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Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

projekte.sueddeutsche.de

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Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#371

Post by germanier »

ptaipale wrote: post #332
Yizahi wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't break a letter of the law (probably), but they break spirit of the law. Laws do not exist like a puzzle challenge to be beaten by clever lawyers with a reward being factual exemption from the law. They are usually intended for everyone.

Most of the criticism (of Nike and Apple, for instance) isn't for breaking even the spirit of the law. Most often the companies are acting precisely as the law is intended to work, and criticism is based on a misunderstanding of what is turnover and what is profit, and how taxes should be calculated. Very commonly the complaint is that Nike (for instance) pays no corporate income tax to a country even though it sells…

It's perfectly OK if that company actually operates in that country. It is not OK if the only presence they have is a mailbox and the actual act of operation is done somewhere else.

A taxation race to the bottom is not what the fundamental principles of the EU are about. At best they are an unwanted side-effect.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#372

Post by [deleted] »

TheCondor wrote: post #356
Clanan wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fix can certainly involve appealing to morals and human responsibility. A company is, after all, just a group of people. This should be a very strong tactic considering how liberal Silicon Valley is. The major players preach constantly about progressive ideals, yet fail to do more than the minimum when push comes to shove. My business partner and I purposefully pay normal taxes, avoiding accountants' crazy tax re…

Could shareholders sue if Apple “opted out” of their legal tax avoidance strategy? We are talking about some very material money here, not an executive bonus pool sized chunk of cash, but like national GDP sized money.

[deleted]

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#373

Post by valuearb »

Clanan wrote: post #281
tyingq wrote: post #240

Earlier 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?

The fix can certainly involve appealing to morals and human responsibility. A company is, after all, just a group of people. This should be a very strong tactic considering how liberal Silicon Valley is. The major players preach constantly about progressive ideals, yet fail to do more than the minimum when push comes to shove. My business partner and I purposefully pay normal taxes, avoiding accountants' crazy tax re…

It would be illegal and unethical for Apple to pay more taxes than it owes. That money doesn’t belong to Tim Cook, but to Apple shareholders.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#374

Post by danilocesar »

mstade wrote: post #357
styx31 wrote: post #80

What 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…

This. I run a small company as well, and taxes are a damn maze. I just checked the tax authorities website in this country, and there are no less than 121 different tax-exempt health activities – things my company can pay for me, without having to also pay taxes. For most other things, there's sales tax (possibly other kinds of tax too, but let's limit it ourselves for brevity) that comes in at no less than three dif…

Governments have no interest in fixing it. Usually law makers and legislators benefits from those loopholes, directly (with their own money) or indirectly (with campain supporters). Not only in corrupt contries but also in well stablished democracies.

Those loopholes are used even by people who claims doing a lot of charity, as Paradise paper is showing.

I'm very pessimist about this going away anytime soon.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#375

Post by valuearb »

m12k wrote: post #269
tyingq wrote: post #240

Earlier 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.

Eliminating corporate income taxes would be the best way to start, given it would benefit society immensely.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#376

Post by dontreact »

Is there anyone here who is enough of an expert to propose changes to the U.S. tax code that would actually get rid of all of the tricks that multinationals play to avoid taxes? Or knows of where to find such a thing. I have responded in subthreads to at least 3 people who think they are but curious if there is anyone out there with actual expertise on the topic.

My sense is that it's easy to feel that the solution to the problem is simple (like this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/793/) when in fact it is tremendously complicated: perhaps even intractable. It may be that it there is a sort of Godelian way of always finding a loophole given the emergent complexity of the interactions between the tax codes of ~200 different countries, many of which are incentivized to have a lax tax code to promote local job growth.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#378

Post by CamTin »

cr1895 wrote: post #341
CamTin wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WBK ( https://www.bzwbk.pl/ ) seemed more than willing to open me a bank account quite recently. There were a few more forms due to my being a US citizen, but it seemed like actually fewer than my wife (a Polish citizen with a US Green Card) needed to do the same thing. Maybe things are stricter in the West than in Poland?

It depends on the bank. Essentially it boils down to whether the "foreign" bank is willing to go through the compliance and data-sharing that is impressed upon them by working with Americans. Some do, many understandably can't be bothered.

Right, so why all the fuss over whether some of them don't bother? How many banks do you need? As long as there's one that will take your business, why should you care that the one down the block won't? I guess it could be an issue if you're in a rural area with limited banking competition? Even then, most banking is done online now and a couple of trips a year to the "big city" to get some business taken care of (see the consulate, visit a specialist doctor, sign for a loan, whatever) is just part of life if you're in a smaller town, no matter where in the world that is.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#379

Post by valuearb »

tyingq wrote: post #335
Yizahi wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But overhaul can't happen like "now". It need some initial impulse, an outrage bigger than average etc. Apple case may help this.

That's a good point. I'm not dismissing the PR and awareness value of raging about Apple. Just hoping that the fix isn't perceived as "going after apple". Going after existing law, tax havens, etc, is more productive.

You mean unproductive and counterproductive.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#380

Post by valuearb »

improbable22 wrote: post #363
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That simply won't work if there's even one country (like the known tax haven islands) that don't abide by it. Unless international tax laws start charging taxes for every penny that crosses a border, things like that will keep happening. There's a huge financial incentive for small countries to become tax havens, they take a relatively tiny amount of money, which for them multiplies their GDP.

But will people travel to this tax haven to buy their computers? Will Apple's employees all move there to write software? Nope. What we mean by Apple operating in (say) Germany is these things: they make sales there, and they have employees there. Where the letterhead says they're incorporated... isn't this just an implementation detail? It's like asking where their datacenter is located. It's in the cloud, who cares…

apple already pays huge amounts of taxes to germany. It just doesn’t pay large amounts of a specific tax called “income tax” because it isn’t based in Germany.
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