ECB and Inflation

[Admiral Yi]

Property taxes on typical homeowners is evil.  If the land itself is not producing income, it is just a scheme to eventually try to force those owners off that land.

Not a very successful scheme.

[Ideologue]

That must be a South Carolina thing.

KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT OF EVERYTHING unless it's taxes on a necessity of life.

I will give us credit for reducing the sales tax on food items to a nominal 1% (although not restaurant items, which seems to get just higher and higher, unfortunately).

[MadImmortalMan]

Toni's point is a good one though. Taxing property that is not revenue-generating is basically a tax on existing. Sorry, maam, but you can either pay this tax or pay rent to some fatcat. We already tax income, so the revenue-generating ones are covered. Why are we doing this?

[Tonitrus]

Exactly...to even have it possible for a situation where 90-year old grandma Peterson has to sell the home she has lived in her entire life, just because the neighborhood has become gentrified/hipsterized, and is now worth 10,000% more than she and her late husband paid 70 years ago, but the assessed propery tax value is now also 10,000% more than her Social Security income...equates to that de facto "scheme to force people off their land".

Sure it may not be a common scenario.  But that it can occur at all, is evil.

Now property tax on Google's Mountain View corporate HQ...or even Farmer Bob's 20,000 acres of genetically-modified soybean fields?  That's fair.

Grandma Peterson just better watch out if she starts growing too many tomatoes in the backyard garden.

[Neil]

Still, don't you think that a confiscatory property tax scheme will have some negative effects on middle class homeowners?  I mean, I realize that it's pretty popular in Europe to hate that sort of person, but do they really deserve to take the hit that you're aiming at the rich?

It is precisely the middle class that now pays disproportionately, because their salaries are so easy to tap into. There's almost 40% payroll tax on top of income tax.

I just propose shifting some of that burden to the one thing the rich and megacorporations like Apple can't hide behind tax code loopholes.

Why not just close loopholes?  What you're proposing is even worse than the existing situation.  Sure, you might get a bit of money out of those who can afford it, but the effect on regular people will be so much worse.

[Iormlund]

Why not just close loopholes?  What you're proposing is even worse than the existing situation.  Sure, you might get a bit of money out of those who can afford it, but the effect on regular people will be so much worse.

Some loopholes don't necessarily involve just one country.

Apple, for example, sets up a corporation in low tax Ireland (within EU) to which it assigns patents. Then Apple Spain (or Apple UK) licenses said patents and sells its crap to local customers. The result is that Apple Spain generates a shitload of revenue, yet operates at a loss. This not only deprives the state of revenues but puts local firms at a disadvantage.

[Sheilbh]

Toni's point is a good one though. Taxing property that is not revenue-generating is basically a tax on existing. Sorry, maam, but you can either pay this tax or pay rent to some fatcat. We already tax income, so the revenue-generating ones are covered. Why are we doing this?

That's why I support a land value tax (though there's also a place for property taxes).

But I thought this was part of the general consensus, that we should move from income taxes to taxes on consumption and property

[Ideologue]

Toni's point is a good one though. Taxing property that is not revenue-generating is basically a tax on existing. Sorry, maam, but you can either pay this tax or pay rent to some fatcat. We already tax income, so the revenue-generating ones are covered. Why are we doing this?

That's why I support a land value tax (though there's also a place for property taxes).

But I thought this was part of the general consensus, that we should move from income taxes to taxes on consumption and property

[Neil]

Why not just close loopholes?  What you're proposing is even worse than the existing situation.  Sure, you might get a bit of money out of those who can afford it, but the effect on regular people will be so much worse.

Some loopholes don't necessarily involve just one country.

Apple, for example, sets up a corporation in low tax Ireland (within EU) to which it assigns patents. Then Apple Spain (or Apple UK) licenses said patents and sells its crap to local customers. The result is that Apple Spain generates a shitload of revenue, yet operates at a loss. This not only deprives the state of revenues but puts local firms at a disadvantage.

If Spain feels that Apple Spain is playing them false, then yank their charter.

[Neil]

Toni's point is a good one though. Taxing property that is not revenue-generating is basically a tax on existing. Sorry, maam, but you can either pay this tax or pay rent to some fatcat. We already tax income, so the revenue-generating ones are covered. Why are we doing this?

That's why I support a land value tax (though there's also a place for property taxes).

But I thought this was part of the general consensus, that we should move from income taxes to taxes on consumption and property

I don't think that such a consensus exists, at least not with places with a functioning middle class.

[The Larch]

Why not just close loopholes?  What you're proposing is even worse than the existing situation.  Sure, you might get a bit of money out of those who can afford it, but the effect on regular people will be so much worse.

Some loopholes don't necessarily involve just one country.

Apple, for example, sets up a corporation in low tax Ireland (within EU) to which it assigns patents. Then Apple Spain (or Apple UK) licenses said patents and sells its crap to local customers. The result is that Apple Spain generates a shitload of revenue, yet operates at a loss. This not only deprives the state of revenues but puts local firms at a disadvantage.

If Spain feels that Apple Spain is playing them false, then yank their charter.

It's an EU wide issue, and the main reason why the EU is putting a lot of pressure on Ireland to increase their corporate taxes.

[Tamas]

That must be a South Carolina thing.

KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT OF EVERYTHING unless it's taxes on a necessity of life.

you are a shame to communists everywhere

[Ideologue]

How so?

[Threviel]

Why not just close loopholes?  What you're proposing is even worse than the existing situation.  Sure, you might get a bit of money out of those who can afford it, but the effect on regular people will be so much worse.

Some loopholes don't necessarily involve just one country.

Apple, for example, sets up a corporation in low tax Ireland (within EU) to which it assigns patents. Then Apple Spain (or Apple UK) licenses said patents and sells its crap to local customers. The result is that Apple Spain generates a shitload of revenue, yet operates at a loss. This not only deprives the state of revenues but puts local firms at a disadvantage.

If Spain feels that Apple Spain is playing them false, then yank their charter.

It's an EU wide issue, and the main reason why the EU is putting a lot of pressure on Ireland to increase their corporate taxes.

So... Ireland has low taxes. Therefore the job of the EU is to make sure that their taxes are raised to accomodate badly run countries like Spain? Shouldn't the pressure be on Spain to get it's shit together?

[The Larch]

Why not just close loopholes?  What you're proposing is even worse than the existing situation.  Sure, you might get a bit of money out of those who can afford it, but the effect on regular people will be so much worse.

Some loopholes don't necessarily involve just one country.

Apple, for example, sets up a corporation in low tax Ireland (within EU) to which it assigns patents. Then Apple Spain (or Apple UK) licenses said patents and sells its crap to local customers. The result is that Apple Spain generates a shitload of revenue, yet operates at a loss. This not only deprives the state of revenues but puts local firms at a disadvantage.

If Spain feels that Apple Spain is playing them false, then yank their charter.

It's an EU wide issue, and the main reason why the EU is putting a lot of pressure on Ireland to increase their corporate taxes.

So... Ireland has low taxes. Therefore the job of the EU is to make sure that their taxes are raised to accomodate badly run countries like Spain? Shouldn't the pressure be on Spain to get it's shit together?

It is not a matter of getting shit together, it's a matter of distorting the internal EU market through borderline (if not outright) tax haven practices that give international corporations loopholes to take their inmense profits home without leaving almost any taxes in the countries where they actually conduct their business. This hits Luxembourg as well.