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Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by rtpg on Sunday November 30, 2014 @11:30AM (#8677167)
I heard something on the news just today about how Geneva got rid of these tax advantages and basically half of the affected people moved out of Geneva right after. Maybe people think the same would happen on a national level?

I don't necessarily think this would be the result, but I can see a lot of people thinking that.

Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by dho on Sunday November 30, 2014 @11:55AM (#8677247)
Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by jarek on Sunday November 30, 2014 @11:59AM (#8677259)
The article is well written but I'll pull out probably the most important stat: of the canton’s 201 former lump sum beneficiaries, 97 left, amounting to loss of CHF 12.2 million in cantonal tax receipts (avg CHF 126k per person).
Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by jkn on Sunday November 30, 2014 @03:05PM (#8677884)
What about the stat found in the next paragraph:

This left over 100 wealthy foreigners remaining in the canton. Depending on how much wealth they had and how it was distributed, 55 ended up paying more tax and 47 less. Their total cantonal tax bill of CHF13.8 million more than made up for the losses, so the canton did better than break even.

Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by jarek on Sunday November 30, 2014 @04:07PM (#8678092)
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Zurich was particularly hurting for losing the CHF 12 million in the first place. It's not that much money for a jurisdiction of rather affluent 1.4 million people. That they made more is bonus.
Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by lifeisstillgood on Sunday November 30, 2014 @12:01PM (#8677267)
I assume there are real inertia issues with moving, probably where with step functions at certain levels of wealth.

Moving at all has inertia, moving to a new city in the same country has a lot more but I suspect moving internationally has the greatest. And the Swiss are a rarity in that they are one of few countries where native speakers can go to nearby countries and still be (mostly) understood.

So it's worth discounting the "if we raise taxes they will all leave" theory for my money

Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by rmc on Sunday November 30, 2014 @02:00PM (#8677671)
Rich people can often find ways to officially move for tax purposes.
Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by charlesdm on Sunday November 30, 2014 @11:49AM (#8677220)
What's the advantage of a ton of wealthy people moving away from Geneva?
Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by Matumio on Sunday November 30, 2014 @03:05PM (#8677888)
It was Zurich, not Geneva, and the (now regular, and thus higher) taxes paid by those who stayed did compensate those who left. The advantage is that ordinary people may be more willing to pay their regular taxes if the rich are paying theirs, too.
Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by charlesdm on Sunday November 30, 2014 @03:24PM (#8677956)
I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Taxes levied do not always equal the complete value to the economy of a country. While they might have been paying lower taxes, who says they weren't consuming/spending more? The cars they bought, the restaurants they visited, or the expensive suits they had tailored/made - those all add to the local economy. And those 'profits' are then also taxed, either at the corporate level (i.e. the restaurant) or at the personal level (i.e. someone employed at the restaurant).

Also, this said, there is only so much one can consume. A wealthy person might have 1000 or 10,000 times more wealth than an average person, but he doesn't have 1000 cars. Or suits. I would expect it to be better to have more wealthy people in an area, rather than less, even if the tax income is the same, because as a group they consume and invest more.

Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by lmm on Sunday November 30, 2014 @06:06PM (#8678580)
> While they might have been paying lower taxes, who says they weren't consuming/spending more?

Economists do measure the "velocity of money". And it really is higher among the poor, for common-sense reasons; someone who's living paycheck to paycheck is (almost by definition) spending all of their income, putting it straight back into circulation, whereas the wealthy are more likely to save some (which yes does recirculate as investment to an extent, but the investor as rentier takes their cut, and investment income is often undertaxed), spend some abroad, or spend in less efficient industries (e.g. high-end handcrafted anything, where you're paying a master craftsman who won't actually spend a lot of their time producing things, and won't be pulling back anywhere near as much through the productive economy (e.g. buying materials) compared to the same amount of money spent on mass-produced goods).

Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by lifeisstillgood on Sunday November 30, 2014 @11:57AM (#8677252)
Better parking !
Re:Swiss reject additional immigration curbs by marcosdumay on Sunday November 30, 2014 @02:30PM (#8677777)
The not so wealthy that stay there get to start business on a level playing field, instead of having unfair competition from the wealthy ones.