Income tax is hard to collect. Sales tax is regressive.
Solution: sales tax with lump-sum redistribution to make it progressive. Forget income tax.
Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
271–280 of 817 posts
Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#272Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are welcome to give up your American citizenship if that income tax becomes too burdensome for you.
That's an incredibly ignorant comment. When you give up your US citizenship and the process is complete, as far as the US is concerned, you might as well never have been a citizen at all. This means that when you want/need to visit the country (such as to visit a sick or dying family member), you can be denied entrance - the claim they'll use is that you don't have enough "ties" to your new country for them to be cer…
> as far as the US is concerned, you might as well never have been a citizen at all
I guess that's better than the alternative: being treated worse because you're deemed a "traitor" or "deserter" for giving up US citizenship.
> This means that when you want/need to visit the country, you can be denied entrance
This I can understand. You aren't a citizen anymore and thus have the same rights as any other foreigner visiting the US.
If there is no further discrimination against you for being a ex-citizen, I personally don't see why ex-citizens shouldn't have the same requirements as non-citizens for entry.
> the claim they'll use is that you don't have enough "ties" to your new country for them to be certain that you won't try to stay illegally.
Yeah, that's extra shitty.
Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#274What annoys me the most is that, as a small company, I can't evade from my country tax system. I pay the taxes. All of them, at full rate. But there are these big companies which can afford to create offshore companies/holding just to evade some tax system, and lower their tax rate. So, what? The tax rate of a country is now "artificial", because it will never be applied to all revenues from all companies, because th…
By default, big companies always get preferential treatment from governments. Open a mega-factory? They get tax cuts, cheap real estate, free utilities. Why? Those shiny new jobs look great on a politician's resume for the next election... What does the little business guy get? A letter of "don't forget to pay your taxes in full or else" It's time to accept the fact that governments are NOT a fair and impartial warde…
Not only do they get tax cuts and cheap real estate from governments, they also get direct money.
When google decided to create a data center in Sweden, the Swedish government gifted them $20 million in "establishment support". Money sent from the tax payer directly to the bank account of Google. Reason? So that google would pick Sweden. The politicians argument is that Sweden grain prestige if google has their data center here so its worth spending those millions. Its a bribe in all the sense of the word except that its a game between nations.
Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#275What annoys me the most is that, as a small company, I can't evade from my country tax system. I pay the taxes. All of them, at full rate. But there are these big companies which can afford to create offshore companies/holding just to evade some tax system, and lower their tax rate. So, what? The tax rate of a country is now "artificial", because it will never be applied to all revenues from all companies, because th…
> I can't evade from my country tax system.
You can however use different tactics to minimize your tax burden which is exactly what Apple is doing.
Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
They aren't, for the most part, doing anything illegal though. They are using the existing laws to their best advantage. The fix for this can't be trying to appeal to their morals. It would have to be something else that just limits the legal choices. Edit: If you disagree, are you saying that shaming them into not doing this solely on some moral compass is the right fix? Does that scale?
Agreed, the only sane solution to this is a massive overhaul of international tax law. Shaming companies just isn't a scalable solution in any way. There's a massive opposition against this both from multinationals and tax haven countries though - this article is a good way to start making it obvious to normal citizens that this issue should be on the ballot.
It's tough when the "only sane solution" also happens to be a enormous task to even begin talking about. I agree with you, but I also struggling to imagine a time when that overhaul could take place.
Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, I can't. I am a working man, not a philosopher. But please look around you. Every great thing around me was created by a free(-ish) market: this PC, my car, my job, the materials in my home, the heating engine, the food I get in the restaurant, the entertainment on my TV, everything. Then every crappy experience in my existence has something to do with the government: state hospitals, infrastructure, the DMV a…
You really think the PC is a good example of something "created by a free market" not the result of the govt pouring millions into R&D in the decades previous?
Nobody's denying the contribution of the govt $$$ to the creation of the PC. But I've seen computers build by governments. They were slow, huge, power hungry, expensive behemoths. They sucked.
We're a long way from there. And free market brought us all the way here.
Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The free market has a natural solution to monopolies, it's called competition - startups." Please provide proof that markets never fail and indeed that the ideal Free Market exists. Take the time, I'll wait...
Sorry, I can't. I am a working man, not a philosopher. But please look around you. Every great thing around me was created by a free(-ish) market: this PC, my car, my job, the materials in my home, the heating engine, the food I get in the restaurant, the entertainment on my TV, everything. Then every crappy experience in my existence has something to do with the government: state hospitals, infrastructure, the DMV a…
I find it a bit disturbing that you value entertainment on TV as "great" and "state hospitals" and "schools" as crappy.
In fact, overall, it seems like you value as "great" everything around you that don't implies interacting directly with other humans, and as "crappy" about everything that does.
So if the free market purpose is to value antisocial products while making every social bonds look crappy, well, I'm not so sure I love it.
Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#279What annoys me the most is that, as a small company, I can't evade from my country tax system. I pay the taxes. All of them, at full rate. But there are these big companies which can afford to create offshore companies/holding just to evade some tax system, and lower their tax rate. So, what? The tax rate of a country is now "artificial", because it will never be applied to all revenues from all companies, because th…
> But there are these big companies which can afford to create offshore companies/holding just to evade some tax system, and lower their tax rate.
I wonder if there's actually a correlation between how ruthlessly a company evades taxes/cuts other corners and how quickly such a company becomes big enough to enable even more tax evasion/corner-cutting?
Or to put the question simpler: Was the tax evasion there first or did that only start happening after reaching a certain size enabled tax evasion?
Imho there's always opportunities to cheat, not all of them are big but many small ones can still add up to a lead. Most of us just chose not to cheat thus don't even notice these opportunities for what they are.
Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
These companies evading taxes are responsible for increased hardship and suffering of a society as well, leeching off of the nations they exist in, and being able to outcompete the honest organizations and people in them. The damages are far greater than the tax avoided. "They are doing it too" isn't a valid excuse either.
They aren't, for the most part, doing anything illegal though. They are using the existing laws to their best advantage. The fix for this can't be trying to appeal to their morals. It would have to be something else that just limits the legal choices. Edit: If you disagree, are you saying that shaming them into not doing this solely on some moral compass is the right fix? Does that scale?
This is the key point that is so often missed. Getting angry at Apple et al for following their incentives rationally is silly.
I'd love to see journalists doing a better job of explaining the failures of the tax system rather than peddling pointless outrage, but I suppose that they too are following their incentives rationally; outrage gets more clicks.