An economic myth of neoliberalism is that private enterprise creates prosperity; taxation destroys it. So the less taxation there is, the more prosperous we’ll become. Competition between societies to cut tax attracts investment and encourages the creation of wealth.
In reality, without publicly funded education, healthcare, infrastructure and employment (let alone bailouts), private enterprise would be unable to function at all. Taxation creates prosperity every bit as much as private enterprise. Tax ‘wars’ that promote a ‘race to the bottom’ for tax levels, a ‘race to the top’ for cheating, threaten to impoverish, even destroy, societies. Shrewd investors – and even rich individuals – know this better than most. The idea that they only invest productively in the places with the most ‘competitive’ levels of tax is nonsense.
