On Wed, 03 Oct 2012 17:53:53 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Bill Sloman wrote:
>> On Oct 3, 4:38 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> Spehro Pefhany wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:00:31 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> And as usual no word about what triggered it. AFAIK the Dutch government
>>>>> started taxing the assets in bank accounts, regardless of interest. So
>>>>> if you didn't get any or very little interest, like right now, they are
>>>>> confiscating the savings of people piece by piece. People do not like
>>>>> this. Because it is unfair.
>>>> Inflation does exactly the same thing, just invisibly. Taxing the
>>>> assets seems a bit more honest because you can see it happening (like
>>>> not hiding the tax on a receipt).
>>>> Both are very ungood.
>>> Except the Dutch get hit with both, inflation plus confiscation.Bill is
>>> wondering why they don't loudly complain in his neighborhood. Well, many
>>> of them will simply and quietly react by moving the assets under the
>>> mattress or something. Naturally then they'll keep their mouths shut
>>> because else the goons might come after them. The Laffer curve also
>>> works in that arena.

>> The Laffer Curve doesn't talk about the mechanisms by which the tax
>> take decreases - or - in practice - fails to increase in proportion to
>> the rise the tax rate. Tax evasion has to be one of them.

>> The Dutch capital levy isn't actually big enough to justify moving
>> assets about to evade it. I'm not wondering why my neighbours don't
>> complain, any more than I wondered why our tax accountant didn't
>> suggest any interesting schemes to minimise it - the amount of money
>> involved wasn't big enough to get excited about, and certainly not big
>> enough to pay any expert to set up a scheme to get around it.

>Not you or me but the guy with two million Euros is talking north of 20k
>here. That's some real money.

>> "There is a flat tax on the total value of the savings and investments
>> of 1.2% per year. It is nominally part of the income tax, as a 30% tax
>> on a fixed assumed yield of 4% of the value of the assets (this is
>> regardless of the actual income from the assets). EUR 20,014 (higher
>> for 65+ with a low income) of the value of the assets is exempted."

>> You seem to find this unfair. It's certainly a bit strange, but to my
>> mind it's no more unfair than the rest of the tax system. Unlike value
>> added tax, it's progressive rather than regressive, which makes sense
>> to me, though not to most Republicans who profess to hanker after a
>> flat rate system, and in practice tend to legislate for schemes that
>> actively favour the well-off.

>Asset taxes that take away regardless of whether there was any profit
>are always a bad idea. It erodes peoples' savings. But regardless of
>what the percentage is, people lose trust in government when that is
>imposed. Who's guaranteeing that they won't raise that to 2%, 3%, 5% or
>whatever they want some day? The goal is to force the people to declare
>their actual holdings, not just the income. Now that the people have
>obliged they have become, financially, "glass citizens". The government
>knows what they own and probably even where it is.