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How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
111–120 of 350 posts
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#112Maybe developed countries should agree on minimal profit tax for multinationals? E.g. 10% of profits for companies that have revenue larger than X mln / year? Right now it's race to bottom and there will be another loophole. So much of energy of smart people goes to tax minimization instead of finding a useful way to reinvest those money.
+1! You can try to apply morals to companies in an internationally competitive environment all you want, but it ain't gonna happen. The only way to ensure they can't play governments against each other is to effectively make a cartel. How you'd get over the collective action problem and prevent countries from defecting is beyond me though, would probably need something like the OECD to pass a resolution.
Most current tax havens are UK dependencies, so such an agreement would have a significant impact. Additionally, individual countries could do something like what the US does with its citizens - if you've paid a sensible amount of tax abroad, great; if not, pay the difference here. You can locate wherever you want, but relocating to save on taxes becomes moot.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#113Don't fault corporations for exploiting legal loopholes to save money... They optimize what they must optimize as operating businesses, and if we the citizens want to compel them to do something we must pass the laws necessary to do so... Stop moralizing the behavior of companies. They aren't humans. If you choose not to buy apple products in reaction to their behavior, great. If you want to convince your friends to…
I disagree with this whole heartedly. Laws like this are not deterministic procedures, they are more like best practices. Can you seriously argue that Apple is not a functioning member of society? For many its a daily companion. It should be held accountable to behave like a good citizen within society like everyone else and not find ways to sidestep the law. If society can oust an individual like Weinstein and hold…
The entire and only purpose of laws and regulations is to dictate behaviors and punishments in a theoretically fair manner.
If a law is not broken, then any punishment would very likely be unfair as it would not be evenhanded in application.
I feel American political problems are rooted in having a professional political class, and a system in which politicians can enrich themselves by legislating.
If I were king, I would enact short term limits and regulation preventing any politician from increasing their networth while in office and for a period thereafter. Not applicable to myself of course.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#114If you unplugged Apple's board (or given decision-making apparatus) and plugged in a (currently nonexistent) AI with the parameter "Maximize Profit," would you see a different result? I think not. I think we'd see things far more morally horrifying, in fact, with just enough PR makeup to ensure "maximized profit." Unsure why we laud capitalism and then act horrified at the result. Here in America we've made our decis…
This is not the fault of Capitalism alone. In a healthy democracy, the people vote in the Government, who can impose fines, tariffs, penalties and such on companies and business practices that the people (via the people they elect) deem to be working against them. Sadly, as you point out, this creates a direct incentive to lobby or otherwise attempt to control Government by large and powerful companies. The only way…
> The only way to prevent this is to impose fines, tariffs and penalties on businesses undertaking this behaviour (effectively disincentivising it financially), since it fundamentally unbalances the power dynamic between Government and business.
That is neither the only way, nor a particularly effective way. I think we should go back to having representatives who represent a reasonable number of people (~100-500), and who are not full time politicians. Then regulatory capture would be much more expensive and difficult.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#115Maybe Britain should invade Jersey?
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not the fault of Capitalism alone. In a healthy democracy, the people vote in the Government, who can impose fines, tariffs, penalties and such on companies and business practices that the people (via the people they elect) deem to be working against them. Sadly, as you point out, this creates a direct incentive to lobby or otherwise attempt to control Government by large and powerful companies. The only way…
>The only way to prevent this is to impose fines, tariffs and penalties The ONLY solution to an abuse of power by government is more government exercise of power? How about limiting the powers of government to remove the "direct incentive to lobby"?
So they only players left are the large corporations? I don't think you can have thought this through, so I'll take you through it:
Nation states are social constructs, whereby some people collectively lay claim to some land, and have their claim recognised by all the other states. In order to be able to do this, a key thing you must be able to do is defend your patch of land. This requires some sort of military, who will need paying. You can further entrench your position and standing amongst the group of nation states by doing trade with them. The greater your economic output, the more likely the are to treat you well, be your ally, and do trade with you in return.
