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exe34 12 hours ago

easy, impose an exit tax. capital doesn't need to be free when it's trying to evade justice.

you pay tax on unrealised gains the same way the rest of us do when facing an unexpected bill that we can't afford - you sell your stuff.

HeckFeck 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You do realise they were taxing the entrepreneurs before their companies made a profit? What sort of "justice" is that?

emn13 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Anybody earning a wage pays tax on revenue, not profit. Property taxes can be even be on value, not revenue or profit. For any given tax burden, I don't see the "justice" problem by shifting more of that towards value and revenue and less towards profit. You could argue that in a vacuum that it is more just because it slightly incentivized investment over saving. And I'm sure you could argue the reverse too.

However, to me this mostly looks like a practical issue, and the traditional dogma that a broader tax base is a better one likely holds here too. Taxes should be on all three categories, and for both legal and real persons - and thus each specific category lower (and in particular thereby reducing the height of specific niche corners cases such as this one, and also reducing the opportunity to game the system).

Also, it's interesting to listen to anecdotes like this, but caveat lector; the article's author's experience may not be the norm; and the issues they experienced may be due to the specifics of norway's taxation system or their personal choices, not the principles behind it; and last but not least as long as money can flow mostly freely between tax systems it's not enough for a system to be fair and well designed in a vacuum; it also need to consider how shifting wealth/income/profits across borders will affect outcomes.

To my mind, this is all pretty orthogonal to justice. Clearly, you see that differently. Why does this smack of injustice to you?

cscurmudgeon 11 hours ago | parent [-]

> Anybody earning a wage pays tax on revenue, not profit

Not really though. You do have deductions in the US (though limited).

https://www.irs.gov/credits-and-deductions-for-individuals

And lots of places don't tax houses or real estate.

psd1 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can avoid profit indefinitely - just ask uber. That's if we're sticking to the customary definition of "profit".

So that you know, the practice in question is to open a line of credit on the value of your stock. This enables you to put large amounts of money in your pocket without "realising" your gains. It's a blatant tax dodge. "going into debt" lol no. Close the loophole.

exe34 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Norway imposes a wealth tax that taxes unrealized gains at approximately 1% annually. Calculated on the full market value for publicly traded assets and the book value of private companies. On New Year's Eve, whatever your net worth - including illiquid assets - is subject to this tax. It doesn't matter if you're running a loss-making startup with no cash flow, if your investments have tanked after the valuation date, or even if your company has gone bankrupt—you still owe the tax.

"unrealised gains". gains, not losses.

HPsquared 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Do they give a tax refund if the assets then lose (notional) value the next year?

asadotzler 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, well credit and other mechanisms keep the ledger balanced. Do you think you're the first person who thought of that criticism or that none of the economics professionals though to address it? What arrogance.

HPsquared 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Yikes. I'm interested to see how it handles that. The risk aspect is one reason capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than regular income. I guess it's not a tax on gains per se but specifically a wealth tax.

exe34 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm okay with a wealth tax if it stops the runaway growth of wealth inequality.

Aloisius 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Norway already has an exit tax which levies a 37.84% tax on unrealized gains.

The "easy fix" isn't working for some reason. Perhaps a one-time tax is still preferable to an ongoing one.

occz 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The article mentions the existence of such a tax.

12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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cscurmudgeon 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Law != justice.

Else, you won't have the concept of unjust laws.

exe34 2 hours ago | parent [-]

any law I agree with is justice though, almost by definition.

kingstoned 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's amazing to me that on a startup-oriented forum like this one you see these kinds of socialist comments when it comes to something that is harmful to startup founders and the entire ecosystem. Honestly curious to see what people who are hostile to entrepreneurship are even doing here.

devjab 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’m not sure why you think a wealth tax is related to entrepreneurship ship. I get that you’ll find a lot of people who like the author don’t want to pay taxes, but you’re going to find quite a lot who do. Especially here in Scandinavia. Of course it’s less of a problem when you have a non-crypto product which actually makes money or gives you the opportunity to take out a loan based on your assets.

I agree that there will be an ideologically divide, but I don’t think it’s related to entrepreneurship as much as it is to greed. Especially because those crypto “billionaires” were moving to Switzerland anyway. Personally I can see why you would think it was anti-business because it is. You have to keep in mind that not everyone thinks “businesses” which can’t make money, and likely never will, are always a benefit to society.

no_wizard 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s amazing to me that people think this is what socialism is. This isn’t seizing the means of production.

barbazoo 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Wouldn't that be more communism than socialism?

no_wizard 12 hours ago | parent [-]

The unpolluted definition of socialism is about public (e.g. social) ownership of the means of production. Technically, it’s not mutually exclusive of market systems, simply that participants are socially owned in some form. To be more specific about what I said, the roots of socialism called for the “seizing of the means of production” if governments and capital would not voluntarily convert to some form of social ownership

Communism differs in that it takes this a step further advocating not only for social ownership but also the dissolution of of all private property ownership and its corresponding economic role, and distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need.

For the record, I think communism is a dead end as it flys in the face of human nature. Market socialism might have legs though.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek but taxes aren’t inherently socialism. Taxation has been levied under multiple periods of economic philosophy like in feudal Europe or during the age of mercantilism for example. Seems to be a hallmark of highly organized civilizations

Something like an employee owned co-op is a valid socialist concept, for example. Social doesn’t automatically mean government.

Though communists like Marx believed in revolutionary uprising and those tend to be inherently violent. It’s a shame that the only exposure people have to any form of socialist ideas is via Marx.

psd1 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Very nicely put.

If you have an innovation fixation and only give a shit about unicorns, you aren't going to even perceive the cooperatives and mutuals that have survived six monarchs. Especially if they are mostly outside your country and you're congenitally parochial.

JeffL 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree with and appreciate your comment, but I do think there is some validity in the more broad usage of "socialism" that has come to be. To steel man the other sides argument, if you have to pay taxes on an asset, be that the means of production or real estate, or else the government will come and take it away from you, it feels more like renting than owning, and the only thing you "own" is the right to pay rent on the governments asset.

I do definitely think that just labeling every government overreach that one dislikes as "socialism" is not the most useful.

no_wizard 10 hours ago | parent [-]

I do think we need some disambiguation of things.

For example, I have (in what I realize is largely futile) advocated for a return to using more accurate political terms for describing philosophies. Left and right are terrible terms to use for this. Liberal, Progressive are Conservative are much better, but still lack some depth for range. Terms like fascism, neoliberal, neoconservative etc are much better and better represent ideas in discourse.

Folks who seriously think about socialism as a real economic philosophy often also have accompanying liberal and/or progressive ideas attached to it, like higher taxes to fund social safety nets and better schools, for example.

They however aren’t the same thing. Taxes are a political act with economic consequences, regardless of what those consequences are.

Where as social ownership of the economy can have more diversity in practical implementation and thus should not be lumped together like it is.

I realize this isn’t a common discussion point, particularly in the US where these philosophies were never given equal footing to capitalism[0]. Frankly I sincerely believe most Americans, even educated folks who should know better, don’t differentiate socialism from communism and use the terms at least somewhat interchangeably and often incorrectly.

[0]: free markets aren’t inherent to only capitalism either. They absolutely exist in a market socialist economy. Remember the origins of corporations were chartered with expectation they would serve a purpose that demonstrably benefited the public good

sandeepthroat 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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