Christ, no amount of shilling on social media will change the fact Bernie has absolutely no possible way of winning the primary and even less a chance of winning the election. Even if Hillary were to get indicted and drop out the Democrats would be conceding the election to Trump or Cruz.
Even straight personal theft has a range, from the obviously amoral (snatching an old lady's purse) to the morally ambiguous (Robin Hood stealing from aristocrats to feed starving peasants).
Are there legitimate reasons for tax avoidance? Yes. For example, if you were rich but had the misfortune to live in the regime-controlled part of Syria, you'd be stuck there now, and nobody would fault you for trying your very best to move your assets elsewhere to avoid funding a corrupt and murderous government.
So to your abstract question about whether tax evasion is theft, I'd say "sometimes".
However, the specific cases we're talking about here, revealed by the Mossack Fonseca leak, were definitely theft.
There's a perverse trend of rich people in rich, democratic countries who consider themselves above taxation. They're in free countries, and they're free to leave: if they really wanted to take a moral stand against taxation, they could pull an Eduardo Saverin, give up their citizenship, and emigrate to a low-tax country. Instead they stay and lie about their income.
The poor don't pay taxes because they can't. The middle and upper middle class pay taxes, often a huge fraction of their income, because they can't not. Only the truly rich have the flexibility and resources to set up, say, a system of Panamanian shell companies.
It becomes even more starkly amoral and flagrantly hypocritical when elected officials do it.
Thank you for your well thought out opinion. Honestly. I know I come at these issues with a strong personal bias, so it's a good thing for me to hear a well constructed counter argument.
I guess I don't really disagree with you either. Where I become frustrated with the response to this leak is the seemingly obvious misplaced blame (again, maybe this is just my bias). The media and political talking heads are all spinning this as a referendum on big business/the mega rich, when it seems so obvious to me this is always the outcome when statist/socialist policies are practiced -- corruption is always the result. It's not news that people will generally act in their own self interest. Maybe we should stop structuring our societies in a way that when people act selfishly (like humans) it hurts everyone else.
But, alas, how will the political elite spin the outcome? With less freedom, more regulation, by building a taller house of cards.
Well, only if you're using any of the things which tax money paid for, like public roads or courts or public libraries or etc. etc. If you're a hermit living in the forest not using any of that, I think it's totally legit to not pay your taxes.
This seams to be a moot point... So far most people named in the Panama docs are not US nationals.
Most US nationals have lots of options of hiding their taxes inside. Weather it's Delaware corps, or trusts in the Dakotas. There's a great story on Planet Money about this.
What? Delaware corporations are completely standard. The state bureaucracy is fairly efficient, the laws are reasonable, lawyers well versed in Delaware corporate law are readily available in all 50 states, etc. It's not about tax avoidance.
It's entirely about tax avoidance, thats the whole point of using a Delaware Corp and why they're so popular.
The fact they're standard is irrelevant to the parent's claim. They're only standard because nobody wants to voluntarily pay extra state taxes. And for some reason it's both legal and generally socially acceptable to have a corporation that has its office and effectively does its business in another state be legally based in Delaware to avoid state tax.
> The Editor in Chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of United States individuals in the documents, saying to "Just wait for what is coming next".
13 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 40.9 ms ] threadSo, yes.
Even straight personal theft has a range, from the obviously amoral (snatching an old lady's purse) to the morally ambiguous (Robin Hood stealing from aristocrats to feed starving peasants).
Are there legitimate reasons for tax avoidance? Yes. For example, if you were rich but had the misfortune to live in the regime-controlled part of Syria, you'd be stuck there now, and nobody would fault you for trying your very best to move your assets elsewhere to avoid funding a corrupt and murderous government.
So to your abstract question about whether tax evasion is theft, I'd say "sometimes".
However, the specific cases we're talking about here, revealed by the Mossack Fonseca leak, were definitely theft.
There's a perverse trend of rich people in rich, democratic countries who consider themselves above taxation. They're in free countries, and they're free to leave: if they really wanted to take a moral stand against taxation, they could pull an Eduardo Saverin, give up their citizenship, and emigrate to a low-tax country. Instead they stay and lie about their income.
The poor don't pay taxes because they can't. The middle and upper middle class pay taxes, often a huge fraction of their income, because they can't not. Only the truly rich have the flexibility and resources to set up, say, a system of Panamanian shell companies.
It becomes even more starkly amoral and flagrantly hypocritical when elected officials do it.
I guess I don't really disagree with you either. Where I become frustrated with the response to this leak is the seemingly obvious misplaced blame (again, maybe this is just my bias). The media and political talking heads are all spinning this as a referendum on big business/the mega rich, when it seems so obvious to me this is always the outcome when statist/socialist policies are practiced -- corruption is always the result. It's not news that people will generally act in their own self interest. Maybe we should stop structuring our societies in a way that when people act selfishly (like humans) it hurts everyone else.
But, alas, how will the political elite spin the outcome? With less freedom, more regulation, by building a taller house of cards.
Most US nationals have lots of options of hiding their taxes inside. Weather it's Delaware corps, or trusts in the Dakotas. There's a great story on Planet Money about this.
What? Delaware corporations are completely standard. The state bureaucracy is fairly efficient, the laws are reasonable, lawyers well versed in Delaware corporate law are readily available in all 50 states, etc. It's not about tax avoidance.
The fact they're standard is irrelevant to the parent's claim. They're only standard because nobody wants to voluntarily pay extra state taxes. And for some reason it's both legal and generally socially acceptable to have a corporation that has its office and effectively does its business in another state be legally based in Delaware to avoid state tax.
Edit - adding link to 2012 NYT article : http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-t...
> The Editor in Chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of United States individuals in the documents, saying to "Just wait for what is coming next".