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Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

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Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#431

Post by arca_vorago »

billmalarky wrote: post #318
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…

"My business partner and I purposefully pay normal taxes, avoiding accountants' crazy tax reduction schemes, because we think it's the right thing to do. We're a tiny speck compared to Apple, but the principle still applies. If the big players made it the norm, their investors would suck it up and deal with it." I suspect that you and your partner have significantly more control over your enterprise than the officer…

Which is why I think the current scheme of publicly traded companies at base is flawed. Earlier this week someone posted something along the lines of, once you become public your product is stock, not whatever you produce.

I think we ought to use the power of the executive to straight up revoke charters to businesses that are American that engage in these schemes. Something I learned about while reading about the British and Dutch east India companies.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#432

Post by improbable22 »

jamesblonde wrote: post #407
valuearb wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How would it benefit society? Reduced state income that could be used to invest in infrastructure and people? Will the companies invest that money with society's interest at best better than the govt would? I don't think so. What do Apple do with their money? They horde it, waiting for a windfall to bring it back to the States and pay low/no corporate tax on the repatriated profits.

It would benefit society because we could all spend our outrage on things more productive than pushing on a rope.

The profits were taxed as VAT or something on the way into Apple. They will be taxed again as income tax or something on their way out again. We are free to adjust these rates as we wish.

But trying to tax intermediate steps which seem to be largely accounting fictions (like exactly which puzzle piece of the global empire actually made that profit) seems like a fool's errand.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#433

Post by pc86 »

Yizahi wrote: post #321
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?

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.

> Laws do not exist like a puzzle challenge to be beaten by clever lawyers

Uh, this is demonstrably, extraordinarily untrue.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#434

Post by lovich »

nickpp wrote: post #339
gyaru wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can't understand if you're being ironic or not, but I hope you are because Microsoft has been under fire for a long time for their behaviour and even fined for it in the past. No "invisible hand" there, more like someone yelling loudly at them.

No irony here. All that yelling and fines had zero result in changing Microsoft's behavior. They just paid up. You know what worked? Some good, old fashioned competition. And that raised up naturally, through free market.

You're joking right? It didn't happen in a vacuum, the whole of society is not free. First off, in this case, didn't Microsoft help support apple through it's bad years specifically so they could point to them and try to avoid antitrust litigation?

Secondly, these competitors could only exist due to government internvention. What do you do when the government no longer "meddles" and the big guys start sending in Pinkertons?

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#435

Post by valuearb »

dontreact wrote: post #177
cm2187 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All they are doing is arbitraging loopholes in the tax systems. Politicians have been trying to solve way too many problems by taxes (taxing differently x and y) or giving tax gifts to donors and various organised interests. As a result it creates an arbitrage-able tax system. I wouldn't point your annoyance to those who are optimising their taxes (after all this is merely their fiduciary duties to their share holder…

I think you are fundamentally missing the nature of the loopholes being exploited. They have less to do with the complexity of the taxes in one country but rather the complexity that emerges naturally from different countries having different tax codes. How would a flat tax help avoid this scheme for example?: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/28/business/Doubl... The whole point is they skip the U.S. tax co…

Apple doesn’t skip the US tax code, they pay huge amounts of US taxes. They don’t repatriate foreign earnings because it would cost shareholders over a 50% tax rate.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#436

Post by wslh »

Tepix wrote: post #284
wslh wrote: post #58

ELI5: why Wolfgang Krach needed the paradise papers to write this letter? Are paradise papers just an information leak that don't contribute to solving any problem? Except obviously when you can find plain corruption based on these papers.

Perhaps you missed these parts towards the end of this letter: "But what unsettles me the most is the way in which Apple instructed a law firm to obtain an “official assurance of tax exemption” from the government of a country." and "And what understanding of democracy are we supposed to discern from the question you had this law firm ask? The one about whether the country had a “credible opposition party” or “moveme…

I don't find this strange when you are looking for a long term tax strategy and trying to reduce the involved risks.

For example, when Intel invests in chip plants there are big discussions about tax privileges [1]. I know this is different because it doesn't involve a big R&D but it is natural to big company plans.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-intel-plant/israel...

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#437

Post by valuearb »

cm2187 wrote: post #268
dontreact wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think getting rid of these foreign loopholes is as simple as you think it is. 1. What counts as a "US Company"? 2. So you're proposing that Apple pay the U.S. taxes on sales in Germany? Also that every country should do this?

1. Companies which parent owner is based in the US. Companies are already paying taxes based on consolidated regime, it is just that they consolidate all entities within a tax jurisdiction. So the concept exists, it could just be extended. 2. You wouldn't have a double taxation. You would apply to companies what the US applies to US individuals. If you have a subsidiary in Germany and paying local taxes of 10, but th…

You still have double taxation because of dividend taxes. The US has one of the highest corporate tax rates already, as a country we’d be far better off making it zero.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#438

Post by maxxxxx »

nickpp wrote: post #416
maxxxxx wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you just traded one large shark for another. Small companies still get quashed just by another behemoth.

The proof that that's not true is that whose second-generation sharks DO appear. Not all small companies get squashed, and some of them grow large enough to grow into sharks themselves, thus breaking the monopoly.

For most small businesses it doesn't really matter whether IBM, Google or Microsoft are dominating the market and when this changes. It's still a huge company lording over the smaller ones. I think we would be much better off if growth beyond a certain size would be disadvantageous for a company and it would become less efficient. But with today's progress in automation and communication you can run a large company world wide in a very efficient manner so it's even harder for small competitors to keep up.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#439

Post by dontreact »

chris_t wrote: post #389
dontreact wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not silly. It's the first step in a long chain of events that hopefully will end up with a better tax code. Giving companies that do this bad PR incentivizes companies towards reporting loopholes instead of exploiting them. Journalists already do try and explain the failures of the tax system. For example, check out this graphic: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/28/business/Doubl... The tax code is com…

I agree that I'm being a little silly, it's what my last line hinted at! I do think outrage is better directed at our legislators than at corporations though, but I don't hold out hope for substantive change either way.

I don't think outrage is better directed at legislators until there is some consensus on what would be changes to the tax code that would help alleviate this problem. I think we're a couple of steps from that and I see no reason why we shouldn't get angry at the large companies until they help us with that step. After all: they are the experts on loopholes and tax evasion!

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#440

Post by cr1895 »

hackerguy99 wrote: post #100
sschueller wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same goes for US individuals living abroad not having any business relations or even holdings in the US. Yet they are required to file and pay US taxes in addition to local taxes.

When it hits the fan, and you want to come back to the US for safety, unmolested, you'll be able to. Should that be free?

>Should that be free?

I think you're missing the part where anyone (well, most) who live abroad is actually paying anything.

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