Taxing the Rich will not Lose Foreign Investment
The stupidest argument in the world: that Singapore's economy will be destroyed if we increase taxes on the rich to reduce cost of living.
So unlike the opposition politicians in Singapore, I've been offering effective solutions to provide free and affordable food, healthcare and housing to every Singaporean, saving them tens of thousands of dollars a year, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in their lifetime. The solution has mostly been: increase taxes on the rich (to anyone who makes more than ten thousand dollars), and allocating that money to reduce cost of living. The biggest criticism people have is: capital flight. That so many foreign investors will leave Singapore because of the increase in taxes. That unemployment will skyrocket and the economy will be in ruins.That counterargument is so fucking stupid it makes my head hurt.
You can generate 30 billion dollars extra a year, with tax rates to the wealthy that are still incredibly tax-friendly and attractive compared to other first-world countries. Even if you eliminate all the tax increases that you want to argue are moderately risky in turning businesses away (like capital gains or wealth tax), you can at very minimum, generate 15 billion dollars extra a year. The government now only spends 20 billion on healthcare and 7 billion to subsidise housing a year. So an extra 15 to 30 billion dollars allocated on top of that is incredibly significant.
Not only that, in the actual implementation of the tax laws, we're not just gonna roll out many tax laws all at once. We'll gradually implement them, carefully track results, so any tax that proves too unattractive can be easily reduced or removed. Ensuring there's little risk of significant reduction of foreign inflow and employment.
Not only that, Singapore is uniquely positioned and well-equipped, more so than most countries. That if really in the rare rare instance where a huge greedy foreign company suddenly leaves because of mild tax increases, and tens of thousands of Singapore workers are suddenly unemployed. Singapore already has the infrastructure and organisation in place to find employment and retrain workers, so that the unemployed can easily get another lucrative job within 3 to 6 months.
NOT ONLY THAT, the PAP dictatorship, has already increased taxes to the rich! They have increased income taxes and property taxes the past 2 decades and that has generated a billion dollars extra a year. No massive loss of foreign investors or economic ruin as far as I know.And you might argue well those tax increases were miniscule they only generated a few billion, whereas you want to generate tens of billions a year.But if you actually do the maths and are honest with the economic reality, whether it's an extra 1 billion or 20 billion a year, it's a low risk high reward plan that will literally save Singaporeans tens of thousands of dollars a year on food, healthcare, housing, education, childcare costs and more.
People believe in this stupid fucking argument because they believe in lies and misformation, much of that being spread by the rich because they're greedy! Like oh fuck, with these tax increases, instead of buying 20 cars, I can only buy 15 cars!
So with this stupidity, you either continue voting for a dictatorship that has been fucking you over, or settle with incompetent opposition parties like the Worker's Party, with weakass tax policies that at best can only generate a few billion a year, and at best could only moderately decrease the cost of living for a few hundred thousand people.That's still an improvement, which is why against the PAP you should definitely still vote for the opposition.But the thing is, you can easily raise taxes and allocate money that can make housing and healthcare affordable for all Singaporeans, not just a few hundred thousand people, but for millions. And the only way Singaporeans will have activists and politicians that will fight for these changes, is if Singaporeans start demanding it.