Because the US, after bullying countries like Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Luxembourg to clean house, is now left as the single biggest western tax haven in the world.
Starting with the fairly tame observation that taxing commercial activity results in less of it; I'd imagine the country that is the biggest tax haven has significant commercial advantages. I'd imagine if we looked back at the height of the British Empire's commercial successes we'd find London was hoovering up commercial activity from all over the place.
And once a lot of finance is flowing through a country, I'd expect some sort of interplay with political influence to happen.
You can tax land? A hard working person living a frugal life and who doesn’t buy real estate can avoid paying the vast majority of taxes in such a country, e.g. Singapore.
Such a person would be still paying that tax indirectly as it would be funded by any payments for the "land they use" e.g. housing rent would be directly influenced by that land tax, just as the prices of services (rent can often be ~30% of the base costs of urban service providers).
> If you don't tax commercial activity and wealth, you end up taxing work. This kills societies.
In general this is true but if you are one of the few tax havens in the world then you have so much money going through that a very small percentage tax adds up to enough money to keep your citizens quiet. This only works locally though. Globally, other societies are getting screwed.
It is the worlds most powerful economy and not military that has its benefits. The US can dictate global rules because the cost of being shut out of the US economy is too large and not because the US would invade Switzerland if they don't play ball.
Love it when the system works for you and you can shift assets away from any resposibility.
Hate it when you are the 6/7 (actually much more) of mankind on the other side of the gun.
Sorry, but i hate these shrug "but it has some benefits" reactions. Without a perceived moral high ground, your military is useless, ask putin, and your displayed lacking critical stance is the ever green substrate for that.
Sorry again. Whenever i see such pro/indiffernt US foreign policy posts, i see the next war coming and i feel urged to reply.
I’m pretty critical of contemporary US foreign policy along a number of axes: I don’t find there to be anything unpatriotic about acknowledging the shortcomings or decline of a set of institutions. Quite the contrary, reform is effectively impossible absent a recognition of a problem. I love my country, but it’s not in good health at the moment.
With that said, I think most everyone agrees that a chain of command exists, with its apex in duly constituted civilian authority, that authority substantially if not overwhelmingly mandated with the consent of the public.
We do this. We fall for the propaganda, we spend more time concerned with joining a small elite than throwing their worthless asses out in the cold. We vote for these people or fail to vote for others. We fail to speak up a little bit each and shift the entire burden on the few magnificent bastards who do take on city hall.
Anyone doing any “typical” amount of anything (including your humble commenter who is at or near the front of the queue on not doing enough relative to privilege) is at best not helping: the status quo is extremely bad and it exists because we lack either the clarity or courage to so much as boycott a big corporation, let alone an entrenched special interest, soft money capture ratchet.
The armed forces of the United States, with some exceptions notable enough to be scandals, are carrying out our collective agenda.
Let’s at least be honest about where the buck stops on this. I know I’ve failed in my civic and human duty to object effectively enough, often enough, and fearlessly enough. The least I can do is acknowledge that I among many stood by and watched while it all went to hell.
> The armed forces of the United States, with some exceptions notable enough to be scandals, are carrying out our collective agenda.
I'd need some very good evidence before believing this for any country, not only the US. The people's interests haven't been in the equation for quite a while now. This phrase only works if you replace "our collective agenda" with "the agendas from the rich and powerful".
The typical counter-argument is that we indirectly choose our representatives, but that's a naive take at best. The only people with real power in a capitalist world are the ones with... a lot of capital.
If it's any consolation, the US military isn't the military for the American people. It's a gun for hire for the biggest political donors. This is the case to such an extent that the military leaders are completely in the dark as to why decisions are made.
Iran could be our allies overnight if they stopped their nuclear weapons program. The Iraq invasion wouldn't have happened if Saddam opened up the country to UN weapons inspectors, NK could reunify or be an ally if they stopped huffing jenkem. A lot of our enemies could have avoided it, even if they lost a bit of pride in the process. Religious zeal is more dangerous than capitalism, IMO.
Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Luxembourg aren't exactly innocent and the US has done a good job in pushing for measures such as the end of banking secrecy. Other measures such as the OECD minimum tax benefit everyone, and hopefully the US will also push for the implementation of OECD Pillar 2 (to prevent profit shifting).
I am not sure how and why everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room here. These laws are being "forced" by different "international" organizations at pretty much every country (except partially China and countries like Iran and North Korea that don't give a damn). Many countries could make money accepting financial refugees. That's how Hong Kong and Singapore built their wealth city states (good governance was just a part of it).
Even if we are being moralistic and transparent; for some countries, being tax-free is their only competitive advantage. Instead we are now to assume that tax-free jurisdictions are evil and should be abolished. Might as well just restart colonialism; at least colonial countries got to be part of the big trade.
Tax havens is a race-to-the-bottom thing, just like not caring about emissions. Or using slaves, if you want a more extreme example.
If your country's only advantage is to steal tax money from other countries, or provide cheap energy by burning coal, or cheap labor by using slaves, then it's perfectly fine to isolate that country to force it to stop. We obviously shouldn't just accept that everyone is worse off just so that a country with no other advantage can thrive.
