear-mongering to advance policies that do not work very well.

 

What austerity does is reduce the amount of money the government is spending, which reduces the total amount of spending going on in the economy. Austerity is typically a good idea in years where the economy is doing well, where the scaling back of government spending will not have as large of an effect as it would in a situation where people/business were not spending very much(like right now). The problem with austerity measures in times like these is that there is no guarantee that people/business will start investing to make up for reduced government spending, and can result in higher unemployment and less total spending(and often does, if you look at the results of European austerity measures).

 

So austerity is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, which is to slow the growth of an economy. It is not helping an economy grow, because that is the opposite of what it is designed to do.

 

 

Pretty much ^^^ exactly. Most governmental spending, even 'wasteful' spending tends to at least get spent directly in the economy. If you do as has been happening a lot in Europe and both cut spending massively- thus raising unemployment- and increase taxes then you aren't going to get growth any time soon because you're hitting your core employed workforce at both ends by shrinking it and by wringing more tax from it. There's only a finite amount of money and those policies reduce how much is available. The flow on to businesses that rely on that discretionary and even non-discretionary spending just depresses things further, as they fail because their customers have no money or confidence.

 

The amount of pandering to credit agencies and the like- who were singularly useless at very best when it came to correctly rating the institutions largely responsible for the financial problems- is pretty ridiculous.

 

Good points raised, but I thought I was saying almost the same thing. The Europeans haven't raised taxes as far as I know across the board as a solution. They are trying to enforce systems where people pay taxes and close tax loopholes, like in Greece.

 

Are you guys saying that you don't think governments should cut spending? I am saying they should but austerity is not enough. You need reinvestment, and this can't only come from the government It needs to come from the private sector. How else is an economy suppose to grow?

[HoonDing]

You should become Russians. 13%. Beat that with a stick.

 

To think this blimp almost became Belgian.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Drudanae

[BruceVC]

 

You should become Russians. 13%. Beat that with a stick.

 

To think this blimp almost became Belgian.

Personally I think his behavior is disgraceful and unpatriotic, I hope France prevents him ever returning to the country if he leaves, as from what I understand he still lives n France. Or ensures he cannot get French citizenship again

[obyknven]

 

[Hurlshort]

After deductions, I'm paying around 10% for Federal taxes.  My state taxes are more of a hassle though.

[Gfted1]

Holy crap, 75% tax in France!? I dont blame him for moving out.

[HoonDing]

The wonders of socialism.

[Meshugger]

We should all relocate to prosperous states such as Montenegro, Kazachstan or Bulgaria.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Meshugger

[AGX-17]

You know guys there are some topics that merit serious discussion. I really didn't figure this was one of them. Far more American ex-pats flee to Central and South America and Mexico than GB. Ever been to Cabo San Lucas? I think there is more Americans than Mexicans there.There are probably around 50,000-70,000 US citizens living in GB right now on only 1700 or so are looking to stay permanently over taxes. Not exactly an overwhelming percentage.

 

Taxes do merit serious discussion because, as you all know, there is a point where they do far more harm than good and most countries this one included passed that up a long time ago. But this story was so deliciously ironic I figured we'd get some laughs out of it.

Holy crap, 75% tax in France!? I dont blame him for moving out.

That's lower than the top tax bracket in the US under the Eisenhower (a Republican) administration, which topped out at 90%. See, the thing that Hayekians/Randians don't understand is that redistribution of wealth actually strengthens the economy.

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/153304/rich_people_don't_create_jobs:_6_myths_that_have_to_be_killed_for_our_economy_to_live?page=entire

Taxes have been the third rail of American politics ever since the California tax revolt of 1978. Even Democrats are nervous about touching them: President Obama has famously called for letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire, but he's always careful to make it clear that he wouldn't change rates for anyone earning less than $250,000 per year. In other words, he'd repeal less than a quarter of the Bush tax cuts.

 

This fear is easy to understand. No one likes paying higher taxes. But do lower taxes actually spur economic growth? Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, has compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since then. His conclusion? There's virtually no correlation.

 

Recent US history backs this up too. Bill Clinton raised tax rates in 1993, and Republicans insisted it would cripple the economy. Instead, the economy boomed. In 2001 and 2003, George W. Bush lowered taxes and Republicans insisted the economy would flourish. Instead, we got the weakest expansion of the past century. Republicans are simply wrong about taxes: Within reason, high tax rates don't hinder growth, and low tax rates don't stimulate it.

