Should immigrants pay lower taxes?
Sweden is a land of high taxes. One consequence of this is that some skilled immigrants, understandably, find it a less attractive option for settlement than elsewhere.
So a government business agency has called for skilled immigrants to pay a lower tax rate than native born Swedes.
Kai Hammerich, of the Invest in Sweden Agency, wants to lure more workers from China and India to work in the IT and medical fields (despite considerable unemployment amongst university graduates in Sweden).
His suggestion has met with a warm response from skilled immigrants. This is how “Andrew” from Singapore sees it,
“I agree that the tax rates should be revised for foreign labour. For me I come from Singapore to work in Sweden in the IT field ... as a foreigner working here, why should I pay taxes similar to the locals? I do not benefit anything much from it in 3 years. Sweden did not pay for my education, medical expenses, etc. ... Sweden does nothing for me but just tax. If you want to keep foreign labour, u got to do something that makes us stay ....”
Jairam Singh adds, “It’s true. Foreign workers who are not going to stay for longer period and not getting the social benifit [sic] must be taxed with the reduced rate.”
So for Swedish computer engineers the situation is grim. First, their employment opportunities and rates of pay are undermined by the importation of labour (for anyone who doubts this, read this article on the Australian situation).
And now a government agency is suggesting that their immigrant colleagues should get financial privileges.
All this in a country which has an “Ombudsman Against Ethnic Discrimination”. According to the website of the Ombudsman, ethnic discrimination is when “a job applicant is not treated in the same manner, due to his or her foreign origin, by an employer”.
But then, liberal “equality” is not meant to be applied for the benefit of Western man, is it?
Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 23 Sep 2005 05:50 | #
Sweden didn’t pay for their education and so on but, to cite an analagous situation, childless couples still must pay the property tax by which communities pay for public schooling though they have no kids who directly benefit from what they “pay into the system.” But the society in general benefits and they benefit from society in general’s having literate, educated citizens and so on, so pay they must, and that certainly seems a legitimate rationale for obliging them to pay. Individuals who choose not to own or drive cars still must pay their share of tax money that goes to road construction and maintenance, and they can’t say they get nothing from what they pay because roadways, bridges, and tunnels and their upkeep benefit society and, through society, the people who don’t own cars. By the same token, the society in general benefits from the taxes these imported workers “pay into the system” and thanks to that general societal benefit in myriad ways, these foreigners have the opportunity to come and work in Sweden. Furthermore aren’t the costs of the employment dislocation of professional Swedes which is engendered by these foreign IT workers their fault in a way? Doesn’t the defraying of those social costs (welfare payments, job-retraining, etc.) legitimately devolve partly on the foreigners causing the problem? Of course one might say society as a whole benefits from the opportunities for cheaper goods and services which the presence of these low-wage foreign workers affords Swedish big business and industry, so the particular social costs that arise—unemployment of the natives, etc.—should be borne in part by the unemployed Swedes who, though now out of work, nevertheless benefit indirectly through society’s benefitting, as well as by the foreigners responsible for the Swedes’ loss of job. But two things: first of all, that just further proves my point about these various costs legitimately being shared among all players in the domestic economic drama including among the foreigners through taxation, and second, inherent in the loss of job suffered by these formerly-employed Swedish IT workers are spiritual adversities on an individual and familial level and also, in their aggregate, on a wider societal level, whose costs are not so straightforwardly calculated but doubtless considerable. These costs need also to be factored in. Finally, what about the costs to a traditional Euro national population of race-replacement? How can those be calculated? A race is priceless: they can’t be calculated, because they are incalculable. Who’s going to bear the cost of what is incalculable? Should the foreigners themselves be entirely excused from paying for that cost? Damage, after all, is being wrought here on many levels.