this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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[–] geissi@feddit.org 19 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Nobody who held this opinion was ever able to even give me a rough idea of an explanation how it should supposedly damage the economy.

Because if you tax the rich, they move away! And that's clearly bad because...
They take their wealth with them! Just think of all the jewellery that will hang of people's necks in other countries and all the overpriced art that was never publicly displayed, now not visible elsewhere.
And of course they'll take all the housing and factories and the land they're built on, stuff it all in their pockets and fly away with it.

Just think of all the jobs. Not the jobs, companies are already offshoring now, of course.
And ignore that companies make such decisions based on productivity, available infrastructure and supply chain networks.
No, they'll move to less profitable countries because clearly not paying taxes is more important to rich people than making more money.

And of course, we can't tax people when they move away, so we shouldn't tax them to avoid this.

[–] sober_monk@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Because if you tax the rich, they move away!

Yup. This wasn't a warning about the economy, it was an ultimatum.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I think the point of the previous poster is that they can't take with them the stuff that they value the most (for their own quality of life) or the stuff that matters for the rest.

Hence "they’ll take all the housing and factories and the land they’re built on, stuff it all in their pockets and fly away with it." (emphasys mine)

Those threats are complete total bullshit.

If they really prefered an environment free of government intrusion (including taxes) they would be living and conducting their business in a country with no real government, like Somalia.

[–] fenrasulfr@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I think he already moved to Belgium to avoid some of the French taxes.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

Or in other words: if an environment free from government "meddling" and taxes is such a great thing, why aren't they all living in a country with no proper government, like Somalia?

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I always wondered what would happen if a big company just left. Like the building, staff, infrastructure and demand for the product/service are all still going to be here, its just "the big money" that moves away.

Whats to stop the country just sticking the flag on the building, writing "National [business]" over the door and just carrying on? The HR dept already knows what staff there are and what they do, the workers already know their jobs. Its only really the people in charge of accounting and resource-purchasing who would have a real challenge.

Extra bonus is that the country is now getting all the profit, so can spend it on schools and hospitals and shit.

Am I being overly idealistic? I can't think of realistic reasons why not.

[–] geissi@feddit.org 1 points 4 days ago

We do see this in reality sometimes.
When a company leaves, they usually still own the buildings (assuming they didn't just lease them). Typically they would try to sell them off. It's not unheard of that a similar company picks up the location and hires back some of the staff.
Think of one supermarket closing shop only for another to open in the same location.

What happens if a company does not sell depends on the country.
When companies left Russia, several stores were continued under new management and afaik some businesses were not sold off but seized. Whether the owners were reimbursed for that seizure I do not know.

All that said, I want to repeat that businesses leave countries usually due to lack of profitability. It has no (rational) link to a personal wealth tax.