Panama Papers

[MadImmortalMan]

I can think of no moral justification for wanting to know the contents of your bank account. If I go to your bank and ask to see them, the bank will tell me no, because that's their fiduciary responsibility.

I don't know what the law has to do with morality, anyway. The two are often agnostic of each other and sometimes actively at odds.

You should reread the parts where he expressly talks about removing laws which allow this sort of tax avoidance.  He readily admitted that the level of international cooperation which would be necessary made it unlikely to achieve but he certainly expressed the view that international tax dodges were a significant part of the problem of wealth inequality in our society.

I have it right here. You can give me a page number if you want.

"Tax dodges" is not a thing anyone should need. However even if you lived in a very friendly jurisdiction (however you define that), it would still be a dumb idea to keep all your assets in one country.

[Berkut]

I can think of no moral justification for wanting to know the contents of your bank account. If I go to your bank and ask to see them, the bank will tell me no, because that's their fiduciary responsibility.

Nobody is talking about private individuals having a right to know what is in the bank account of other private individuals. Where did that idea get into the discussion?

However even if you lived in a very friendly jurisdiction (however you define that), it would still be a dumb idea to keep all your assets in one country.

You are mixing up at least two separate concepts. Nobody disputes that diversifying is a perfectly legitimate business desire.

But you don't need super secret shell companies to do that, and that is NOT the purpose of what is under discussion.

[crazy canuck]

I can think of no moral justification for wanting to know the contents of your bank account. If I go to your bank and ask to see them, the bank will tell me no, because that's their fiduciary responsibility.

I don't know what the law has to do with morality, anyway. The two are often agnostic of each other and sometimes actively at odds.

You should reread the parts where he expressly talks about removing laws which allow this sort of tax avoidance.  He readily admitted that the level of international cooperation which would be necessary made it unlikely to achieve but he certainly expressed the view that international tax dodges were a significant part of the problem of wealth inequality in our society.

I have it right here. You can give me a page number if you want.

"Tax dodges" is not a thing anyone should need. However even if you lived in a very friendly jurisdiction (however you define that), it would still be a dumb idea to keep all your assets in one country.

With all due respect, if you missed the call for an end to international tax avoidance, you kind of missed the whole point of his book that an effective progressive tax is the best policy device governments have to combat income inequality. 

[MadImmortalMan]

I didn't miss that, and I agree with it.

[crazy canuck]

I didn't miss that, and I agree with it.

ok, what are we disagreeing about? 

[Razgovory]

How do you reconcile this supposed "right to asset privacy" with taxation?

You don't. Marty is just pulling "rights" out of his ass.

Well in his defense, he is a minion for these people.

[MadImmortalMan]

I didn't miss that, and I agree with it.

ok, what are we disagreeing about?

I guess that the issue is about tax dodging. It's far more complicated than that.

Marty asked some questions of morality, but there's no moral component in taxes. You pay them because it's the law, not because there's a choice.

[crazy canuck]

I didn't miss that, and I agree with it.

ok, what are we disagreeing about?

I guess that the issue is about tax dodging. It's far more complicated than that.

Marty asked some questions of morality, but there's no moral component in taxes. You pay them because it's the law, not because there's a choice.

Ok, that is a point of disagreement. 

I think tax policy is a decision governments make that takes place in a moral context.  The judgement that the law is neutral, as you argued above, is itself a moral judgment.  Just as the counter argument that it is not neutral at all is based on a moral judgment. 

If we get to the next level our our discussion, your assertion that privacy rights should trump the ability of taxation authorities to know what is occurring also involves a question of morality.

Picketty's argument that these sorts of tax loopholes should be closed so that wealth can be effectively taxed on a progressive basis is also grounded in morality.

The very notion that all people should be treated equal and that there should not be special circumstances for the elite is a deeply moral concept.

[MadImmortalMan]

Picketty's argument that these sorts of tax loopholes should be closed so that wealth can be effectively taxed on a progressive basis is also grounded in morality.

That's a good point. And we can't go there if I can't get to thinking of the tax authorities as a moral agent.


