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Just a thought

Meantime, the new consensus that governments should be able to fully enforce their tax codes marks a major advance in fiscal fairness and democracy.

All governments, everywhere, all the time?

The Soviet Union, at the end of the 1920s, imposed profit taxes of over 100% of profits. The international community should agree to enforce such? Heck, Roy Jenkins inposed a tax of 130% (retrospectively) on investment income in the 1960s for one year. It is a matter of international justice that such rates be upheld?

I\’m told that the Nazis made it illegal to have wealth held abroad: this was in some way the wealth of the nation, not the individual. This is something which the UK, the US, should enforce?

The depredations of an Idi Amin type figure, the Burmese Junta, Pol Pot, North Korea, all de facto and de jure governments of their countries, must be supported in international law?

If we ever say that, no, there are limits to what a government can righteously demand from the citizens subject to it then we\’ve immediately agreed that there is a room for secrecy in the system.

So, for those celebrating the reduction of such, for those campaigning for the elimination of such secrecy, is there a limit? And if so, how much secrecy are you willing to put up with so that that limit is not exceeded?

2 thoughts on “Just a thought”

  1. Bank secrecy of the Swiss sort is almost uniformly attacked and yet those launching the attacks don’t realise, or don’t seem to care, that vulnerable groups – not just rich people – can be robbed blind by their own governments if they don’t have an escape route.

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