- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
Swiss voters on Sunday decisively rejected a call to require women to do national service in the military, civil protection teams or other forms, as all men must do already.
Official results. with counting still ongoing in some areas after a referendum, showed that more than half of Switzerland’s cantons, or states, had rejected the “citizen service initiative” by wide margins. That meant it was defeated, because proposals need a majority of both voters and cantons to pass.
Voters also heavily rejected a separate proposal to impose a new national tax on individual donations or inheritances of more than 50 million francs ($62 million), with the revenues to be used to fight the impact of climate change and help Switzerland meet its ambitions to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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ITT: people judging the vote and the voters by the magnanimous title alone.
The initiatives were worded and implemented so poorly, that it wouldn’t surprise me if the initiants wanted to lose both these votes.
- The inheritance tax would have caused mass nationalisations and it had pegged the tax proceeds to go towards climate goals instead of let’s say the federal pension fund deficit (AHV-Loch). It would be incorrect to state that the voters don’t support an inheritance tax or climate goals based on this vote.
- The “service citoyen” proposal would have made some kind of civil or military service mandatory for all, but would have essentially reduced the military to a volunteer force, which would be socially unacceptable. The Swiss have a historically repeatedly confirmed will to keep a citizen’s militia as the country’s only security force.
There is no “AHV-Loch”, we’re doing well in that respect. I’m against the second initiative too, but your rationalization is wild.
Insane that any democracy would reject an inheritance tax
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the problem how i understood is, that we are not only talking about cash money but also money that is in businesses. family owned businesess may then be forced to sell their business to shareholder owned foreign corpos, because they could not afford it due to the tax. that sparked some major fear among voters. the result was not even close, it was 78% No! thats hughe and beyond any left/right worldview, not a single canton voted yes, that alone is a clear indicator that this bill was not very well-thought-out
with the revenues to be used to fight the impact of climate change and help Switzerland meet its ambitions to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Maybe the people wanted to have actual social services provided to them instead of climate action.
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They could light the money on fire and it would still be worth impleminating
Because it is theft. If my parents are successful and pay their taxes why is it fair to double tax a child’s inheritance. You tax earnings and income. You don’t the same money multiple times.
It’s more important to prevent an aristocracy than it is to be fair.
Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be fair as well as tax the rich.
Thing is the same money does regularly get taxed multiple times. You get shafted on money as it comes to you (income tax) and u get shafted on that money once you spend it to (sales tax). Hell I bought a house and will get to pay taxes on that annually for as long as I own it, despite already paying my state and fed govt taxes.
Just because everyone is getting fucked doesn’t mean it’s right. Double taxing only hurts the poor because they can’t hide money in tax free investments or businesses that they use to write off expenses.
Not that insane. Most people only concern themselves with their own issues. And if you’re a 40 year old whose childhood home is now worth 500k or whatever and you have to pay 200k in taxes in order to inherit it, then you probably want to vote against it because otherwise the government will take it.
Okay, take all that with a grain of salt because I’m not too familiar with inheritance law, but it’s based on multiple similar stories I’ve heard from people.
I still think it should be taxed, don’t get me wrong. But I understand why people are against it.
The text indicates that it’s only on inheritances greater than 62 million dollars
Yeah, it’s true that in this case most people would never have to care about that. When I replied I was thinking about inheritance taxes in general. My bad.
Why is that insane? Wasn’t tax already paid on that money once?
This bullshit-argument again.
Guess what, money will circle around the economy and it will be taxed on different occasions and often several times during its lifespan (whatever that means for todays mostly digital money anyways). Especially when things (or money) change owners, tax is to be expected.
When you got paid, you paid income tax, and when you buy stuff with it - oh my gosh! - taxes again!! (In the form of VAT) Outrageous!
This is such a common thing, that it simply baffles me how anyone could think that “that money has been taxed already” is a sound argument.
You don’t pay VAT/GST on the money, you pay it on the product’s price (and you can avoid it if the receiptent agrees to get paid in cash and don’t show it in the books). For assets, you are buying it with your money that you have already earnd that has been already taxed. You also have to pay a stamp duty to the government when you buy any asset, you pay registration fees, you pay all the property & Municipal taxes and when you sell it, you will be paying a capital gains tax anyways, so what’s the point of charging an inheritance tax?
