Response to Tony Molloy, QC; Piketty and our Philosophy Bereft Judiciary; The Desertion of France Under High Taxation.

Tony Molloy, QC, wrote a piece for this weekend’s NBR: I don’t need to parse it here, the title says enough – Opinion: Piketty is Right About Taxing the Rich (paid content).

 

Below is my comment to that article, posted to NBR under my own name for the IRD data miners on Monday. Following that in update 1 is a clip showing what happens to a country when it follows Piketty's, and Tony's, prescription of taxing the rich; they leave. And the economist's home country no less: as a famous twentieth century philosopher said, you can ignore reality for so long, but you can't ignore the consequences - France, will the last one out close the door please. Well worth a watch.

NBR comment follows.

 

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Tony Molloy, and his unholy desire for taxing the rich on the false cross of inequality, is an example of why IRD now win every major (and non-major) tax case, and why if you are a taxpayer it is pointless litigating a tax case before our socialist, worse, statist, judiciary.

 

For the record, Piketty's economics are full of holes, indeed, it borders on the simplistic unto negligent. Perhaps Tony might want to peruse these references: first economic; then philosophic. And many more: just Google.

 

For myself, could Tony answer to the following:

 

For him to take the view he does he must assume that wealth/capital is fixed in quantity, that if I take 'some' then that is not available for others, hence the rich ‘are the cause’ of the poor. That is a childish (socialist) viewpoint. For example, can Tony explain to me, if I create, say, $3 million from intellectual property, or from selling widgets, how does that stop someone else making $3 million also? From this, if a rich person's wealth does not explain a poor person's lack of wealth, then what use punishing the rich – who pay the bulk of tax as it is - by destroying their property rights (and with it, their privacy before the state)? If there is no connection, such state confiscation and redistribution, will not help 'equalise' the poor, indeed, via the creation of dependence through the welfare state, it may well just breed the poverty, thus inequality, men like Tony want to fix, compounded by destroying innovation and entrepreneurship and so the opportunities made for employment and increasing our living standards, via a vibrant business sector (with qualification I am referring to laissez faire, not our current crony command economies.)

 

It is not surprising in current times that innovation in the West is falling rapidly.

 

Finally, regarding another point made, can Tony cite one country where the overall tax take is down *and* state sector spending is down in dollar terms? It’s certainly not in NZ; every English budget has spent more than the previous year.

 

Every reasonable human being wants to end poverty, but Tony, as with Piketty, is typical of that socialist ethic that would emote on such issues, without thinking on them. Which is why the Free West has been lost to increasingly Orwellian surveillance states, as an individual’s right to be left alone if doing no harm, has been swept aside with collectivist relish by our state-centric judiciary quite willing to sacrifice every individual on the bloodied altar of the common good, (noting it was always my belief the legal system was supposed to be, historically, our buffer against an out-of-control state.) Not a skerrick of thought to property rights in Tony's piece: he, as with the rest of the judiciary, take it as granted our incomes, wallets and bank accounts - our effort and risk taking - belong to the government. And given this socialist rot, which takes us far from the classical liberalism and individualism that made the West once the pinnacle of civilisation, where the only role of state was to protect its smallest minority, an individual, is so far instilled in the judiciary, I assume there’s no way back. We’re stuffed.

 

One more thing: regarding Tony’s reference, and perhaps unholy reverence, of FATCA - aka US tax colonialism known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act - by which the US has broken the secrecy of Swiss banking (which even the Nazis weren’t capable of), I would note via the IGA - Intergovernmental Agreement - that implements FATCA in New Zealand, government is using IRD’s police state powers above our Privacy Act to implement what amounts to a surveillance program in New Zealand that has nothing, repeat, nothing, to do with our New Zealand tax take. If one government can misuse IRDs powers in that manner, to cynically, illegitimately override our privacy, so the precedent is set for every future government. What does Tony think about the ethics of that? I've made my opinion plain, and given IRD ignored the submissions against it in their totality, I'd love to see a QCs opinion on New Zealand's IGA from a legal perspective, especially in light of there will soon be a case brought in the US attacking FATCA for being unconstitutional.

 

This really is an interesting piece, but not in the way Tony intended. Wonder no more why everything is tax avoidance in New Zealand, now, and everything is illegal. And a last thought: perhaps Tony might want to read my piece on the evil that befalls us when we use the coercive state to force equality on a population, because he's playing for the wrong side.


Update 1:

Perfectly timed. A stunning clip just in for Tony: over half of France's young would leave France if they could as they see no future in a country that 'hates the rich' at political level; and French businesspeople are leaving the country in droves in protest at its 75% income tax rate on the rich and its unsustainable addiction to welfare.

Of course, as we know, ahem, Mr Piketty hails from France, a country which has adopted his recommendation to tax the rich to solve inequality. Not working too well. Perhaps his next book should be a retraction :)

 Tax it, destroy it, including countries, where whole populations can become equal in poverty: