Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

swissinfo.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 243 posts

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#141

Post by jomamaxx »

woah wrote: post #93
jomamaxx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transfer pricing is not 'tax evasion' - it's 'tax avoidance'. To be clear, 'tax evasion' is illegal. Most companies do what they can to avoid paying taxes, which is rational in some ways, but they usually don't do anything illegal. It's important that we don't mix the two :)

What's the difference? Does 'tax evasion' involve falsehoods?

The 'difference' is one is illegal.

If you have $1M in a Swiss bank account earning capital gains, and don't declare it to the IRS - that's 'tax evasion'.

If you have a company in Switzerland generating revenue, and decide not to bring back your profits to America to get hit with another tax, and just let it sit in Switzlerland - that's a 'tax avoidance' strategy.

'Tax evasion' = illegal.

'Tax avoidance' = doing everything you can within the boundaries of the law to not pay taxes. There are some wierd loopholes due to the way taxation works across borders.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#142

Post by a3camero »

jomamaxx wrote: post #91
a3camero wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a well-known Canadian Supreme Court case about transfer pricing that highlights the role of a Swiss subsidiary in a scheme to dramatically reduce taxes on income earned from selling pharmaceuticals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_v_GlaxoSmithKline_Inc

Transfer pricing is not 'tax evasion' - it's 'tax avoidance'. To be clear, 'tax evasion' is illegal. Most companies do what they can to avoid paying taxes, which is rational in some ways, but they usually don't do anything illegal. It's important that we don't mix the two :)

This case was actually about whether or not it was legal. It was a mixed decision (seen as being in favour of GlaxoSmithKline) that settled confidentially after the Supreme Court case: http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/glaxosmithkline...

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#143

Post by linksnapzz »

whybroke wrote: post #76
linksnapzz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no point. Or rather, as originally established, the Federalist intent was to allow states significantly more freedom to direct their own affairs. Sadly, this is no longer the case. The point of keeping the US as a single nation is to further the interests of those who are aligned with FEDGOV, not for the education or happiness or prosperity of ordinary people.

With no historic federal interference, Mississippi would out do Switzerland in happiness, education, prosperity and general liberty? Somehow I doubt that. If anything, the Federal government is overly distracted bringing the slow parts of the country kicking and screaming into the 21st century and by those same parts randomly derailing it. But anyone ever want to secede again, I won't object.

Oh, a person with a little imagination might think of many ways MS could do better with less federal interference...

As to not complaining about a possible future secession... You also think it's a federal obligation to bring the "slow parts" of the country "into the 21st century". I'll venture that anyone who makes that sort of mental investment in pharisaic priggishness has more to lose, ego-wise, if the "slow parts" do better outside the union than inside.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#144

Post by gtirloni »

pjmlp wrote: post #73
HSO wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in Google's case, there's ETH Zurich. Just today, I saw in the newspaper (WSJ university rankings[1]) that ETH was rated top of the pops globally in computer science. (On a related note, I remember vaguely that Disney built a research lab here in Zurich just because of one professor and his team.[2]) Also, in the good old times (= before the rise of right-wing populism and the referendum) Google could attract g…

ETH was also the home of Niklaus Wirth and all his research in safe systems programming languages with Modula-2(Lillith), Oberon(Native Oberon, EthOS), Active Oberon (BlueOS) and the commercial descendent Component Pascal.

In the 2.4kbps times (.br speeds at the time) I'd print the Modula-3 manuals and have fun at home. And then I discovered I was late to the party and things were slowing down for those languages.

I wish m3 had caught on. Really liked it.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#145

Post by Scoundreller »

tonfa wrote: post #46
guest wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anyway, it seems like a mystery to me why tech firms like Google set up shop in small expensive Zurich instead of say cheaper, bigger Barcelona or Vienna, for example." The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like, Swiss is well known for it around Europe. That it hasn't been dealt with is not strange since we live in the age of hidden plutocracy (trading outposts and the like exist in many countries for the rich…

> The reason is simple: tax-evation and the like Source? Switzerland is famous for its private banking sector and it used to be easy to hide assets for individuals (with FACTA and tax data sharing, I don't think it's as popular now, or at least the minimum amount required is way higher since banks don't want the risk). Unlike Ireland, I'm not aware of Switzerland being commonly used to reduce corporate tax (at least…

Iunno, Ebay likes to print in every email and invoice that I'm dealing with their Swiss subsidiary, even though I'm in Canada. I'm sure it's for tax purposes.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#147

Post by kartan »

jedmeyers wrote: post #140
truth_sentinell wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it worth it?

People holding government jobs and on welfare would say "yes, definitely".

Government jobs like the people that takes care of mental illness, policemen trained to act in a thoughtful way, teachers, etc.

I'm happy to live in a country with high taxes and a good level of services for every one. To be in San Francisco, for example, was a sad experience. There was so much money and good people, but still you could see so much homeless people in the streets.

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#148

Post by DougN7 »

eternalban wrote: post #117
hobo_mark wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably mean Urs Hölzle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urs_H%C3%B6lzle ps: expats usually remain expats almost everywhere (as they tend to stick together), what's so inflexible about .ch in particular?

> what's so inflexible about .ch in particular? Well, I remember when arriving for work in Geneva a few years ago, a French colleague informed me (quite seriously :) that one can not urinate in the street. The American colleague mentioned "oh, and quiet hours after 10 pm". And you are not supposed to hunt the swans swimming in the lake. (& My youngish Swiss friends all complain about how "boring" it is.) I think Swit…

Man, you're doing such a good job at dead pan I just can't decide if you're joking or not :)

Re: Switzerland is the world’s most competitive economy

#149

Post by kayoone »

erispoe wrote: post #66
ucaetano wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes and payroll taxes are much lower in Switzerland than in France, for example, so an employee might cost the same to the company in both countries, but have much more net income in Switzerland. Most people don't see payroll taxes, only income taxes. Having a large percentage of foreigners and English-speakers also contributes to that, as well as the clustering effect (IBM Research has a lab in Zurich since 1956).

The median income in Switzerland is PPP$35,083 and PPP$24,233 in France. The main difference is in healthcare, which in Switzerland is entirely private, post-payroll, and can easily amount to $500/month, whereas in France it's part public (payroll) part private. And the private part is usually paid on payroll too. Health insurance is mandatory in Switzerland, so it really is not disposable income, even if you have pr…

In Germany, 360 EUR or 16% of my salary goes to public healthcare and i still have to wait for weeks/months for the most basic appointments. Really makes me want to switch to private even though i think it will be worse in the long run.
Post reply on HN