ECB and Inflation

[Admiral Yi]

Do middle class Spaniards not own stock, or have exposure to the market through private pensions?  Semi-honest question.

[Iormlund]

Not that much. Wealth for the typical middle class family will be concentrated in your home (where you will have to invest most of your savings for 25-35 years). Private pension schemes are not that attractive and rare except for tax avoidance purposes (most people depend on public pensions when they retire). Savings rate is at historical minimums as well.

[Ideologue]

Being unemployed and starving will do that to a country.

[The Minsky Moment]

They weren't able to collect the money because Ryanair's Spanish bank account only had something like 75€ at any given time.

Surely one EU jurisdiction will recognize and enforce civil judgments from another EU jurisdiction?

[Admiral Yi]

Being unemployed and starving will do that to a country.

It is difficult in most countries to maintain membership in the middle class while unemployed and starving.

[Sheilbh]

Right. Because wanting rich people to actually pay taxes is undesirable. Much better to tax the middle classes instead.

Corporation tax doesn't tax the rich. Personally I'd argue it is equally a tax on workers because of the impact it has on investment, jobs and wages. It taxes companies on their capital which then makes investment more expensive.

If you want to tax the rich - which is fine - then the more efficient way to do it is to tax capital gains and dividends at a higher rate. This has certainly been the trend in Western Europe. Cut corporation tax so companies, but raise taxes and close loopholes on income to shareholders.

Maybe corporation tax is such a low part of the revenue because a) we've been in a race to the bottom for a long time now and b) during a crisis there is not that much profit for SMEs and multinationals can squirrel their gains away.

Actually I think it's always been relatively low.

[Iormlund]

Huh? The Brits tax corporations on their capital instead of their profits?


And by the way, if you want to help workers get more jobs, lowering payroll tax is a much better idea (and one I support).

[Sheilbh]

And by the way, if you want to help workers get more jobs, lowering payroll tax is a much better idea (and one I support).

Agreed.

And move the taxes to land, wealth and consumption

[Ed Anger]

 

[The Larch]

They weren't able to collect the money because Ryanair's Spanish bank account only had something like 75€ at any given time.

Surely one EU jurisdiction will recognize and enforce civil judgments from another EU jurisdiction?

I don't really know how it works, maybe it was not really worth it for such a small amount, or maybe they settled some other way.

[Ideologue]

And by the way, if you want to help workers get more jobs, lowering payroll tax is a much better idea (and one I support).

Agreed.

And move the taxes to land, wealth and consumption

Only if it's 100%.

[The Brain]

Consumption? Is this the 19th century?

[Ed Anger]

And by the way, if you want to help workers get more jobs, lowering payroll tax is a much better idea (and one I support).

Agreed.

And move the taxes to land, wealth and consumption

Only if it's 100%.

[garbon]

And by the way, if you want to help workers get more jobs, lowering payroll tax is a much better idea (and one I support).

Agreed.

And move the taxes to land, wealth and consumption

Won't these two, particularly the latter be deleterious to the non-wealthy classes?

[Sheilbh]

Not necessarily. You can mitigate against those effects - not least with redistribution like EITC or Switzerland's new minimum income proposal (which is very interesting). It'd also need to be part of wider tax reform.

Having said that I think it's wise for most countries to continue cut corporation tax but tax dividends and capital gains more regardless.