[52-6F-62]

> tax and legal purposes

This may be terribly naive, but doesn't that make the business de-facto illegal? What kind of legitimate business deserves to buck paying into the systems that support them? As a default I want to disagree, but I would like to know what business needs to operate outside of these constraints.

Surely the businesses utilizing the favours of banks like Cayman are not being operated within tyrannical countries (which is the first and only reasoning I can see for operating in the manor you prescribed).

The very fact that they operate this way seems shady to me.

[seibelj]

I still can’t believe it’s legal to move from SF to Texas if you were born and raised in SF. You owe the good people of San Francisco repayment for raising and nurturing you. Leaving after all that education and local services is a corrupt tax-dodge into a state without income tax.

[52-6F-62]

I'm not American, and most people aren't. You might need to tailor your metaphor.

That said, I disagree. Context matters. The comment above isn't talking about moving a business, it's only talking about operating with as little fiscal impunity as possible. Or at least it reads that way—which is why I was asking for more input.

[jxramos]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Un...

[seibelj]

There’s legality and morality. Moving all my wealth to Cayman (or Texas) may be 100% legal but I thought we were debating ethics. All of these HNers decamping from NYC and SF to Florida and Texas are horrible awful people depriving the local governments of California and New York their deserved taxes!

[yabadabadoes]

You should probably look further into the brain drain which is a global theme with complex ethics. Independent people moving are not really bad or necessarily hurting a state they leave as they send remittances, move back to retire, etc. The overall affect of states incentivizing bulk drains can be brutal though as can the resulting investment decisions of a state that knows it's brightest will be drained. At any rate, in the big scheme of things don't worry about NY and SF, they (and even their own domestic victims) are not victims of drain on average.

[tossAfterUsing]

When you say "deserved taxes", what precisely is the reasoning behind this deservedness?

it seems to me that there's no reasonable way to lay claim to the work product of another person without being a total jerk... maybe i'm mistaken.

[seibelj]

It's mind blowing to me that people get angry about moving wealth to a lower tax country like Cayman, but are totally milquetoast about moving someplace within the same country that has the same effect of lowering one's effective taxation.

If you are worked up about this Cayman thing, then you should be apoplectic if your neighbor moves to Texas or Florida. What horrible, disgusting people who are leaving their former communities to rot! They raised taxes on the rich in order to transfer more wealth to the community, and then the rich up and leave! Such completely selfish actions are galling and it fills me with anger, as it should any self-respecting person. We need the government to track where people live each day, and then make them pay their taxes proportional to where they lived for the rest of their lives. It's only fair to the communities that protected and nurtured them.

We need to outlaw each and every tax dodge. Clipping coupons deprives the state of their sales tax, as the total price is on goods is lowered which reduces the total tax bill, which is why I'm against coupons. How long will we allow this madness to continue?

[tossAfterUsing]

Seriously having difficulty detecting whether this is sarcasm, so forgive me if I am taking some bait...

I'm not sure that I want the government to be responsible for doling out penalties for working (e.g. taxing somebody's productive efforts). I think it would be better if localities had sales taxes only. Penalizing people for visiting/living in a location (by taxing them proportionally for the rest of their lives) seems absurd, empowers a police state, and frightens me for the possible negative externalities of such a system.

Consider the case of a family that was persecuted out of a town (e.g. chased out by bigots)... should each of these individuals be penalized for the rest of their lives for having spent some amount of time "living" in that place?

Surely, that's not a good solution.

[stjohnswarts]

LOL maybe those communities should adopt some sane taxing policies instead of going all in on Nimbyism and "Imma take all your stuff because I know better how to dole it out".

[kevin_thibedeau]

Texas receives more federal dollars than it contributes. The real tax dodge is perpetrated by state governments that manipulate the federal budget to their benefit.

[stjohnswarts]

That's a lie. Texas pays more in federal taxes than it receives.

[youdontknowtho]

Thats not a lie, Texas breaks even some years and not on others. The surrounding states are wildly dependent on federal money at the same time they insult the people of the states that contribute to their own upkeep.

[hedvig]

Terrible analogy.

[GhettoMaestro]

> I still can’t believe it’s legal to move from SF to Texas if you were born and raised in SF. You owe the good people of San Francisco repayment for raising and nurturing you. Leaving after all that education and local services is a corrupt tax-dodge into a state without income tax.