However, keeping a military, and generating power and providing infrastructure to enable economic activity (roads, ports, airports, healthcare(?), fire, police etc.) costs money, and to raise this money, the state charges people tax. All states raise money via taxes, and it's the predominant way they do raise money. So there's the question, who do you tax, and how much? Do you tax everyone the same (a poll tax), or do you tax people who have less money less? Or people who have more money less? The power to decide who pays is one of the key roles of Government, and one of the main expressions of Government power.
I would be interested to hear how you would see a limitation of the powers of Government, by which I assume you mean limiting their ability to set tax law would work.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pure free market Capitalism is playing a game of Monopoly where after each time anyone passes go, the player with the most money gets to create a new rule. Guess what? The game is gonna get pretty skewed, pretty darn fast. Consolidated money is power. The only way that capitalism can work long term is if there are rules actively countering/fighting using that power to change the rules. Money is power and capitalism c…
> Pure free market Capitalism is playing a game of Monopoly where after each time anyone passes go, the player with the most money gets to create a new rule. Guess what? The game is gonna get pretty skewed, pretty darn fast. I think you've misunderstood the free in free market . If anyone is allowed to make rules like that, it is not a free market , not superlatively, not normally, not even slightly. The problem here…
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, you actually make a great point. If there exists a Govt. which has the power to impose certain rules which change the markets, its by definition not "free". If there was no Govt. to create and enforce these rules, corporations could not influence said Govt. to create unfair rules (since it does not exist).
But I don't agree with your conclusion. If there were truly no Govt. creating and enforcing rules, there would be Guilds/Cartels that would (e.g. see how criminal gangs behave and operate). Which is why we do need an overarching authority that has the power to create, change and enforce rules that make the market less free, but potentially more beneficial to more rather than a few.
The problem isn't that the government apparatus has outgrown its mandate. Its that its become more easily influenced by money. Reduce that influence and you will have a Govt. that works for the general interests of its people.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#118Don't fault corporations for exploiting legal loopholes to save money... They optimize what they must optimize as operating businesses, and if we the citizens want to compel them to do something we must pass the laws necessary to do so... Stop moralizing the behavior of companies. They aren't humans. If you choose not to buy apple products in reaction to their behavior, great. If you want to convince your friends to…
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Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#119When talking about "tax avoidance", it is important to be fair. There is only one question, "Is this illegal?", and that question has only two answers. Either it's not illegal, and the onus is on you to lobby for and define laws which achieve your goals, or to simply accept things as they are; or it is illegal, and the onus is on your prosecutors to prosecute.
Avoiding taxes is the rational, moral, and fair thing to do. People should not be punished for playing by the rules, because then it becomes arbitrary.
Re: How Apple sidestepped a 2013 crackdown on its Irish tax practices
#120If you unplugged Apple's board (or given decision-making apparatus) and plugged in a (currently nonexistent) AI with the parameter "Maximize Profit," would you see a different result? I think not. I think we'd see things far more morally horrifying, in fact, with just enough PR makeup to ensure "maximized profit." Unsure why we laud capitalism and then act horrified at the result. Here in America we've made our decis…
Isn't that a board's fiduciary duty to their stockholders? To put it differently would you buy stock in a board that doesn't act this way, would a mutual fund? Which way do you expect the mutual fund's proxies to vote when electing the board? Multi-polar coordination (competition markets) have a lot of bad Nash-equilibrium states, but they are better than any command market in history.
To put it differently would you buy stock in a board that doesn't act this way, would a mutual fund?
YES. I don't want to maximize profit, I want sustainable profits and minimal externalities. The economic logic that says all considerations can be reduced to a single metric of utility are extremely suspect (per results from behavioral economics, in both humans and animal species), and also rest on a false utilitarian conceit of perfect foresight that leads its adherents to wildly overestimate the quality of their own judgement (which is one factor in the failure of command economies).