Just Wonderin’ … Tax Havens

Can you name a small, stable, country that isn’t a tax haven?

What does that say about large and/or unstable countries?

I’ll tell you what: it makes me thing that “tax haven” is purely a pejorative rather than a factual label.

In fact, I think we need to label the large and/or unstable countries with some antonym for haven, and give no label at all to the tax havens.

The thing is … what would be a good antonym?

The only thing I can come up with is from the mathematics used to model dynamics by economists, physicists, and other nerds. In this nomenclature, a sink is something that attracts stuff, and a source drives it away.

So, my new label for large and/or unstable countries is “taxable income source”, and my label for small and stable countries is “taxable income sink”. It’s cumbersome, but it gets the idea across.

Technorati Tags: tax,haven,sink,source

Comments

[mike shupp]

Tuvala, the Marshall Islands, Tonga, Kirbati. Possibly American Samoa. And for good measure, the Vatican.

If you start off poor and geographically isolated, you probably aren't going to attract investors, even for funds that are just passing through banks. I'm assuming other factors are involved; memory says Singapore and Hong Kong and Taiwan have done okay over the years.

[Dave Tufte]

Good points all!