Rovio is the latest successful company that is looking to flee the country it started in over high taxation:
THE FINNISH company that created the hugely successful Angry Birds mobile phone game is considering moving its headquarters to Ireland, chief executive Mikael Hed has said.
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The corporation tax rate in Finland is 24.5 per cent, while Ireland’s rate is 12.5 per cent. Most of the world’s fast-growing technology companies, such as Google and Facebook, have set up European headquarter operations in Dublin so as to benefit from Ireland’s low corporation tax rate.
When victims of theft get sick of being stolen from they have a habit of leaving. Why suffer the loss of 24.5% of your wealth when you can simply move to Ireland and only suffer the loss of 12.5% of your wealth? This is why a state can’t tax itself out of debt or into prosperity. Eventually the state runs out of stuff to steal and that ends the party.
There was an economics study done a few years ago that essentially stated that it is almost impossible to achieve an effective tax rate in excess of 18% GDP no matter how aggressive the taxing becomes. On a side note it also determined that upper tax rates closer to the 18% mark produced the highest GDP, and therefore the highest tax return in real dollar amounts.