I'd put income tax in the regressive category. 3K a year off a min wage earner does more damage than a higher rate of tax, on a higher earner. It's because they have so little leeway, that its damaging. Here's my prediction. EU is freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. So you can move your money to where the tax is cheapest, and countries have to derogate to stop it. Even Greece hasn't done this. So the rich will move their money to where the tax is the least. Companies, particularly with IP such as royalties and websites will do the same. It's almost impossible to tax a website, although France is trying, and its will be illegal under EU law. Websites are services. So all IP taxes will be lost. The rich will move money into companies, and just pay the tax on what they take out. ie. Their spending. So for the rich, there will be no difference, its all a sales tax. So that means more and more governments are going to be forced into sales taxes. It's going to be the only way they can raise a percentage of what they spend. You're quite right, its going to hit them hard. They've been forced to rely on the state, and the states in Europe are bankrupt. [The big debts are hidden off the books - pensions] So all taxes are bad for the poor. More so than for the rich.

It's because its a stealth tax, as you say you don't see it being take. However, consider the UK. We have taxes on insurance. VAT (sales tax), taxes on fuel, taxes on new cars, and taxes to own a car. Get rid of them all, and put it on fuel. 1. Cheap to collect, there aren't many fuel companies. 2. It's very hard to avoid. 3. It's proportionate to your use of the roads. 4. It's transparent - almost. Ideally it should be hypothecated. That tax pays for the roads, no more, no less.

Then you will find that other countries also apply the weeze. Tax US companies operating in their locale on their world wide income

So where are the profits made? Where the service is consumed, or where the servers are, or where the intellectual property is owed? Traditionally its been the first, where its consumed, that most of the tax has been paid. When it comes to IP, and virtual services, its one of the later two, or a combination there off. Now, those will move to where the taxes and the costs are cheaper. ie. Companies will try and maximise their profits. Countries will try and extract as much cash as possible out of consumers, or investors such as pensioners. Now I don't have a problem with maximising profits, I do have an issue with countries trying to squeeze until people are dry. It's not productive and it does more harm than good. However, what's going on now is that countries for these products can't squeeze, so they are squealing about how unfair it is. You won't give us lots of money so we can spend it. The game has changed. It's got benefits, but it also has problems. What it does is expose countries debts, all their debts. The hidden ones can't be paid, and for people reliant, either by choice or because they have been forced to be, on the state, to massive problems. The state can't pay them, and they will bear the brunt of taxation. It's not the companies fault, its people running Ponzi pensions that's the underlying cause of what's going to happen

Yes, It's a strategy, but I don't see many taking it. The reason being that if you've accumulated a significant pension, you've probably got other assets, property etc. So would you give up the property, just to get an asset you're going to realise anyway? However, there are people who drop money in, and then then go bust deliberately. In such cases the liquidator can go to a court in order to get the assets. It has some benefits for society. You can take a risk, knowing that you will be safe in retirement. Different from the US, but not outrageous.

The UK has a different set up. Unless you deliberately fund a pension, from the proceeds say of a fraud, creditors can't easily get access to a pension fund. It's because its in trust for the person's retirement. Likewise, when it comes to charities, in the UK and most of Europe, the money is put into trust. http://www.muridae.com/nporegulation/documents/exempt_orgs.html gives a list of the sort of organisations in the US, that are analogous to trusts.

Well, trusts are quite standard. Nothing to do with fraud. Almost all charities are set up as trusts. I presume you then think that they are bunch of fraudsters? Here's one. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/ You could always accuse them of fraud. Pensions. Are the people saving in a pension a bunch of fraudsters? http://www.thepensionlawyer.com/pension_trusts.htm OK, remove the trust. Then as soon as someone has the misfortune to go on welfare, we can take their pensions. Someone goes bankrupt for whatever reason, say illness, you can take their pensions. Or they get into financial trouble, you can take their pensions and put them onto welfare. Lots of things can be legal entitities and not be a person. Companies can go to court, trusts can, people can. All can own things. What's the problem or is it that you want other people's money, or other companies money for your own purposes?

