Why not just say the taxpayer is the ultimate taxpayer? Because then the idiocy of your line of reasoning becomes patent.

Somebody has to pay taxes. Economists tend to agree that non-distortionary taxes are best, and this usually means moderate taxes on everything (income, capital gains, profits, property, sales, etc) rather than high taxes in one area but low taxes elsewhere. Double taxation of economic activity tends to produce high taxes, and thus is bad. But in the end, no matter how you slice it, the taxpayer in aggregate end up paying all the taxes.

living in Switzerland for 10+ years (without being a high net worth individual),

Thank you for this post, Yves

CrocodileChuck

I do not disagree. Only the market will determine consumer prices for goods and services that have to support an additional tax on a business. But simple accounting of sales revenue reveals that the consumer will bear the entire burden of that tax in those prices. The consumer is the ultimate taxpayer.

Arrgghhh!! Another one that simply cannot grasp the concept that the price of something is what the purchaser values it at, and if none or 99.9% of that money goes to the taxman the consumer is indifferent.

But even having it your way – as I'm sure you will no matter how many times I try to explain it to you:

A given government needs some level of revenue, nobody is going to do anything for free – a concept you should be comfortable with.

So if nobody pays taxes on the transactions you described, then the revenue will have to come from some other set of transactions.

And now we have economic distortion – which again, I suspect you would agree is a bad thing.

One argument in favor of tax havens is that they help pressure developed countries to reduce their tax rates.

‘To a certain extent, the founding concept of a tax haven appeared as an economic response to the principle of taxes. For instance, in Ancient Greece, some of the Greek Islands were used as depositories by the sea traders of the era to place their foreign goods to thus avoid the two-percent tax imposed by the city-state of Athens on imported goods. In the Middle Ages, Hanseatic traders who set up business in London were exempt from tax. The U.S. is not new to tax haven users. In 1721, American colonies traded from Latin America to avoid English taxes.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_haven

belge
buying same ticket on reykjavik replay -at least in top three-

The accounts of any company will show that all taxation, whether corporate, or on the payroll, or contributions to government insurance and pension schemes, is financed from a proportion of sales revenue. At the end of the supply chain, real paying customers, i.e. individual people with money, will be found that support the production costs of each associated supplying enterprise. If the customer does not contribute to these tax bills, who does?

The concept of tax evasion is interesting in that, these people are big spenders and will be big tax payers already by the implicit taxation of their consumption. Assuming they derive their money from enterprise, then their customers have not been burdened with an extra tax bill. Government demands that these rich entrepreneurs tow the line and force their customers to pay up in future. Meanwhile, the government looks good by targeting fat cats. However you look at it, the consumer always pays.

One must conclude that our complex tax system is a charade to hide the true cost of government from consumers and voters.

ECForster