Re: Backed money/Mike Sproul

["J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>]

Geoffrey,
      Sweden's wealth remains rather unevenly distributed,
the Wallenbergs still holding most of their holdings.  But,
income is among the most evenly distributed of any in
Europe, although not as much so as prior to ten years ago,
even taking account of high prices for certain necessity items.
Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message-----
From: GGard97342@xxxxxx <GGard97342@xxxxxx>
To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Friday, April 07, 2000 6:43 PM
Subject: Re: Backed money/Mike Sproul


>In a message dated 07/04/2000 00:41:40 GMT Daylight Time,
>BergP867@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
>> Britain's notoriously uneven income
>>  distribution by European standards may be mitigated to some extent by
>>  the relatively cheap food in that country. Sweden's income distribution
>>  is known as equitable, but food and rent are expensive.
>
>I am a bit surprised. I thought that one fifth of all Swedish private
>industry was owned by five families. Have the Wallenbergs liquidated
>themselves? My own dealings with Swedes years ago led me to believe they
were
>masters of every tax ploy there was.
>
>Britain was supposed to have the greatest inequality of wealth ever known
in
>the history of the world in the Edwardian era, though I do not know who did
>the calculations. By 1979 as regards differences in net income the opposite
>was true. Certainly since 1984 the gap has widened again with the ending of
>the horrendous  top tax rates.
>
>I wonder how true the current comparisons are? The British tax system is so
>much more effective than any other (not necessarily a good thing for the
>economy). The continental practice of bearer certificates for investments
>leaves a vast loophole for tax evasion.  They were banned in Britain for
>about 40 years, initially under the 1939 Defence Regulations. The current
>dispute between Britain and Germany over the proposed withholding tax is
due
>to the fact that the Germans have almost totally lost control over tax
>evasion (Steffi Graf!), whereas the British tax authorities are quite
>sanguine over the problem. They may be oversanguine, because undoubtedly
>"Rule 19", has in the past been the real secret of British success in
getting
>in taxes. ( The rule makes the payer of income liable for the tax, not the
>payee.)
>
>I write with some considerable personal experience of the international tax
>scene, and had colleagues with even more. I also have a son who is an
>international tax expert. British ethical standards are much lower than
they
>used to be, but there are still remants of the former puritanism which
never
>seems to have thrived to the same extent either in Europe or the US. It is
a
>reason why so many Brits are still very reluctant to merge with Europe. The
>difference probably has something to do with the fact that Britain has not
>been invaded for a 1000 years. To be ruled by a conqueror destroys the
>ethical impetus of a society, and it is difficult to recover it once it has
>gone. But slowly alien immigration may be doing the same for Britain as
>invasion has done for others so we shall have to get used to the loss of
our
>moral arrogance.
>
>It is a very intersting subject, but I warn any potential researchers that
>they need loads of difficult technical knowledge and some inside
information
>about tax havens to do a proper job. As one indication of the size of the
>problem the Isle of Man raises £130 million in income tax every year from a
>community with a GNP just over £600 million. As its top rate of tax is 20%,
>and it gives very generous allowances, it is obviously levying tax on a sum
>which is perhaps twice GNP. The source is tax exiles. With a population of
>71,000 it has bank eposits of £20 billion.
>
>The total of foreign owned foreign currency deposits in the banks of the
>world totals $9 trillion.
>
>Geoffrey Gardiner
>
>