One thing I just read yesterday is that a number

 of our more successful businessmen are either considering or are actively renouncing their American citizenship and moving elsewhere.


Until I thought about it a second or two I was shocked but when you think about it for a second it sure makes sense. The reason, of course, is taxation. I also read where Maryland has decided that the category 'rich' (as in higher state tax bracket) is going to start considering $100,000.

I predict an exodus from that state to come along soon. I have a friend out on disability and goes on Social Security retirement pretty soon and he tells me his plans are to move as soon as he starts drawing Social Security because while his disability isn't taxed, his Social Security will be. He's already looking at land in North Carolina.

Of course there is quite a difference between the people running a huge internet empire the size of Facebook or Google or something along these lines and a busted up old sailor but the principal is the same. People don't like living in areas with high taxation.

The difference between busted up old sailors and CEOs of multibillion dollar corporations is how far they are willing to move to avoid excess taxation. The old sailor might move a couple of states away to save a few bucks, but the CEO can well afford to move out of the country. Then again, if he has a responsibility to his stockholders things change. He can't afford NOT to move out of the country.
I have heard that the tax bases in Singapore for both capital gains and income taxes are well under half of what they are here which means that there will be one hell of a lot more profits after taxes to a company that moves there. I read where one person that is considering doing just this has a projected savings of $600,000,000 in tax savings over the next several years if the business keeps on keepin' on.


Just picking a figure out of a hat of a 50% savings by moving a business to Singapore, that means that the various Federal, state and local governments were going to whacking the business at a projected rate of about $1,200,000,000 over the next several years. That's 1.2 BILLION bucks that Uncle Sam isn't going to see.
As usual, the government is starting to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. They get nothing.

The same is going to hold true in Maryland.

Several years ago I worked for a company in Philly that did a similar thing. They offered a number of companies tax breaks to come to Philly and maybe some did, but the company that had been in Philly chugging right along wasn't offered a tax break. Instead he was forced to compete unfairly against new companies that had to pay fewer taxes.

What did he do? He moved us to Tampa and Philly lost out. I heard he wasn't the Lone Ranger. Other companies did the same thing. It made sense to move and for the CEOs of these large companies it makes sense now. The CEO owed it to the stockholders to turn the biggest profit he could.

What does this mean to all the rest of us?

It means that either OUR taxes are going to skyrocket OR there are going to be an awful lot of services that the government provides now that are going to be slashed to the bone or eliminated altogether.

Planning on retiring soon? Hope you can support yourself because Social Security has been broke for some time now. It WAS working. The money WAS there but back in the 60s Johnson convinced congress to add it to the general fund and then it got spent on all of LBJs wonderful and unsuccessful Great Society programs that accomplished little but frittering it all away.

Of course, the answer seems to be to raise taxes.

Over the past couple of years I have heard an awful lot of people in my line of work seriously considering that they take their money someplace out of the country when they retire. I know of two guys out here, both married to Filipinas that are retiring to the Phillipines shortly, and another guy headed off to Costa Rica in a while. All three of them consider themselves forced to in a way because they expect Social Security to implode inside the next few years.

So taxes rise and then get to the point where a lot of businesses leave the country and take it all with them.

So where did all the money go?

Simple. We gave it all away. We gave it away in the form of social programs and foreign aid and frittered it away on unnecessary projects. We gave it to foreign governments so that the hotshots could line their pockets. We gave it to people that should be taking responsibility for themselves but have chosen not to.

We simply gave it all away.

Of course, we didn't slate any of it for maintenance so right now a lot of out infastructure is going to hell in a handbasket.

And my plans?

I plan on working until I am either too crippled or I out and out die because even though I have a few bucks stashed I can pretty much depend on inflation to eat that up quickly.



my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/