Why is the tenth man so rich anyway? Did he make his wealth by profiteering, usually at the expense of cheap labour? Did he use more than one person’s fair share of natural resources and public infrastructure?

Anyway, the idea that the poor beat up the rich is conceptually flawed. The problem is that the entire system is at fault. Tax strategies are fighting the inherent wealth disparities, a process that evolved with the use of wealth as power to subjugate.

The old model of worshipping the rich ‘because the provide’ is proving to be fallacious. New ideas about treating money for what it was designed to be must be introduced. Worth must be calculated on merit and intrinsic value. The divide between rich and poor is not a function of actuality. It has been invented by the rich to make the rich richer. People seem to think this is ‘natural’, the concept of social darwinism, but it is utter poppycock. The United States has a large rotten core, forgotten about by the largely right wing media because of ‘inconvenient truths’.

Governments are elected by the majority there fore they must serve the majority. That simply does not happen because of fatuous analysis of what income and wealth actually entails.

The idea that money equals power and therefore progress and societal standing needs to be re examined. Money is a bartering tool, not a weapon of mass destruction. So why is it that the top 0.15% of the global population own more than the bottom 40%? Hard work? They don’t know the meaning of the words. Try walking ten miles each way for a bucket of unclean water to cook and clean for your family. Our rich countries policies cause this disparity, and tax disharmony is a major contributor.

If the rich truly ‘love’ Guernsey then they should be willing to contribute to its long term survival. My instincts are that they are only here to widen wealth disparity.

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Excellent ‘beer’ post

Do us all a favour and repeat it every time an anti rich tax matter is raised in these pages

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Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share”? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink their beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before and the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start
drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

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It is my opinion that we will run our planet into meltdown before we realise this fact?

For what exactly?

Personal GREED?

I have a family which I wish to grow upon do we all?

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Only by strict legislation on higher earners (I read a decent government paper on those that are exploiting domicile rules – a good step), introducing some sort of wealth tax, be it IHT and its ilk, or tax on calculated market wealth (this would encompass rising house prices and share price rises and the like) will any sort of progress be made to make people feel responsible for the island. The problem is that people that come over here to run the businesses we need to ensure that we can continue to enjoy the successes of the last couple of decades are using the same tax mitigation processes afforded to non domiciles. It’s easy peasy to incorporate a company and then have income dealt with as capital. etc etc

What must not happen is that Guernsey turns into some sort of ‘playground’ for the rich. It will be at the expense of the local person. Our politicians should be serving the electorate, the majority of which are not directly served by these loopholes and expediences. GST, unless punitive on luxury items, is not a fair tax.

You’ll probably find that most people buy their stuff online anyway, except for milk and bread and staples, because of the crazy overheads created by money grabbing landlords and the like.

Raise income tax, raise the relief threshold, introduce a higher band, and tax wealth.

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