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Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

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Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#51

Post by axlee »

oh_sigh wrote: post #50
axlee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because corporations thrive purely on the society they are making money from. No company lives in a vacuum. However great and driven Elon Musk might be, he would never have made a single cent if he had started Paypal in Somalia. And what differentiates a market in Somalia from another market like, let's say, France? Let's take this further. Zuckerberg makes a lot of money in France solely thanks to the technological…

Is your argument that owners would just not take any money out of the company so as to not pay the taxes? In OPs example the company would still be taxed but just at different times

I don't see how. Most owners are not taxable residents of the country where companies operates. If I'm personally taxable in the Bahamas, but I make all my capital profits from a company operating in a country with no corporate taxes, that country will never ever see a single tax cent from me, despite me leveraging their infrastructure and society for profit (for virtually free). I would directly profit from their roads, their transportation, their education, their Internet, their police, their laws, their justice, while never contributing to it.

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#52

Post by fauigerzigerk »

hga wrote: post #15
mschwaig wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to pay tax lawyers that are so great that you basically don't have to pay taxes kind of breaks the concept of taxation though.

Or this is a establishment politician with a weak hold on power who has not necessarily got his facts right, or if he's talking about absolute numbers vs. rates is probably lying through his teeth, but knows bashing foreign companies is a crowd pleaser. And maybe they overtax those sausage stalls, lots of/most every? country has tax regimes with lots of insanity. Apple wouldn't be playing the games it plays with the…

>Apple wouldn't be playing the games it plays with the US if we didn't have the 2nd highest or so corporate tax rate in the world

How low do you think that tax rate would have to be? Ireland's corporation tax rate is just 12.5%, but Apple didn't pay that either. They had a special deal under which their effective tax rate was as low as 0.005% to 1%. This is the deal that the EU has now ruled against under furious protests from Tim Cook personally and the US government.

So yes, if the US lowers its corporation tax rate to effectively 0% then Apple will stop playing games.

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#53

Post by tedmiston »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #48
tedmiston wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting because Starbucks doesnt franchise in the US [0]. They do have one alternative that's what you see in most airports and in coffee shops with the sign "proudly serving Starbucks coffee", for example Barnes & Noble cafes are this style. These third party stores, for instance, cannot accept payment from the Starbucks mobile app and offer only a subset of drinks. I'm not sure what the term for this is…

B&N serve full Starbucks menus in most of the states, not just Starbucks coffees, but everything else...they are effectively franchised Starbucks. Marriott franchises a lot of Starbucks in airports but also some hotels. In other China, Starbucks in tier one cities are mostly JV-owned, while in tier 2 cities they were able to convince the CCP to let them do fully owned stores.

B&N menu isn't the full Starbucks, at least in the half dozen I've seen.

Bakery & cafe food is definitely their own [0]. They also don't offer the full drink menu.

[0]: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/mobile/h/cafe

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#54

Post by jfoster »

axlee wrote: post #32
j_m_b wrote: post #13

Why do we even tax corporations instead of just the income that its owners receive from the corporation?

Because corporations thrive purely on the society they are making money from. No company lives in a vacuum. However great and driven Elon Musk might be, he would never have made a single cent if he had started Paypal in Somalia. And what differentiates a market in Somalia from another market like, let's say, France? Let's take this further. Zuckerberg makes a lot of money in France solely thanks to the technological…

> Even if your answer to this is "Well maybe there shouldn't be any public infrastructure in the first place", it simply shifts the problem somewhere else: if a private company would be managing the infrastructure, rest assured they would also ask for usage costs..

I wouldn't say there shouldn't be public infrastructure. For the last part, though, mightn't Facebook consider charging the company managing infrastructure for the ability of their customers to access Facebook? I think people would be a lot less likely to subscribe to an ISP that didn't facilitate access to Facebook.