I think they are a legal agent. Kind of like when a lawyer in court is representing a guilty defendant and he knows it. It's his job to act in his client's interest, and the law is set up that way to ensure there are adequate protections. Someone must perform that duty. What that lawyer is doing is not immoral. It's a function of legal activity that is necessary for the court to properly function. The taxes have to be collected. Some doofus might think it's more moral to not pay the taxes. It doesn't matter.

All those goals you mentioned are certainly morally good things. Maybe some of them aren't, for people with weird morality. 

Some people like laws against sodomy and gay marriage because they think that's moral. The law doesn't care one way or the other. It enforces what's written.

This is why I think legality and morality are separate.

Also, now they're publishing a List(R) from the Panama Papers. Come on, man. The Good Guys don't make lists. Witch hunts make lists. Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy make lists. The whole thing is incredibly distasteful.

[Admiral Yi]

Nixon and McCarthy made lists that weren't true.

Exactly what principle or principles are you defending Mimsy?

[MadImmortalMan]

Exactly what principle or principles are you defending Mimsy?

This is one of those times when my gut feeling is not to follow the mob, if you know what I mean.

It's not good and evil, it's something else that requires more thought.

I guess that's not really a good answer to your question, but if I come up with something more specific, I'll say.

[crazy canuck]

Picketty's argument that these sorts of tax loopholes should be closed so that wealth can be effectively taxed on a progressive basis is also grounded in morality.

That's a good point. And we can't go there if I can't get to thinking of the tax authorities as a moral agent.


I think they are a legal agent. Kind of like when a lawyer in court is representing a guilty defendant and he knows it. It's his job to act in his client's interest, and the law is set up that way to ensure there are adequate protections. Someone must perform that duty. What that lawyer is doing is not immoral. It's a function of legal activity that is necessary for the court to properly function. The taxes have to be collected. Some doofus might think it's more moral to not pay the taxes. It doesn't matter.

All those goals you mentioned are certainly morally good things. Maybe some of them aren't, for people with weird morality. 

Some people like laws against sodomy and gay marriage because they think that's moral. The law doesn't care one way or the other. It enforces what's written.

This is why I think legality and morality are separate.

Also, now they're publishing a List(R) from the Panama Papers. Come on, man. The Good Guys don't make lists. Witch hunts make lists. Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy make lists. The whole thing is incredibly distasteful.

I think that is Marti's approach as a lawyer.  But I think it is important to separate the positions one might take in that role with the position one takes when considering what the law ought to be.  A good frank discussion about what the law should be is hindered if the population is not well informed as to what the law is.  Sometimes it takes an event like this to start the discussion and cause much needed law reform.

The notion that the law doesn't care ignores that fact that laws dont make themselves.  Legislators make laws.  Laws don't think nor do they act.  They are creatures of what we make of them.

You might find it distasteful, but what I find more distasteful are unfair tax laws.  At least this exposes the current legal tax codes in the world for what they are.  Tools for the rich to avoid paying tax while the shrinking middle class shoulders all the burden.  It is a very important moment for creating effective and efficient tax policy.

[Eddie Teach]

Nixon and McCarthy made lists that weren't true.

Exactly what principle or principles are you defending Mimsy?

I think Richard Nixon is a better judge of who Richard Nixon's enemies are than you or I. 

[Martinus]

CC, wouldn't the moral argument you are making rest on an assumption that taxes are morally good?

There are plenty of people out there who are not criminals and who think that the state (especially in countries like Canada) is too bloated and grabs too much of private citizens' money. They lack the ability to change that because, to paraphrase Toqueville, the rabble has figured out how to use democracy to help itself to public money, and it is no longer possible to stop them from leeching off it. From such a perspective, using legal tax avoidance mechanisms is not just morally neutral - it is actually morally positive, because you are actually protecting the product of your hard work from the hands of the parasites.

I do not necessarily share this view, mind you, but you are making as many moral assumptions as anyone else here, but pretend to argue from the position of objective morality.

[alfred russel]

If you have a company set up in an offshore account, you can keep most of your financial assets, you only lose what the government won't let you take out of the country.

Viper touches on a good point. At least in the US, lots of multinationals have massive amounts of offshore cash because there are significant taxes on repatriation. A lot of that money ends up in places considered tax havens, even though it just ends up in government debt or CDs. Why? Because the same lax attitude that makes it a tax haven also make it easy to do legitimate things like move money in and out of the country and they also have lower taxes on passive income.