Of course. Why would you play the game that says, pay your money, we will put it in our bank accounts, and you get nothing? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/9717973/George-Papandreous-mother-linked-to-550-million-Swiss-bank-account.html The 89-year-old mother of a former Greek prime minister has been reportedly linked to a Swiss bank account containing more €550 million (£446 million). =========== Yep, on a civil servants wages too.

Who owns the trust? It's pretty much the same question as saying, who owns you. A trust doesn't have owners. You don't have owners do you? You can tax the income that is given to the beneficiary. However, the trustees can have discression on how much to pay. So if the trust pays what the receipiant spends, and reinvests the rest, the reinvestment money is still the trusts. It's not going to be taxed, because its not the beneficiaries. Now if you think this is strange, this is how pension funds, investment trusts etc are set up. Invariable, they are in separate countries. The reason is that if the bank say goes bust, the liquidator can't go after the assets of the fund. It's happened in the past and people have lost out seriously. So the structure that gets used. Any problems there? What's the problem then with other people doing the same?

No, its a bit more subtle. I'm saying that the payments that are going to have to be paid to pay out for past state debts, plus the existing spend exceeds GDP. What options do you have to solve that problem? It's going to be cuts, and tax rises. However, from the drop off in tax receipts, from the increases, I suspect even that won't work. Then people will take the Greek option. Greeks aren't paying taxes isn't the cause, its a symptom. Would you pay tax when you get no services? Would you pay tax when the people taxing you are the people responsible for the mess? The Greeks aren't paying because the state is mess, not vice versa. So I think its pretty dire. All because of a fraud hiding the debts off the books.

They are only doing what the government says. They want people to move from short term bonuses to longer term bonuses. That spreads the tax out. Joined up thinking? Hmm :-)

With a trust, they don't own the shares or the company. A trust is a completely separate legal entity. If a trust is set up in your favour, you don't own anything in it.

I pretty much agree with the assessment of the French attitude. There's a problem. They haven't got the money for the toys. They haven't got the money for the basics. It's all on tick. It's all come from spending people's pension money. So it doesn't matter about the democratic process. Even Zimbabwe is democratic to a certain extent. They've voted for the toys. They haven't got them. They can't afford them. So that's why I think the UK and France are the countries that will end up with violence. France first. Spain, Italy, Greece, its all been a love in.

I would imagine the money to reimburse the poor would come from the sales tax itself. ============= Well, take the UK, so its all in GBP 1.1 Trillion borrowing. 5.3 trillion off the books debts. Primarily pensions, and just for the pensions where people have paid up front, (not pensions resulting from future payments), or pensions associated with people who have worked for the government - deferred pay. The rest is PFI, which is debt deliberately maniplated off the books. Plus expected losses on guarantees, and nuclear decommissiong where the companies paid up front, for the government to undertake the work. About 7 trillion in total. Taxes at 550 bn a year. 0.55 trillion. Government spending at 0.7 trillion The current position is unsusbtainable. They are bust. So whose is going to lose. 1. People dependent on the state. That's the poor, who receive redistributions of money, primarily because they are taxed too much to live off what they are allowed to keep. 2. People forced to save with the state for their pensions. That's ex state workers, and the poor again. They haven't enough to live off, yet they are still taxed for that pension. It pays out about 20% of the value of payments. The rest has been redistributed, or spent on other things. Since that's a pretty unpleasant cocktail, the state will try and tax its way out. That won't work. The UK has lost 10,000 out of the 16,000 million a year earners in one year. France is haemoraging the wealthy because it said, we will tax you at 75% on income, then welfare on the rest, and a wealth tax to boot. Remember, the EU says freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. You would have to derogate from the treaties to prevent capital flight. ie. The politicians of the country would have to say, we won't allow you to leave unless you hand over your money. It can be done legally, but it reeks of the third reich.

Trust A owns company B, registered in country C, Trust pays income to a person in country D. D can get the tax on the income. However D cannot tax the trust, because its not in the county. Neither can it tax B, the company for the same reason. It can't tax the person for the ownership of the shares, because they don't own the shares, the trust does. You might as well ask how can North Korea tax Apple for their profits in the USA.