[strictnein]

> People downvoting this are cordially encouraged to have a look at countries that have no taxes.

No one is thinking there should be no taxation, just that there's a sizable chance here that the government is in the wrong. To reverse your argument: please point me to this magical utopia where the government is always right and they never abuse their powers.

[rjzzleep]

edited the structure

Your inverse isn't correct. The correct inverse would be to look at the countries that do have tax.

Let's look at Guinea

There's the tax information:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/guinea/pa...

Oh by the way it's the poorest country in the world 2017.

I did take a look at what jacquesm suggested and here is a list of countries that have no income tax.

* United Arab Emirates

* Oman

* Bahrain

* Qatar

* Saudi Arabia

* Kuwait

* Bermuda

* Cayman Islands

* The Bahamas

* Brunei

Now you could argue that the countries are rich countries and the only ones doing well are the native citizens or that two of them are tax havens for the rich. But hey that's not what he said.

And the moral of the story? Unquantified generic statements are usually bad. Don't do it. No matter who you are, don't do it.

[strictnein]

You understand that I wasn't taking issue with the taxation point, right? Just that there is a possibility that this is a case of egregious government abuse of power, not a case of dodging taxes, therefore utilizing an argument based on the idea of no taxation was missing the point.

He also said "no taxes", not "no income taxes".

[astrodust]

They're subsisting on taxes, just not income taxes. Half of those are living off of royalties on oil, the others from investment banking.

[jacquesm]

Switzerland is doing pretty good. It is the only country where I know the citizens say we have decided instead of the government has decided. Oh, and they do pay taxes.

[astrodust]

Switzerland is not a model for how to run a typical country.

[kromem]

I never understand how people point to existing systems that are working for a country, and then make the (valid) point that the success of those policies can't necessarily be extrapolated to another country, but then (invalidly) believe that is a suficient statement to end the conversation.

Especially because those people often are talking about countries with some form of democratic socialism (where there are a number of strong success cases), and instead frequently put forward libertarianism - which is a completely untested government form in any country.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Switzerland sustains itself with a huge influx of foreign money by adopting policies attractive to the wealthy. That strategy can't be pursued by every nation on the planet.

[s3nnyy]

It's also good for the poor. Waiters in Switezrland make more after taxes than engineers in Germany.

That is one of the reaons I moved here. Here more about this: "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in tech" https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...