[hop]

In Mexico, people don’t finish their houses and leave rebar coming out the roof to pay less tax. In Vietnam, the houses are really thin because property taxes are based on width. For an American company selling things overseas, they’re going to setup in Ireland or wherever else because the laws make it advantageous. All these decisions are functions of the laws written, so if they want to complain and write open letters, it should be to lawmakers, not the heads of companies operating logically.

[jason_slack]

> In Vietnam, the houses are really thin because property taxes are based on width.

Really? Interesting. Can anyone explain how taxing the width of the house was established?

[yathern]

It's similar in many places in Europe, where you see houses laid out like this:

http://c8.alamy.com/comp/F56ABW/old-and-narrow-houses-in-str...

Your property size, and subsequent taxes were decided based on how much of the road you took up, ie the width of the house. This practice dates back surprisingly far (1500s?)

[jason_slack]

oh, that kind of "this". I was thinking the walls were thin. Width meaning taller and skinnier....lol

[yathern]

Haha I was thinking the same thing - until I remembered some trivia I learned on a recent trip to Germany

[larrysalibra]

Wow! I always wondered why properties in Vietnam were so thin! Makes sense - give people incentives to build "thin" buildings and they'll build thin buildings!