Thats the point - politicians dont think
.
My take on this is that they are trying their hardest to stamp out the competition between the cantons (which is what i think has made switzerland overall quite well managed). However, if there is one thing that bureaucrats dont like, its competition between each other. If your a poor performing bureaucrat, you hardly want someone to know that, so the poor performing ones are trying their hardest to stop the better performing ones from gaining anymore revenue that expose their own weaknesses. By saying the 'rich' will be the ones to pay, they hit two birds with one stone. Firstly, its populist, because everyone hates the rich (whoever they are) and you can easily tell everyone the 'rich' dont pay their fair share, and secondly and unknown to the public, because thats exactly where the
top revenue is coming from. Stop the top revenue from shifting between cantons, and then you stop the revenue disperencys between the cantons also. The SP then tell everyone 'dont worry the rich wont move overseas' because taxes are high in most european countries anyway (and thats true), the problem from my point of view is that instead they will seek to 'avoid' these taxes through the myriad of methods that exist out there i.e. dont declare new assets, dont be honest about what assets you had/have, shift more debt into your assets and try your hardest to lower your taxable income through law, lawyers and loopholes - something that the middle and rich classes do all over the world where there are high taxes. Thats why i dont mind that the very wealthy negotiate their taxes because what they pay is still very significant from a dollar point of view (however proably a small % of total wealth) and thats the bit that is
most important. The cantons say 'you be honest about what you have and save your money on expensive lawyers and accountants, and we will be honest about what deal we can give you to make you live here and pay us for the privilege'. And believe it or not, that system actually encourages declaring as many assets as possible because that way you are of more 'value' to the canton who are only looking at balancing their budget and plugging a few holes here an there.
Once this initiative passes, the SP will move onto the other one which is the one where the very wealthy negotiate their taxes as i mentioned above - so this is part and parcel of the same scheme.
It wont be just the wealthy that are affected by this initiative. Thats just how they lure a mass turnout for the vote. Higher taxes are always passed down to the lower classes - so this will affect everyone with a job. Hence why i, nor my voting partner, dont support high taxes on anybody. In addition to the fact that the more money the government has, the more it uses it for to influence certain groups to vote their way - so called auction politics.
Business Groups, as well as the smaller german speaking cantons, should have pulled their finger out a lot sooner. Looks like they naively thought this had no chance and as its getting more popular they are now scrambling. I gotta hand it to the SP though. This was a master stroke of genius to have this on the same vote where everyone is too busy, concerned and debating the SVP foreigner initiative. What a genius way of trying to get an initiative through while everyone is bouncing off walls with the other one. If it passes, they can thank that for helping them.
Discussed little here also:
Super Rich Switzerland!! 
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