Quote:
Originally Posted by wodin
I think that would depend on if your perspective was from a position of being successful or not being successful.
And how would discussing differences in the tax systems of US/Europe be any further off topic than discussing the differences in education or medical treatment or capitalism vs. socialism. It seems to me to be part and parcel of the same thing.
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Because "punishment for success" is only a phrase uttered by people who believe a very specific thing, namely that all taxation is "unfair" or "theft". While there are certainly countries that live by this motto (To name a few, Lesotho, Bolivia, Sierra Leone and Namibia), it can be argued that these places aren't very nice to live in for most of the population.
That said, "taxation" is only punishment if you start from the assumption that you have a right to all money you can get your hands on; something that is true only for democratic societies, and something that will cost you a sum of money, by way of taxation.
Examples of how other countries are different: look up mr. billionaire
Chodorkovksy, or consider how people tend to die when they lose the favor of the dictator of the country they're living in. And ask yourself if that really is the world you want to live in.
Alternatively, accept that even living in a "Free and Democratic Society" will set you back some (although I suspect there are more than a few tax havens around to help you keep your money, like Florida.)
Anyway, I'm not really trying to be inflammatory, I just think that the notion of "only 0 tax is fair" is ludicrous.