 

But don't high taxes reduce the incentive for people to work? Actually, no: For ordinary wage earners, participation in the job force and total hours worked barely respond to taxes at all. ( According to tax specialists Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija, this is "a rare example of a question on which there is a broad consensus among economists.") The same is true for rich people. As a trio of prominent economists concluded last year after reviewing the literature, "there is no compelling evidence to date of real economic responses to tax rates" ( PDF). Even capital gains rates have virtually no impact: During the past few decades, they've bounced up and down from 40 percent to their post-Depression low of 15 percent. The effect on business investment is nil.

Note that the article links to copious amounts of legitimate sources. Edited March 4, 2013 by AGX-17

[Nightshape]

American's who have left the US are stuck paying taxes in both the country they currently live in, and then tax in the USA.

People I work with for example have to pay US taxes despite the fact they are living in Poland, and paying Polish taxes.

[Moose]

I believe that's why people like Terry Gilliam renounced their U.S citizenship.

 

Would also throw out that housing is generally a lot more expensive in the UK - almost makes taxes a non issue.

[Zoraptor]

The Europeans haven't raised taxes as far as I know across the board as a solution.

They have:

Britland Portugal Italy (recent elections notwithstanding) Ireland Greece Spain At the very least France and the Balts as well.

 

While it is pretty stupid the ultimate problem was overspending in the good years, now they only have a selection of various poor choices. They've gone for the one which best matches the fiscal orthodoxy du jour, which is of course coming from the same people who completely missed the crisis (encouraged it, even) which is largely responsible for the problems being so bad.

[Valsuelm]

That's lower than the top tax bracket in the US under the Eisenhower (a Republican) administration, which topped out at 90%. See, the thing that Hayekians/Randians don't understand is that redistribution of wealth actually strengthens the economy.

 

 

That doesn't make it right.

 

Income redistribution or any kind of personal income tax at all doesn't strengthen the economy in any way. Anyone who thinks so fundamentally doesn't understand how money works, or how the tax system works, and are naive to just how corrupt the system is.

 

Would it be better if income was distributed more equitably throughout the populace? Most definitely. Income tax however is not how to achieve that. nor is it what it's currently used for.

 

The video above presents nothing to anyone who even half way pays attention to what goes on. The one thing it offers is the final sentence 'The reality in this country is not at all what we think it is'. True, but not true. The guy who made the video is a communist, and the ideal he describes in the video is communism, not socialism. (Though the only major difference between the two is that socialists are generally just in denial of what they are (and many other things), someone who considers themselves a communist is usually at least honest with themselves.) He assumes everyone was as stupid as he was, so he says 'we'. 'Some of us' or 'Most of us' would be more accurate, this is the not true part. The very true part is that it is not at all what most think it is.

 

If you want to wake up to what's really going on. It takes a lot of work. I recommend starting with any of the following documentaries you can find on the internet relatively easily, but eventually watch them all, and then start doing research from there on your own. Anyone who understands how the modern western monetary system works knows that personal income tax, or most any taxes at all on the National level on it's populace are little more than devices of control and leverage, and illusory ones at that. The bad thing is that so many buy into the illusion.

 

Documentaries:

 

The Money Masters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfpO-WBz_mw

 

The Secret of Oz

 

Money as Debt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41rUS465X8c

 

The American Dream

 

The Banker's Cabal (this one can be hard to find)

 

Note: These are just the tip of the iceberg and I'd recommend doing a lot more homework than just watching them. But if you understand what's being presented, and doing so might not be easy as they present a reality that flies in the faces of what most believe (but most believe in fantasy), you'll understand that income tax is an evil that does not go to be used for what most people think it's used for, and a solution to no problems of the common man.

 

Also, if you had a decent American History teacher in school and paid attention, much of what will be in the above Documentaries will tug at your memories from those classes. Unfortunately, most people are not lucky enough to have good history teachers, nor do most pay enough attention in any class.

 

The documentaries focus largely on the U.S., however most of what they present is true for almost every nation in the western world these days.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Valsuelm

[Guard Dog]

 

You know guys there are some topics that merit serious discussion. I really didn't figure this was one of them. Far more American ex-pats flee to Central and South America and Mexico than GB. Ever been to Cabo San Lucas? I think there is more Americans than Mexicans there.There are probably around 50,000-70,000 US citizens living in GB right now on only 1700 or so are looking to stay permanently over taxes. Not exactly an overwhelming percentage.

 

Taxes do merit serious discussion because, as you all know, there is a point where they do far more harm than good and most countries this one included passed that up a long time ago. But this story was so deliciously ironic I figured we'd get some laughs out of it.

>Holy crap, 75% tax in France!? I dont blame him for moving out.