Simple question to you: My networth is just 100k USD, I inherited 500k USD (current market value) house from my parents, and the inheritance tax is at 20%, wouldn’t I lose all my existing money and assets I for something that is just worth 500k USD as an unliquid asset? To sell that house you will have to find a buyer which is not an easy or cost-free task. If the house doesn’t sell, you will be paying property taxes anyways, and once you sell it, you will pay the capital gains tax as well so what’s the point of inheritance tax?
What I think is a better solution: Define a certain threshold where the value of inheritance is above a level where the person inheriting becomes wealthy beyond their and their family’s actual needs, and distribute that wealth among the lower income people in the form of permanent housing.
You don’t pay VAT/GST on the money, you pay it on the product’s price
And how do you pay that price? With money. This is pure sophism.
And, duh, you can avoid paying taxes if you cheat… that’s not exclusive to VAT.
And you are further elaborating my point. You will be taxed on different occasions even when the money or asset doesn’t even change ownership. That’s my whole point. The argument that you already paid taxes on some money isn’t really a solid point against inheritance tax, it’s a common occurence in many areas of life. Yet it always comes up when inheritance tax is discussed.
Just like your example with the inheritance of a small home that will ruin the recipient. The example is always constructed in bad faith with a lousy tax policy in the first place. No one is trying to ruin the average joe who happens to inherit grampas house. A better design, and the one all supporters of inheritance tax I know argue for, is one with a reasonably high allowance, to avoid these scenarios, and even if you cross the allowance threshhold by a little bit, you only have to pay the fictious 20% on the amount exceeding the allowance. So say we have an (unreasonably low, but just for the sake of the example) allowance of 400K, now you inherit that 500K property you’ll have to pay (500K-400K)x0.2=20K.
If you wanted to protect small inheritances even more, you could design a progressive tax, too.
This, with a much more reasonable allowance sounds a bit like your so called ‘better solution’.
This, with a much more reasonable allowance sounds a bit like your so called ‘better solution’.
That is exactly what I said. Couldn’t put it in better words. Exemptions. Only difference I said is exempt the amount upto, let’s say, what a family of 3 people needs for let’s say 3 years. That way the inheriter won’t have to pay a superficial tax while still maintaining a livable lifestyle. Charging inheritance tax on poor people (however little) puts a lot of burden on them for something they are not willingly earning or purchasing. Charging millionaires and billionaires with inheritance tax is better as there will be a continuous cycle of wealth redistribution and thus they won’t be able abuse their powers. But wealth tax is more efficient that way as it would prevent someone becoming obscenely wealthy in the first place.
Taxing the poor has never worked, they will hoard more unaccounted whatever wealth they have to avoid those taxes rather than owning real estate, shared, bonds, etc and participating in the economy. No one likes paying taxes — especially on something which they are not willingly earning or purchasing.
And how do you pay that price? With money. This is pure sophism.
Also you pay VAT and GST only once — so it is not an example of double taxation. These have been designed in such a way that the only the final customer pays tax on it as the final entity in the supply chain. Whatever VAT/GST the retailer, supplier and the service provider paid is refunded by the government in the form of ITC (Input Tax Credit).
Charging millionaires and billionaires with inheritance tax is better as there will be a continuous cycle of wealth redistribution and thus they won’t be able abuse their powers. But wealth tax is more efficient that way as it would prevent someone becoming obscenely wealthy in the first place.
And that is the point of inheritance tax. There might be other means to achieve that same goal, but I suspect inheritance tax is politically more realistic. In our western societies theres a deeply ingrained narrative of ‘rags to riches’ and how the rich earned their money because they contribute so much to society and worked hard for it, coupled with the wishful thinking of ‘it might be me some day’. I don’t have to preach, how flawed those ideas are, but it is much easier within that ideology to argue for an inheritance tax, where it is obvious that the heir didn’t have to do anything to really deserve it.
Wealth tax needs a bit more of a marxist understanding of economic mechanisms.
It should have been.
