Best Country for Trading (Tax efficiency)

[luisHK]

Okay, now something really controversial. Just look at the whole Arab region. Billions of muslims can't realize that they're being mislead by a few "leaders" in the name of religion and they hand over everything they have to royal families. Instead who they hate? The free people in Europe and the US.

That's not so clear, look at the arab spring, arab countries kicked out long reigning leaders, and what they did embrace : more religious societies, probably less western friendly (although some groups need weapons and funding from the West, so they need to temper down their anti western rethoric ).
There were surveys over a decade ago in saudi arabia, it wame out it was thanks to its rulers that the country didn't fall into a more active terrorist nest, with large parts of the population pro Al Quaeda.
Besides the Royal families in the Gulf (at least UAE, saudi, and Koweit ) seem to do a decent job at redistributing wealth to their citizens and avoiding poverty than civil strife - interesting how in order to keep that social welfare net , higher than in most of the western world -as well as the status quo in power distribution-, those countries end up blocking foreigners from ever beeing naturalised and kick the temporary immigrants who can't ensure their own subsistance. Huge difference from EU countries that handed out residence, citizenship and social welfare to lots of people who begged at their doorsteps than later to their close relatives.

 

[smallStops]

All will not be so rosy for Gulf countries :

- they have huge proportions of Stateless people.
Just for Kuwaiti alone, few years ago 140 000 people were granted citizenship by Comoros.
( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...y-poor-african-island/?utm_term=.9b59193b2ae7).
Now, these are people whose family have been in Kuwait for at least 200 years.
For us trader, it will be about checking regularly if these stateless people are starting to
"seek more" from the Gulf countries. I would not be astonished if "regime change" started
through them.

- some of their royals/leaders are said to be "Jewish" by extremist "Muslims". How true is it?
But for sure, it is just a question of time, that some hatred got steered up, and for some
"religious" societies to take over. Saudi Arabia bombing in Yemen is used
in some "Muslim" propaganda to explain the "killing of Muslims" by "Jews royals". So
the propaganda is being quickened.

 

[dw31583]

That's not so clear, look at the arab spring, arab countries kicked out long reigning leaders, and what they did embrace : more religious societies, probably less western friendly (although some groups need weapons and funding from the West, so they need to temper down their anti western rethoric ).
There were surveys over a decade ago in saudi arabia, it wame out it was thanks to its rulers that the country didn't fall into a more active terrorist nest, with large parts of the population pro Al Quaeda.
Besides the Royal families in the Gulf (at least UAE, saudi, and Koweit ) seem to do a decent job at redistributing wealth to their citizens and avoiding poverty than civil strife - interesting how in order to keep that social welfare net , higher than in most of the western world -as well as the status quo in power distribution-, those countries end up blocking foreigners from ever beeing naturalised and kick the temporary immigrants who can't ensure their own subsistance. Huge difference from EU countries that handed out residence, citizenship and social welfare to lots of people who begged at their doorsteps than later to their close relatives.

People ain't gonna see the big picture. They either wanna be right, wanna win an argument or wanna beat the other party.

This was totally off topic and your reaction confirms my statement. Nothing's going to change because people will never be able to raise above themselves to objectively see how the society, people and our economy works.

 

[Pekelo]

Is this thread just about being registered in a country for taxes or actually living there? Because those can be 2 different things. Not to mention there are so many other things to consider when one decides where to live, like geography, weather, family, schooling, democracy, religion,etc....

 

[dw31583]

Is this thread just about being registered in a country for taxes or actually living there? Because those can be 2 different things. Not to mention there are so many other things to consider when one decides where to live, like geography, weather, family, schooling, democracy, religion,etc....

This thread is about taxes, not about family, schooling or anything else. There are territorial tax countries which allows you the become a tax resident relatively easily (ie. Panama, Malaysia, etc.) without spending most of your time there. These countries might be useful for traders who are PTs. There are countries where traders can pay low or no taxes while living there. Both categories has been discussed in detail throughout the thread. Check the previous page for a detailed list.

 

[swinging tick]

Multinational corporations paying 0% tax is an issue.

If corporations were forced to pay (higher) taxes - they would pass it in higher prices to consumers, which I don't think consumers/voters would be happy about, since most stuff they buy comes from big corporations.
I think long term solution of the problem is reducing debts, reducing regulations / wasteful Gov spending, and helping businesses to increase productivity, - since productivity is what drives economic prosperity in a long term. Increasing corporate or personal taxes could be productive in a short term (cover deficit) but it will reduce economic activity in a long run.

