The real issue here isn’t them having money in countries with lower tax rates. The accounts were confidential. It was the secrecy that made them useful for tax evasion, not just the tax rates. If they want to vote with their feet, they are free to move, which they are clearly wealthy enough to do.

I have no special commitment to income taxes, but I fail to see how they crush the poor. The poor pay lower rates, and recieve the most in income and service use from state provision. It primarily targets the middle classes.

While it is true they do not tax the rich in the way they should, if they really subsidised the rich then the rich wouldn’t be tax evading, or at the very least you wouldn’t claim it was a “moral act”.

Furthermore, since we can envision a system with, say, negative income tax, it is clear the income taxes do not necessarily disadvantage the poor.

LVT and other comparable taxes would not raise enough to fund the current state. I assume your solution is to slash state spending?

Imagine if a British person broke the law in the UK on behalf of a foreign government - that would be scandalous - we’d be kicking up a massive international stink, but because it suits us and its a small country?

If the people have broken German laws then prosecute them for that, but do so without breaking the laws of another country or seeking to bully that country into submission. This is part of a general trend of trying to bully other countries with lower taxes into submission to prevent tax competition.

Thankfully, such countries, like Switzerland and Liechtenstein are having none of it. If only it would be easier for the poor to avoid taxation.

I also find it hard to condemn tax avoidance. It is a moral act to reclaim sovereignty over your labour. I condemn the fact that the poor cannot take advantage of this and that the rich can. But what do you expect of income taxes which drive the poor into the ground and subsidise the rich. The aim seems to be serfdom.

All these people are doing is voting with their feet - they believe they are paying too much tax, so they seek to avoid paying some - in a perfectly legal manner.
The state does not have a right to act illegally to prevent that, or to attack another country over it.

If you want the rich to pay their taxes, lower them, make the cost of avoidance higher than the cost of paying taxes - you may well get more income anyway (not that any western government needs more money - they just need to spend less).

I suggest you read the whole article too - the suggestion is that land and rent be taxed - that cannot be avoided (in this way at least), it doesn’t tax the risk of investment or labour.

Your fundamental error is the assumption that taxation is a moral thing and that paying taxes is a moral duty. That is simply not true. Tax is the theft of money from individuals by the state. Perhaps some is necessary to address imbalances in wealth (income tax does not do that, it entrenches them) or to internalise externalities, but in itself, tax is not a good thing.