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Comment by bjornsing | Hacker News Reader

Some things about the US still surprise me. In "socialist Sweden" (as it's sometimes called) retroactive taxation is unconstitutional.

On the other hand capital gains is 20-30%, and most entrepreneurs actually have their gains taxed as income. That means you're lucky if you get to keep 13%. ;) I'm exaggerating a bit, but not much.

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> Some things about the US still surprise me. In "socialist Sweden" (as it's sometimes called) retroactive taxation is unconstitutional.

The difference between the US and postage-stamp-sized European countries like Sweden is that there is great political and cultural variation between different parts of the US. California is chock full of socialists/liberals.

postage-stamp-sized European countries like Sweden

At 174K mi^2, Sweden is larger than California's 164K mi^2.

Population-wise, Sweden is about the same as new york city.

You're being intentionally obtuse. As is immediately apparent if you look at a population density map of Sweden[0], the vast majority of the population is concentrated in the southern part of the country.

0: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Swedishpo...

If you meant population, you should have said population. The phrase "postage-stamp-sized European countries" is pretty broadly understood and used to mean things like Andorra, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, &c.

By no stretch of the imagination is interpreting a widely-used phrase as it's widely used "being intentionally obtuse."

I'm a socialist/liberal who lives in California and I think the idea of retroactive taxation on anything (be it person or business), is nightmareish and should be abolished.

Given that Sweden is about 10% larger than California, albeit with less than a third the population, it's hardly "postage-stamp-sized". Given that we elected Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and David Dreier, California's chock full o' wingnuts as well as socialists/liberals.

> Given that Sweden is about 10% larger than California, albeit with less than a third the population, it's hardly "postage-stamp-sized".

I already addressed this point below in response to another reply: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5062138

> Given that we elected Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and David Dreier, California's chock full o' wingnuts as well as socialists/liberals.

I'm not familiar with Dreier, but there's no doubt that Californians have a soft spot for actors.

It's not retroactive taxation. The Supreme Court pointed out that a tax break enacted several years ago was unconstitutional.

most tax bills have a severability clause in them, meaning that is one part is struck down, the rest remain in force. I don't know that was the case with this particular law.

It's technically unconstitutional in Italy as well, but it keeps happening over ad over... "Emergency measures".

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