The issue is so complex, I mean not the economical but the social issue, that no one will solve it, no one will talk about it and the average people will never be smart enough to connect the dots and to see the big picture.

I dont think it is so hopeless. Most people are easy to brainwash, I agree, but I don't think they lack common sense.
Also, you don't need the whole population to wake up and see the problem, you just need 10-20% (there are interesting studies on this subject - how changing behavior of just 15% of a group participants, one can change behavior of the whole group).
Look at the US, Trump's voters (about 60mil = ~19% of the population, of whom probably <5% even read Trump's presidential program) voted in pro-low-tax, anti-big-Gov president. He is not ideal, and probably "too little too late", but at least he is moving in the right direction in terms of economic policy, imho.

 

[Mtrader]

If corporations were forced to pay (higher) taxes - they would pass it in higher prices to consumers, which I don't think consumers/voters would be happy about, since most stuff they buy comes from big corporations.

This is not really correct. If the multinationals would pay taxes, maybe prices would go up. But the government would receive more money from these multinationals and should not have to tax the average joe so hard. So prices could go up, but paid taxes ( for average joe) could go down and thus compensate for the rise of prices.

If what you tell is true, then the government should not tax anybody anymore. Average joe would have more money, or the multinationals could lower the selling prices as they could lower the salaries by the amount of taxes that people would not have to pay anymore.

 

[swinging tick]

@Mtrader
If Governments were well organized and ran efficiently, I would probably agree with you to some extent. However, from what I have seen and read, when Gov gets new sources of income - it doesn't cut taxes for taxpayers or cut some spending programs, it usually finds new (wasteful) ways to spend money.
I'm not saying that corporations should not pay taxes, what I was trying to stress is that focus should be not on chasing corporations or rich people for their "fair share" of taxes (which usually leads to lower economic activity and flight of capital), but on reducing Gov spending and creating better conditions for businesses.
I'm also in favor of flat rate taxes - which would reduce tax compliance costs and remove loopholes (which allow corporations to pay 0% or very low taxes), but these flat rate taxes should be bearable enough not to undermine economic activity.

 

[dw31583]

This is not really correct. If the multinationals would pay taxes, maybe prices would go up. But the government would receive more money from these multinationals and should not have to tax the average joe so hard. So prices could go up, but paid taxes ( for average joe) could go down and thus compensate for the rise of prices.

If what you tell is true, then the government should not tax anybody anymore. Average joe would have more money, or the multinationals could lower the selling prices as they could lower the salaries by the amount of taxes that people would not have to pay anymore.

You're correct Sir, agreed.

 

[dw31583]

@Mtrader
If Governments were well organized and ran efficiently, I would probably agree with you to some extent. However, from what I have seen and read, when Gov gets new sources of income - it doesn't cut taxes for taxpayers or cut some spending programs, it usually finds new (wasteful) ways to spend money.
I'm not saying that corporations should not pay taxes, what I was trying to stress is that focus should be not on chasing corporations or rich people for their "fair share" of taxes (which usually leads to lower economic activity and flight of capital), but on reducing Gov spending and creating better conditions for businesses.
I'm also in favor of flat rate taxes - which would reduce tax compliance costs and remove loopholes (which allow corporations to pay 0% or very low taxes), but these flat rate taxes should be bearable enough not to undermine economic activity.

Your reasoning is nice in the book but doesn't work in real life. I must agree with @Mtrader

First of all a politician is supposed to be neutral and represent the country's interests. Present politicians are everything but neutral and transparent.

1. Make sure everyone pays what s/he is supposed to pay in taxes and in this case I'm talking about international giants not about individuals because let's face it, 99% of the millionaires and billionaires are paying their fair share especially since the CRS and FATCA so this is clearly not the reason behind the deficits
2. Once the companies pays their fair share and politicians stop accepting millions in speech fees to represent these companies then we're better off
3. Now we should audit the government and reduce the government's spending and increase its efficiency
4. Voila, everything works, no deficit, lower taxes, everyone is happy.

Wait for a second. Not everyone is happy. The politicians didn't get their millions to allow these entities to grow above us and thus their CEOs didn't get tens of millions in bonuses either so they're pretty unhappy. Now they'll go back to the previous system and find another enemy to blame their newly created problems on.

Do you start to realize how easy it would be to solve the whole thing if someone would like to change it? No one wants it and no one will do it.