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#55

Post by nickff »

yardie wrote: post #49
edko wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what Estonia does. Corporate income tax is 0%. They tax companies, on a flat rate, on the dividends paid out. This encourages reinvestment and growth.

And that is how it should be. But the US and EU tax codes are such a bodge. F500 CEOs are taking $1 salaries because why pay 55% on a $20mm salary when you can pay 15% on preferred stock dividends.

The 15% is actually not as cheap as it looks, because it is double-taxed as it is taken out of retained earnings (which is taxed at the corporate level), whereas salaries are an expenditure, thus the money is not taxed at the corporate level. To the individual, 1 MM in dividends is better than 1 MM in salary, but paying dividends or salary are almost the same to the company and the government. This is why sole proprietorship corporations often pay their owners a salary instead of only dividends (or buybacks).

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#56

Post by seanmcdirmid »

tedmiston wrote: post #53
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B&N serve full Starbucks menus in most of the states, not just Starbucks coffees, but everything else...they are effectively franchised Starbucks. Marriott franchises a lot of Starbucks in airports but also some hotels. In other China, Starbucks in tier one cities are mostly JV-owned, while in tier 2 cities they were able to convince the CCP to let them do fully owned stores.

B&N menu isn't the full Starbucks, at least in the half dozen I've seen. Bakery & cafe food is definitely their own [0]. They also don't offer the full drink menu. [0]: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/mobile/h/cafe

They serve frappachinos and chai tea lattes, so the menu licensed goes way beyond coffee. Food differs drastically between each Starbucks districts anyways.

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#57

Post by davidf18 »

Amazon and Starbucks spend a lot of money to hire highly competent tax attorneys and other staff to minimize their payment of taxes. Instead of complaining, countries need to pay more money to hire even brighter people to write better tax laws. Citizens of these countries need to elect officials who will do the hiring and not have obstructive laws that prohibits the payment of the large salaries and fees necessary to hire these competent people.

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#58

Post by greyman »

davidf18 wrote: post #57

Amazon and Starbucks spend a lot of money to hire highly competent tax attorneys and other staff to minimize their payment of taxes. Instead of complaining, countries need to pay more money to hire even brighter people to write better tax laws. Citizens of these countries need to elect officials who will do the hiring and not have obstructive laws that prohibits the payment of the large salaries and fees necessary to…

But what can you do if countries like Ireland or Malta just allows tax evasion?

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#59

Post by gozur88 »

greyman wrote: post #58
davidf18 wrote: post #57

Amazon and Starbucks spend a lot of money to hire highly competent tax attorneys and other staff to minimize their payment of taxes. Instead of complaining, countries need to pay more money to hire even brighter people to write better tax laws. Citizens of these countries need to elect officials who will do the hiring and not have obstructive laws that prohibits the payment of the large salaries and fees necessary to…

But what can you do if countries like Ireland or Malta just allows tax evasion?

This was always the Achilles heel of the EU. In the end it can't work unless tax policies are harmonized.

Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria

#60

Post by nickff »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #52
hga wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or this is a establishment politician with a weak hold on power who has not necessarily got his facts right, or if he's talking about absolute numbers vs. rates is probably lying through his teeth, but knows bashing foreign companies is a crowd pleaser. And maybe they overtax those sausage stalls, lots of/most every? country has tax regimes with lots of insanity. Apple wouldn't be playing the games it plays with the…

>Apple wouldn't be playing the games it plays with the US if we didn't have the 2nd highest or so corporate tax rate in the world How low do you think that tax rate would have to be? Ireland's corporation tax rate is just 12.5%, but Apple didn't pay that either. They had a special deal under which their effective tax rate was as low as 0.005% to 1%. This is the deal that the EU has now ruled against under furious pro…

Apple's latest report said that they paid a little over 6% in taxes, whereas the 0.005% number came from someone looking to score political points (without any evidence); do you have a trustworthy source for either the 0.005% or 1% numbers?
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