Is Switzerland full of sexist people who think “someday I’LL be rich so I don’t want to tax MYSELF more, hypothetically maybe in the distant future”?
The main counter argument was that this tax would make Switzerland quite unattractive to rich people, and that they would simple leave the country so that they don’t have to pay this tax. And then Switzerland would even lose tax income overall.
This argument is the knee jerk reaction to any tax proposal and should be laughed out of town as it has never ever actually happened.
Afaik, Switzerland is a very conservative place. So that pretty much aligns with what you said.
They are so conservative that women got the right to vote federally in 1971. In one Canton they only got the right to vote at the local level in 1990 after a Supreme Court decision. They were the last Western Democracy to do so.
Native Americans didn’t get the right to vote until 1975… unless you are counting the 1990 thing they weren’t the last.
I want to be part of a normal species
Sexist is debatable but… yeah
But everyone worshiping the rich? Yeah, that is Switzerland in a nutshell. A decade or so ago I spent a week in Switzerland on holiday and… even the state funded museums kinda felt like “And then so and so developed a really cool technology that saved countless lives. AND THEN THEY GOT RICH!!! FRANCA FRANCA BILS Y’ALL!!! And here is what they bought with it and the house they lived in and how much paper it takes to print out their monthly statement and… Oh, the tech? Whatever, nobody cares about that”
It’s no coincidence that they are notorious for being a tax haven for unsavory individuals with shady dealings.
Does the earth revolve around the sun?
Yes. Europe isn’t the magical forward thinking land it’s made it to be lol. Well, most of it isn’t, anyway. Still a great place to spend some time though.
That’s a statement at the level of Trump statements. Congrats, you now stand shoulder to shoulder with the pedophile in chief in sweeping statements based on a minority of people.
I don’t really see women voting to have themselves be drafted.
I also don’t see them voting to make rich people slightly less rich.
Do you not see that because you read the title of the article?
If men have to sign up for the draft then it is only fair that women have to too. It’s unfair that only men have to risk being drafted and losing so much of their life to war.
Actually I rather if Drafting was abolished altogether
Personally, I think having a draft is a terrible idea regardless of gender.
They voted down adding women to this already bad idea. Potentially in the future, they remove the draft altogether.
I guess my point is, why would you want them to make the situation worse just so it is equal?
While I understand the pushback against military drafts/service requirements, they also can be a net positive for a culture that applies them equally regardless of gender, class or ethnicity. You are significantly less likely to support war if your children or grandchildren could potentially get dragged into it. Want to the majority of wars? Make it a law that the heirs of the rich must serve in the infantry during wartime.
Counterpoint: with a draft, people are less willing to support the government going to war.
Potentially in the future, they remove the draft altogether.
Support for mandatory military service in Switzerland has been going up in recent years, so I wouldn’t count on it.
Removing the draft is never on the table.
As a general rule, I oppose gender roles codified into law.
Oh give me a break, women are getting away worse in so many facets of life. When we have fixed discrimination against women we can talk about them doing mandatory civil service.
Edit: Did not know that on Lemmy we have such an issue with women’s rights.
Nope, it is YOU who has an issue with equality. But then Men’s blood is cheap to you right. So what if they get their limbs blown up. That’s not suffering to you.
Do not bring up too many arguments.
I don’t have to, you did all the dirty work for me.
If believing so makes you happy ☺️
So? Are we supposed to have a fair, equal society or are we playing these games of measuring each other’s cocks?
Measure whatever you want but maybe first make it slightly more equal for the ones who have been disadvantaged for decades? But no, one party always focuses on the few things man have where they are slightly worse of.
You’re right, men should just go die in a war they have no reason to fight and be happy about it.
No they should not? Nobody said that.
Also nobody who is in the army here actually believes they will ever see a war. Most people who serve just hate it and see it as a waste of time that will never amount to anything.
I’m a feminist and I honestly don’t understand this mentality. Mixing genders in all activities is good for our society, period.
Not if said activity is forced upon you. Women can already voluntarily join the military or civil service.
So can men, but in this instance they’re also compelled. The ask here is that if men are compelled to service, women should be too. That’s obviously equal treatment and fair.
