There’s a difficulty with these two parts of the argument:
“But the questions are complicated and perhaps even uncomfortable for those asking them. The relief efforts needed are larger than they should be due to how these countries have been starved of tax revenue precisely because they have chosen to be tax havens.”
….
“A modest proposal would be for the countries to raise money from the companies by increasing, for example, the charges they make for offshore services, or by charging tax on the companies based in these places.”
That is, these poor places do charge companies for being there. And if they didn’t then they would have even less of an economy than they do now. They’re richer by being those tax havens already, not poorer.
Let’s turn Barbados into Cuba? No, that doesn’t sound like a good idea.
If there was no tax advantage to being there it’s unlikely they would be. Not only would there be a direct loss but all those service firms wouldn’t exist, so even less money in the economy.
The left’s static economy model always fails at first inspection.
BiBD-
if they are just boiler plate operations then it’ll be fiercely competitive among the micro states to get the business so that translates to an elastic supply. And reasonable to assume they are charging the most they can get away with already.
elastic demand rather but presumably the supply is perfectly elastic.
HB,
There’s probably some stickiness because of the cost of moving people etc but they might not want to test how much. Better the employment and other benefits.
BiNB – agree, the easier to swap it then crueler the hand of fate, as unaffected islands pick up the business.