That's lower than the top tax bracket in the US under the Eisenhower (a Republican) administration, which topped out at 90%. See, the thing that Hayekians/Randians don't understand is that redistribution of wealth actually strengthens the economy.

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/153304/rich_people_don't_create_jobs:_6_myths_that_have_to_be_killed_for_our_economy_to_live?page=entire

Taxes have been the third rail of American politics ever since the California tax revolt of 1978. Even Democrats are nervous about touching them: President Obama has famously called for letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire, but he's always careful to make it clear that he wouldn't change rates for anyone earning less than $250,000 per year. In other words, he'd repeal less than a quarter of the Bush tax cuts.

 

This fear is easy to understand. No one likes paying higher taxes. But do lower taxes actually spur economic growth? Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, has compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since then. His conclusion? There's virtually no correlation.

 

Recent US history backs this up too. Bill Clinton raised tax rates in 1993, and Republicans insisted it would cripple the economy. Instead, the economy boomed. In 2001 and 2003, George W. Bush lowered taxes and Republicans insisted the economy would flourish. Instead, we got the weakest expansion of the past century. Republicans are simply wrong about taxes: Within reason, high tax rates don't hinder growth, and low tax rates don't stimulate it.

 

But don't high taxes reduce the incentive for people to work? Actually, no: For ordinary wage earners, participation in the job force and total hours worked barely respond to taxes at all. ( According to tax specialists Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija, this is "a rare example of a question on which there is a broad consensus among economists.") The same is true for rich people. As a trio of prominent economists concluded last year after reviewing the literature, "there is no compelling evidence to date of real economic responses to tax rates" ( PDF). Even capital gains rates have virtually no impact: During the past few decades, they've bounced up and down from 40 percent to their post-Depression low of 15 percent. The effect on business investment is nil.

Note that the article links to copious amounts of legitimate sources.

 

Our lives are the result of the choices we make. We have the incomes we earn. I am working hard everyday 24-7-365 to climb higher up that curve. I don't think the answer which is implied in the video is to take money away from people who earn it and give it to people who didn't. How is it fair to me to take more of the money I earned and worked very hard for and give it to someone who was asleep in bed or watching TV during those long nights when I worked around the clock? Why is it fair to take a larger percentage of my investment income when it was my savings I risked to earn it and then give it to someone who risked nothing of theirs?

 

Anyone in the US can go from nothing to multimillionare if they work hard enough at it. The outcome is not guaranteed but the opportunity is there. It happens every day. I.m not rich by any means but I do earn a nice living and I own some land and a house. I worked very hard for all of those things. I should not be punished doing what it took for them.

 

I disagree with you completely. Taxes are essential yes, but wealth redistibution only punishes people who made the right choices and sacrifices to reward the ones who made poor choices of just did nothing.

[Calax]

For the record, what we call communism/socialism isn't actually either of those things. True socialism is where nobody has any personal effects, and everyone works to support the state. The State, in turn, provides food, housing and entertainment for it's population and ensures that everyone is protected. Basically, money changing hands is not something that'd happen in a perfect socialist nation.

 

The problem is that most of human history is built around trade and war for things. Rewarding personal ambition is the antithesis of socialism, so psycologically, a true socialist society couldn't happen. By the same token, a pure capitalist society wouldn't happen either. Ayn Rand's vision would only work with everyone being sociopaths, and the lower classes would barely be able to survive. Let's face it, in a purely capitalist society, everything would become a monopoly, and every company would pay the bare minimum they could to have workers.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Have the libertarians started whining about wealth redistribution yet?

[JFSOCC]

You know, I'm tired of seeing this discussion everywhere.

I don't want to foul much more words over it. I'll say it once more and then leave it at that.

let me just say that I'm firmly left wing in my politics. Welfare states routinely are listed in the top for income equality, GDP per head, life expectancy, health, education, infrastructure, upward mobility, and low crime rates, low infant death rates, and low population growth (good thing).

 

High taxes work, and everyone benefits. you tax the highest earners the most, because beyond a certain point, it doesn't get spent by the earner, and he just sits on it. After all, after you've bought your third tropical island, what's left to do?

Trickle down has never worked. If you want reaganomics, go to Pakistan and see how it benefited them.

 

But there's such a "MINE!" mentality, and a great deal of loss aversion, plus ideological beliefs which are provably wrong, which the political right has so expertly managed to frame with their one-liners, that no-one on that side of the political spectrum seems capable of seeing how much they gain from a caring government. It's practically impossible to succeed in life without help, and governments provide help to those who otherwise couldn't get it. In order to do that, they need money. That's not such a hard concept to understand, is it?

