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Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

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Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#401

Post by enraged_camel »

nodesocket wrote: post #241
astrodust wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're growing your company based on cash-flow you're slowly strangling your company to death. If it's profitable, leverage it. You don't have to go nuts and borrow millions, but if you can generate a better return on debt than the interest rate, which shouldn't be too hard given today's interest rates, you can build your business faster. If you're aggressively expanding your company you'll be channelling any prof…

I've seen this "get a better accountant" argument posted on HN quite a bit. But, aren't liberals outraged about the tax loopholes for the "weathly"? We shouldn't need the loopholes, just reduce the rates.

No. Hiring competent accountants to help you run your company more efficiently is good. What people have an issue with is when the ultra-rich hire accountants who specialize in tax avoidance.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#402

Post by T2_t2 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #391
T2_t2 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming SG is Singapore, that is a really specific example, because it is a tiny Island of 4 million people with a lot of very unique attributes - it is a major shipping and airport hub, as well as a financial hub in a notoriously corrupt region. The USA has similar areas - often much larger, usually with very similar outcomes. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per... and compare it to…

Your expectations aren’t reality. If you have a solid middle class job like a policeman, corporate manager, or soldier, you will be fine in Mississippi or South Carolina. The major difference is that state protections will be weaker than in places like California or New York, and you may need to travel to a regional center to get specialized care in some situations. If you are poor, however, forget about it. Those st…

> Your expectations aren’t reality

I think you miss my point. Even if the tax rates are the same, a state with a larger GDP - whether that state is South Carolina or Singapore - will have more money to spend on things like health, and government, actually, just everything - thats's why a higher GDP is so desirable.

An ambulance in Singapore can pretty much reach anyone. A hospital in SG can server anyone - that's how small it is. Who serves Idaho? The Mayo clinic? In a roundabout way yes, but not really.

Quoting US statistics and comparing them to SG is analogous to comparing the same statistics in the Bay Area and Miami.

And that all this gets wrapped up into one single country metric obfuscates the true state for most people, and leads to a lot of problems as one group struggles with a smaller, yet more visibly lacking, share.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#403

Post by ajslater »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #353
curious_fella1 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and still winds up doing harder things than Americans more easily Can you elaborate?

I was in the thread about "lessons from MIT", and thinking of a degree curriculum I looked at from the UK one day. It basically expected that students (who were going to learn PL theory) start off with a higher level of math knowledge (right out of secondary school) than most American CS students have in sophomore year. AFAIK, their students don't suffer as much stress or depression as the cohort of Americans who've…

The difference in educational levels is economic. If you correct for the income & wealth levels of the international district and match them to american districts with similar levels, you have similar academic results. There's no gap.

The issue occurs with taking averages. The United States is a rich country or a developing country depending on where you look. Few other modern industrialized nations are run this way.

Indeed, if you want the best education in the world, many people come to the American universities (public and private). These American Universities which you can name, sit like jewels surrounded by the serfdom education many Americans experience.

It is the same with primary and secondary education.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#404

Post by njarboe »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #299
jordanb wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly this was the premise behind Brownback's tax plan in Kansas: Small businesses were being held back by their tax burden. They wanted to invest more capital in their businesses, to scale up and hire more people. They had untapped opportunities in the market that they could not pursue because they didn't have the money that they would have if their taxes were lower. Here's how that worked out: http://thehil…

> Small businesses were being held back by their tax burden. It's never taxes on profits that holds small businesses back. It's all the annoying things you need to do to employ people[1]. Best thing the government could do for small businesses is provide healthcare and decent pensions for workers. Which would be two fewer things for a business owner to worry about. Having the state employment agency handle payroll wo…

What would be really great is if there were no income or payroll taxes. If you want to work for someone or hire someone you, just exchange money for labor. It would be so liberating. Maybe start income tax at $1 million like the old days and just let us lower income people get to work.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#406

Post by vonnik »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #395
vonnik wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the evidence, Vasili: Trump buys an office building in downtown Manhattan in 1995 - the year he allegedly lost $1 billion. All cash. He then borrows $145 million from a union pension fund to carry out a $35 million renovation. The previous owners, a Hong Kong company that may have been a front for Ferdinand Marcos, bought the building for $8 million two years before Trump and also renovated it. The building si…

I get it, you don't like Trump. I don't like him either. But the above doesn't seem like evidence of anything other than real estate dealings.

I won't argue it anymore. Apologies for the ad hominem attacks.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#407

Post by wallace_f »

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #385
wallace_f wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putin's utility function maximization calculus is clearly benefited from undermining his own people, and there is a lot of evidence to support that. The US plutocracy is no different. Also a lot of evidence: the actions of the NSA, CIA, War on Drugs, police militarizarion, military-industrial-congressional-complex... All cannot be explained otherwise. I think in the US, they're just a lot more clever at it. However c…

The Koch brothers and associated organizations have also been known to fund both sides of extremist events and encourage them to fight each other. At a glance, I would say pretty much all of today's hot button issues: abortion, race, gender equality, treatment of sex offenders, treatment of prisoners & released felons, terrorism, the current spate of sexual assault accusations... All of it has roots at a level where…

Yea. Every election in the US there are the same groups of people that win: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/trump-makes-america-gold...

It's amazing anyone can see a homeless person and feel disgust, "do something productive you immoral scum!" But see an elite banker and not think the same thing, but worse.

Every group of leaders faces the quandry of the ambitions of those to usurp them. That's why tyranny has always been a constant in human history.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#408

Post by nickpp »

enraged_camel wrote: post #396
nickpp wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the choice of giving up my money, or dying - during a robbery. I am talking about the choice I have in any free marked: where to spend my money and what to get in exchange. I have none of that when it comes to over half of my revenue: my taxes.

>>That is the choice of giving up my money, or dying - during a robbery. Why do you believe living in the jungle will result in dying? Our ancestors did it, and many people manage to do it today. It wouldn't be easy of course, especially if you're so used to your creature comforts that you lack basic survival skills, but it's definitely not a death sentence.

There are no jungles around where I live. Just forests. And they all belong to the government.

My grad parents tried living off their land, but during a time when the government raised the taxes to impossible levels they couldn’t pay and the government came down on them - hard. They lost it all but survived. Others weren’t so lucky.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#409

Post by nickpp »

isostatic wrote: post #378
nickpp wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I have a choice? If not, then I am robbed. I don’t disagree with the idea of taxes, just with the way they are stolen from me and with most of the purposes they are used for.

move to a country/region with no taxes. If you want the benefits of a country that has decided to charge people to live there, then you have to pay - same if you want the benefits of membership of a club.

I don’t know of any place without taxes, do you? Through force, governments carved up the planet and each became a local monopoly in its own region.

Totally unlike a club, where you have the benefit of choice. Free market vs monopoly, you know.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#410

Post by nickpp »

aylmao wrote: post #388
nickpp wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the choice of giving up my money, or dying - during a robbery. I am talking about the choice I have in any free marked: where to spend my money and what to get in exchange. I have none of that when it comes to over half of my revenue: my taxes.

You can also move somewhere with lower taxes; say Mongolia. It's a 10% flat rate there iirc. My guess is you like living where you do -- and it great part it's thanks to the taxes you pay.

You guess wrong. My country is crappy run by a corrupt, inept government. My tax money have the worst ROI of all my spendings.

Have you actually tried to change citizenship? I did it once (and then back). It is a long, gruesome process where you change a monopoly with another. It takes years and it's not always an option. Try giving this "advice" to the people of Cuba, Venezuela or N Korea.

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