Lol you again. How many times must you hear this to understand: Total freedom implies freedom of movement. You do not own people. You never will. You have no moral basis.

[ChainOfFools]

pretty sure OP was sarcastically trying to highlight the possibility that some premises may not be safe to leave unexamined. though tone is much more something I'd expect to see on Reddit than HN, it's a valid criticism.

[GhettoMaestro]

No. He has repeatedly made the same comment (or "meme", "canard"). It is not insightful commentary; it is not much more beyond propaganda at this point.

California has made horrible financial decisions for over a decade. To pretend it is somehow moral to trap people and their wealth to those decisions is complete insanity. Also it won't work, to point out the obvious.

[pjc50]

Pleased to see the "no borders" argument being made, but the more important one is to the south of California.

[CaymanCruiser]

>This may be terribly naive, but doesn't that make the business de-facto illegal? What kind of legitimate business deserves to buck paying into the systems that support them? As a default I want to disagree, but I would like to know what business needs to operate outside of these constraints.

These constraints that you speak of are entirely arbitrary (geographical delineation) and were designed for a time before the internet. I would instead ask the question why Western governments are refusing to get with the changing tides and reform their archaic taxation codes to account for an increasingly globalised economy.

>Surely the businesses utilizing the favours of banks like Cayman are not being operated within tyrannical countries (which is the first and only reasoning I can see for operating in the manor you prescribed).

Not at all. There certainly exists a subgroup of individuals, companies, and institutions that operate in jurisdictions where there is a huge amount of uncertainty, but there is also a very large contingent that offshores their business to reduce regulatory burden and reduce tax liabilities, many of whom are individuals and companies that you and I have heard of. I doubt they will be using Cayman National Bank though, it is more likely that they will be using banks that you and I have also heard of like Barclays or DBS.

[52-6F-62]

I'm sorry but that just sounds absurdly reductive to me. It makes a gross assumption that people are incapable of keeping their government in check.

Perhaps, in spite of my own cynicism, I believe people are capable of deciding how they want their societies to run (also in spite of our hiccups here in the Western world).

So again: why do such businesses deserve to operate with such impunity? A natural function of business is risk. Subverting reasonable social good is an active harm that is reasonable given the circumstances (like an ambulance or fire truck asserting the right of way on a city street), but I fail to see why that should apply to any and all business.

I'll be happy to be convinced otherwise—but I doubt I will be.

I know you're speaking out under the condition of anonymity, so I won't ask which business you're operating or employed by but I am immensely curious about which industry you're representing. It would help much in understanding your perspective.

[Concrescator]

I'm going to be honest. As an American it feels like my government is not in check. Not at all. They are failing to represent the wishes of constituents.

I too feel like the person you replied to. Why can't our goverment get with the times and create infrastructure to support the new global economy.

[CaymanCruiser]

>It makes a gross assumption that people are incapable of keeping their government in check.

There is a difference between keeping a government in check, and ensuring governance stays relevant. Western democracy usually ensures the former, but is not very good on the latter.

>Subverting reasonable social good is an active harm that is reasonable given the circumstances (like an ambulance or fire truck asserting the right of way on a city street), but I fail to see why that should apply to any and all business.

This is more of a political argument than anything else, and I'm not too keen on going into my political views on this matter (although I'm sure it is not too difficult to infer them from my posts). What I will say however is that I think you are conferring an arbitrary civic duty on corporations, with the dutiful obligations of which being up for a significant amount of interpretation across societies and jurisdictions.

[52-6F-62]

Yeah. I don’t think we can avoid the breach into politics on this subject, though, since it seems inherently political and I can tell we have some fundamental philosophical differences!

Anyway I appreciate the thoughtful responses regardless.

[kneel]

>I would instead ask the question why Western governments are refusing to get with the changing tides and reform their archaic taxation codes to account for an increasingly globalised economy.

Systemic corruption, governments are infested with corporate interests and tax avoiders.

Attempting to even the playing field would expose massive corruption.

[tossAfterUsing]

> get with the changing tides and reform their archaic taxation codes to account for an increasingly globalised economy.

they don't know how.