Am I in the wrong movie? Women are at a huge disadvantage in life (Gender pay gap, workplace representation, unpaid care and domestic work, education and job positions, healthcare, part-time employment, promotion and career advancement, violence against women, political representation) and we should work to solve that but for some reason we first want to force them to also serve in the military while leaving the current system in place that puts them at a disadvantage? Oh the heavens, men have to serve for a single year…yes that is super important, not all the things they get a huge advantage in life?
slightly more equal
all animals are equal but some are more equal than others (/s)
It doesn’t sound like Lemmy has an issue with women’s rights, it sounds like you have an issue with equal rights.
Unfortunately a large majority of people have an issue with women’s rights 🥲
While i see the theoretical point of “if bad happens to men, it should happen to women too”, i don’t think it applies to heavily bad situations, especially with all the bad things already happening in disadvantage of women, and also especially war and especially from a pacifist perspective. Like no one says “if more women are raped than men, we should rape more men to make it fair”. I know it’s not the same situation its just a abusive comparison to strongly show the pertinence of a stance like “even if it’s not fair, the most people we can get out of horrible situations the better it is”.
Statistically woman do so much more care work then men, they already served the country well. There is no need to also draft them. It’s only fair. It would also work if more men would take care of kids, the elderly or do other chores without any pay and skip any career for that.
This comment is pure comedy gold.
Being drafted is different than doing chores or working in care roles. Everyone capable should be responsible for the defense of those who are not in times of war regardless of sex.
There are also plenty of care roles, and chores, in military service.
Yes more Men should take on the life outside of work, but that has nothing to do with 50% of a countries population being forced to give up and risk their lives while the other isn’t even though they are capable of, and excel in, combat and support roles.
Being drafted is different than doing chores or working in care roles. Everyone capable should be responsible for the defense of those who are not in times of war regardless of sex.
And working in factories, taking care of kids, and just existing are very much part of the war effort. And their lives are very much at risk during a war. Just ask Ukraine.
It is one of those knock-ons from (especially) WW1 and 2 where draft dodging and “conscientious objectors” were such a risk as more and more people came back from the front with grotesque wounds and mental trauma. A culture of “only cowards don’t go to war” was built up VERY rapidly… and caused immense issues as young men were unable to fight due to physical ailments or mental trauma so bad that even the 1910s/40s cared.
Except also Rosie the Riveter and all that.
It all ties into the “myth” of “civilian targets” during a full scale war. EVERYONE can agree that blowing up a hospital is evil. What about a factory that makes shoes? What about one that makes boots? Shells? Similarly, EVERYONE can agree that blowing up a residential area is how you go to hell. Now about about a residential area on a military base? Now what about the barracks on a base? Are you only allowed to attack the enemy once they step foot off base?
And going back to that hospital… what about a power plant? Because a LOT of lives are lost when hospitals have extended outages. But those plants ALSO literally power the war effort.
Which is the reality of things. When you just have a massive global north military destroying a country in the name of “counter-terrorism”? Yes, the reality is that a lot of the terrorist/guerilla cells are going to fundamentally be in residential areas and next to hospitals both for optics and convenience. But there is a LOT of “oh… there were some hamas soldiers in that children’s ward, sure” evil.
But when an entire country is mobilized for war? The distinction between civilian and military becomes INCREDIBLY murky. Which… we can very much see in Ukraine and russia.
Because, yes, you need people on the front line. You also need people on the backlines for logistics and support. And… you need people just living their lives so that there is something worth fighting for. Rotating troops back for leave is immensely important for morale and… if they return to a skeleton crew raising children in abandoned dormitories? They can never recharge from The War and that leave stops mattering. Which leads to rapid desertion and even worse mental trauma.
And… The Enemy is very aware of that.
*Looks at no man’s land.
Yes, your point is beyond idiotic.
That’s great but we are talking about the draft, not domestic life. Women can take on roles in the armed services that mean some men won’t be forced into doing. Combat roles aren’t the entire thing, plenty of support roles that need filling out. Being drafted won’t be fun but if we want true equality then women have to help shoulder the burden when/if a draft happens. It’s a privilege to not have to worry about being drafted, giving that privilege up won’t be fun but it is fair.
