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Comment by mypastself | Hacker News Reader

The article defines 300% increase in the requests made to a particular company as “skyrocketing”, but I see no base value that this change is measured against. If four dudes got themselves an extra passport as opposed to one in 2019, the numbers start sounding far less impressive.

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After a brief search, I checked statistics from Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service. https://www.sef.pt/en/pages/conteudo-detalhe.aspx?nID=51

Residence permit for investment activity. USA. 2019: 65. 2020: 75. 2021 numbers don't seem up yet.

>The article defines 300% increase in the requests made to a particular company as “skyrocketing”, but I see no base value that this change is measured against. If four dudes got themselves an extra passport as opposed to one in 2019, the numbers start sounding far less impressive.

You may be interested in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25367731 , in which @bildung and I discuss German migration to the US over the past 30 years (including 2019 data) as compared to US migration to Germany, and how the German government's statistical office blatantly manipulates data to make Germany look good. As is so often in such cases lately, Trump is involved.

> If three dudes got themselves an extra passport as opposed to one in 2019, the numbers start sounding far less impressive.

If those "dudes" are multi billionaires is still impressive.

Should we really be drawing any kinds of conclusions based on such a small, statistically insignificant dataset?

Based on my observation it depends on whether the conclusions support your ideologically motivated goals.

(I wish I was joking)

So how big is the dataset of observations you drew this conclusion from?

A small dataset is not statistically insignificant. It changes the calculations, but it is possible to make significant conclusions from small data. Whether this situation is significant or not depends on the underlying data you first asked about. Without it we cannot say.

Good correction. My intended point was that the article makes claims about broader societal trends without offering sufficient context.

True, but that’s still a skewed measurement ; billionaires have the resources to do/go wherever they please.

If joe “regulars” <$250k net worth are jumping ship, and needing to work their situation - not an army of lawyers/assistants - it’s much different than bill billionaire doing anything…

You should.

Majority of government income tax revenue comes from the 1%. If you count corporate taxation, same would hold true + a lot of influence.

It's the case for US, India, and a bunch more big countries.

What conclusion can reasonably be made here? If it’s “The number of wealthy people moving abroad to avoid taxes is skyrocketing”, you’d have to show that:

1.) The change in requests is statistically significant when put in the context of the total number of such individuals

2.) Tax avoidance is the primary driver of this activity

3.) The individuals do not just acquire the passport, but actually move

25% of the income tax revenue comes from the 1% [1]

High-Income Taxpayers Paid the Majority of Federal Income Taxes[1]

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income...

> 25% of the income tax revenue comes from the 1%

From your link it is ~40% - you copied the wrong number!

“The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual [federal] income taxes (38.8 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.2 percent).”

US citizens pay taxes to the IRS, wherever they reside.

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