 

The redistribution of wealth (which is not a perfectly equal redistribution, mind you, you can still earn and have tremendous amounts of wealth) does strengthen the economy, because it allows for a much broader base of consumers. A poor man can't buy a computer, after all. A poor man can't afford an education in order to become a more skilled worker.

 

How can this incredibly simple concept fail to make sense to those on the political right? I will never know.

 

And if you've earned more than 250.000 euro in a year, I think it is incredibly selfish to want to keep every damn penny. Morally bankrupt. Especially since with 52% tax (here in the Netherlands, it is scaled lower incomes pay a lower percentage) you would keep 120.000 euro, which is a fine amount to live of. And it ensures high quality healthcare when you get sick, keeps those damn vagrants of the streets, makes the paved highways broad for traffic and trade, gives you access to high-speed internet, cleans the damn streets, pays for police and firemen and a whole wide range of services you take for granted and which would be way to expensive if you had to pay for it yourself.

Edited March 5, 2013 by JFSOCC

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

How can this incredibly simple concept fail to make sense to those on the political right? I will never know.

There is actually a book on "zombie economics"(economic theories that have been proven wrong but still keep coming back) that attempts to explain the phenomenon. I would link it, but can't remember the name. Edited March 5, 2013 by KaineParker

[Wrath of Dagon]

The redistribution of wealth (which is not a perfectly equal redistribution, mind you, you can still earn and have tremendous amounts of wealth) does strengthen the economy, because it allows for a much broader base of consumers. A poor man can't buy a computer, after all. A poor man can't afford an education in order to become a more skilled worker.

 

How can this incredibly simple concept fail to make sense to those on the political right? I will never know.

Rewarding people for not working and punishing those who do does not lead to prosperity. For proof you can look at places like Detroit, Chicago, and California. The European crisis should also tell you something.

[BruceVC]

 

The redistribution of wealth (which is not a perfectly equal redistribution, mind you, you can still earn and have tremendous amounts of wealth) does strengthen the economy, because it allows for a much broader base of consumers. A poor man can't buy a computer, after all. A poor man can't afford an education in order to become a more skilled worker.

 

How can this incredibly simple concept fail to make sense to those on the political right? I will never know.

Rewarding people for not working and punishing those who do does not lead to prosperity. For proof you can look at places like Detroit, Chicago, and California. The European crisis should also tell you something.

 

 

But to be be fair strong socialist countries like the Scandinavian countries, or rather socialist hybrid countries, don't do that. They don't reward people for not working, but they do provide excellent public services like education and healthcare. And they do this through relatively high taxes. But most people work so the tax burden is shared. You can't implement a system like this if you have  high unemployment, like South Africa, but the more I look at the various economic models around the world the more I feel that this is the most fair and equitable system overall

[Wrath of Dagon]

It doesn't work if everyone games the system, like in the US.

[BruceVC]

 

The Europeans haven't raised taxes as far as I know across the board as a solution.

They have:

Britland Portugal Italy (recent elections notwithstanding) Ireland Greece Spain At the very least France and the Balts as well.

 

While it is pretty stupid the ultimate problem was overspending in the good years, now they only have a selection of various poor choices. They've gone for the one which best matches the fiscal orthodoxy du jour, which is of course coming from the same people who completely missed the crisis (encouraged it, even) which is largely responsible for the problems being so bad.

 

 

Thanks for the links, but almost all these articles discuss  proposed tax increases or increasing taxes on the wealthy or new property taxes. I understand this and agree. But I am talking about tax increases for every person across the board, both rich and poor. And it looks like only Greece has implemented this

[obyknven]

For the record, what we call communism/socialism isn't actually either of those things. True socialism is where nobody has any personal effects, and everyone works to support the state. The State, in turn, provides food, housing and entertainment for it's population and ensures that everyone is protected. Basically, money changing hands is not something that'd happen in a perfect socialist nation.

Facepalm.jpg. Before posting nonsense try read "Capital" by Marx (or works by Lenin about this). True socialism  is where no State exists. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

For the record, what we call communism/socialism isn't actually either of those things. True socialism is where nobody has any personal effects, and everyone works to support the state. The State, in turn, provides food, housing and entertainment for it's population and ensures that everyone is protected. Basically, money changing hands is not something that'd happen in a perfect socialist nation.

Facepalm.jpg. Before posting nonsense try read "Capital" by Marx (or works by Lenin about this). True socialism  is where no State exists.

 

 

That would be Communism. Socialism is the stage before Communism, where the state still exists.