There is also the emprical evidence that women make less over the course of their careers. An extra year or two of work experience can help to offset that.
Obviously not everyone falls into those gender norm buckets. But… they are “gender norms” for a reason. And while I don’t know how our trans friends impact that (or if Switzerland acknowledges their existence…), it isn’t the worst way to break things down to having roughly half the population on the frontlines and the other half keeping the country running.
But this is the kind of thing that brings out the MRA tendencies in everyone as a kneejerk reaction.
Military service isn’t “being on the frontline.” I don’t know how Switzerland handles it, but in the US a lot of aid work is done by reservists. I’m sure Switzerland does similar things with these people. Sure, they’re also all trained to fight, but they aren’t fighting in a war right now, so they use them to do other things. Some of that will be building bunkers and stuff, but a lot is probably doing things that support the country in other ways.
It feels very strange to be a US citizen and actually be able to judge another country for making a silly conservative decision. Woo?
I think, the initiative was rejected by all parties,but probably for different reasons. If you look at the position of the parties in this table
Edit: this is the position of the left
I thought everyone had to serve. Sad.
What is not well enough reprensented in this post is that the Service Citoyen was not only about makimg women do a mandatory service. It was to transform the outdated and regressive mandatory service for men into a more general service to the collective that treated security not as a entirely militaristic issue but as a wholistic one.
Now parliament will interpret this as a mandate to cull the existing useful civil service and force every men (and potentially women too) into the military.
There shouldn’t be mandatory military service at all
My theory is that if you can’t convince enough people to volunteer to fight for your nation, then you have failed as a nation.
With this parliament the military will stay and grow and become more and more unavoidable. Service citoyen would have countered that…
That’s an option I would accept too.
Tell that to Ukraine.
As an American, I have no room at all to judge this decision. But
proposals need a majority of both voters and cantons to pass.
That sounds amazing. Let’s do that, please.
I mean, straight popular vote would probably be better. But this could really do what the Electoral College stans say that it was made to do, without doing what it actually does.
That sounds amazing.
It sounds arbitrary and heavily weighted to favor the smaller cantons. Same problem we have with the US Senate and the filibuster. Representatives for a meager 30M voters can obstruct policy championed by the other 300M
Anything even slightly better than the idiocy we have seems amazing to me, apparently
Nazi collaborators continuing to be backwards idiots. What a surprise.
you are a massive ignorant idiot. there is so much more to this story than just that.
The term Nazi is slung around so loosely now I have become desensitized. Did the guy once post a meme about defunding some government program or did he try to burn down a Jewish synagogue, both will be labeled Nazi in 2025.
The Swiss literally collaborated with the literal Nazis.
I have become desensitized
Weird that hearing about fascism has left you incapable of identifying fascists. I never see your type have this problem with Muslims, Feminists, or Tankies.
Alright well I don’t deal in cosplay, sorry.
:-/
What’s this tabloid supposed to mean?
The takes on here are wild as a Swiss dude.
Hint: Mandatory service is a problem.
That’s a wild take …
Mandatory service is not a problem. As long as we live in a world with countries like russia mandatory service does more good than harm.
Mandatory service causes two main issues (for me): Bad, undisciplined armies and authoritization of the population.
Isreal uses its mandatory service to get teenagers to support genocide.
It is. Get with the times it’s the 21st century. Modern men are equipped with better social tools and technologies to be able to tackle any problems that come their way without resorting to savagery that is violence. There’s diplomacy, economic sanctions as well as international agreements to get Russia to stop what they are doing with a strongly worded letter. The sword may seems sharp, but nay the pen is mightier than the sword. Yet, it is men’s fragile ego that prevents them from searching alternative solutions other than wanton violence. Oh Vritra, if we could eliminate all the men if the world, the world would a lot more peaceful, as the remaining people eat their crumpets and sips on their tea.
Yeah tell me how that would’ve worked/ is working for Ukraine.
Hey! You lost this:
*Hand over a “/s”
If Russians invade your country they’ll have guns, not pens, and you’ll need a plan to deal with them when they don’t feel like negotiating.
Bunch of morons.
