2 thoughts on “What the U.S. could learn from Switzerland”
The problem here is that Switzerland is a small, efficient modern parliamentary democracy that has a very stable political system and doesn’t waste its money on bloat and wars. The US, in comparison, is an albatross: it features an aging, worn-out political system, is corrupt to the core and throws money at the military-industrial complex and all of this, with or without FATCA, and is trillions in debt. The US can’t even compete with most other industrialised countries in the world when it comes to corporate income tax, much less Switzerland. It is only attractive to companies because of its size – If the US were the same size as Switzerland nobody would touch that mess with a ten foot pole. Look at the chart below: almost every country other than Japan has a better corporate tax rate than the US does:
I bet that every single major US company would be officially headquartered in Switzerland, the Chanel Islands or the Bahamas if they weren’t shackled to the US through corporate citizenship taxation. At least the big companies get to keep their profits overseas tax free as long as they don’t repatriate, unlike we the little insignificant people. Good to have friends in Congress I suppose…
This issue is contraversial, even in Switzerland. Remember, concessions are granted to foreign businesses in the US all of the time, although I believe it is usually at the state and local level. The concessions just do not take the exact form that they do in Switzerland.
The problem here is that Switzerland is a small, efficient modern parliamentary democracy that has a very stable political system and doesn’t waste its money on bloat and wars. The US, in comparison, is an albatross: it features an aging, worn-out political system, is corrupt to the core and throws money at the military-industrial complex and all of this, with or without FATCA, and is trillions in debt. The US can’t even compete with most other industrialised countries in the world when it comes to corporate income tax, much less Switzerland. It is only attractive to companies because of its size – If the US were the same size as Switzerland nobody would touch that mess with a ten foot pole. Look at the chart below: almost every country other than Japan has a better corporate tax rate than the US does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world
I bet that every single major US company would be officially headquartered in Switzerland, the Chanel Islands or the Bahamas if they weren’t shackled to the US through corporate citizenship taxation. At least the big companies get to keep their profits overseas tax free as long as they don’t repatriate, unlike we the little insignificant people. Good to have friends in Congress I suppose…
This issue is contraversial, even in Switzerland. Remember, concessions are granted to foreign businesses in the US all of the time, although I believe it is usually at the state and local level. The concessions just do not take the exact form that they do in Switzerland.