Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 120 posts

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#11

Post by davidw »

endtime wrote: post #9
xtho wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally enjoy reading hn but such right wing ideologies make me feel sick in the stomach. Please take into account when making such statements the US (or whereever you live) is not the world. And just because you got brainwashed after decades of conservative government doesn't mean the rest of the world is. But the rest of the world also participates in this community.

I generally enjoy reading HN, but reddit-style thought-policing like this makes me sick to my stomach. The guy's not a rapist or a neo-Nazi, he's just not a socialist. Get over yourself.

This whole thread is EXHIBIT A of why there should be no politics here.

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#12

Post by va_coder »

gojomo wrote: post #7
ebaysucks wrote: post #2

Love it. Makes my furniture cheaper. The only thing unethical about it is that these tax avoidance schemes have inherit economies of scale - startups can't afford the advice. The solution is not to eliminate the tax paradises (which would cause a revolution btw), but to eliminate the tax code altogether. If your ideology insists on coercion than at least make it a flat rate. Edit: I get accused of supporting corporat…

Makes your furniture cheaper... and your taxes higher. Helps big companies and the politically-connected... hurts upstarts and people who focus on business not politicking. Makes people angry at tax distortions, not taxes themselves. So this sort of gaming doesn't advance your hopes at all. You'll have better luck with fair, broadly-based taxes, and structural protections against constant tinkering with both the prog…

"Helps big companies and the politically-connected"

exactly

Q: Why can't I set up my family's income as a charity? I'll give away 1% of earnings.

A: Because I can't afford lawyers, politicians and accountants to protect me when the government threatens to put me in jail.

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#14

Post by endtime »

davidw wrote: post #11
endtime wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally enjoy reading HN, but reddit-style thought-policing like this makes me sick to my stomach. The guy's not a rapist or a neo-Nazi, he's just not a socialist. Get over yourself.

This whole thread is EXHIBIT A of why there should be no politics here.

In case it's not apparent from my comment, I agree 100%.

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#15

Post by cturner »

gojomo wrote: post #7
ebaysucks wrote: post #2

Love it. Makes my furniture cheaper. The only thing unethical about it is that these tax avoidance schemes have inherit economies of scale - startups can't afford the advice. The solution is not to eliminate the tax paradises (which would cause a revolution btw), but to eliminate the tax code altogether. If your ideology insists on coercion than at least make it a flat rate. Edit: I get accused of supporting corporat…

Makes your furniture cheaper... and your taxes higher. Helps big companies and the politically-connected... hurts upstarts and people who focus on business not politicking. Makes people angry at tax distortions, not taxes themselves. So this sort of gaming doesn't advance your hopes at all. You'll have better luck with fair, broadly-based taxes, and structural protections against constant tinkering with both the prog…

    Makes your furniture cheaper... and your taxes higher.
You can't produce evidence to support that. An entirely reasonable idea: the increased economic activity generated by Ikea success and happy, employed staff and nice affordable furniture more than offsets the tax revenue that would have been collected.

The flexibility that success stories have to move around and chase better taxation rates makes taxation lower for the rest of us. The barbarians in the capital know that if they make conditions too unnice, the successful people will up and leave. The rest of us are free-loaders on the desire of countries to attract those groups.

If Sweden or Europe changed things to crack down on Ikea, they could move plenty of their operation to Singapore.

    You'll have better luck with fair, broadly-based taxes
By fair, do you mean something like the same rule for everyone? Anything broader than that will move into the sort of cajoling you dislike.

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#16

Post by hugh3 »

davidw wrote: post #11
endtime wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally enjoy reading HN, but reddit-style thought-policing like this makes me sick to my stomach. The guy's not a rapist or a neo-Nazi, he's just not a socialist. Get over yourself.

This whole thread is EXHIBIT A of why there should be no politics here.

And the fact that this comment was modded up to eight "Waaaaah, your ideology makes me sick" is a sign that things have gone way off the rails.

I'm gonna set my noprocrast to 87000 minutes now and come back in two months.

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#17

Post by vampirical »

mmmmax wrote: post #8

What's with posting articles from 2006? There are more recent sources with updates, including from FT.com (behind a paywall) and the investigative documentary about this which aired last week in Sweden: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=...

This the ft.com article you're referencing? http://const.it/dewall/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2437643c-29... (link bypasses the paywall)

I personally prefer the economist article. I read it back in 06 and I've read a few more on the Ikea tax setup since then. It seems to still accurately represent the situation, some numbers might be out of date but the gist is the same. That ft.com article is a bit sparse, seemingly written as an update for people already aware of the issue, and as you say paywalled.

Thanks for the additional and up to date info though.

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#18

Post by zizee »

meric wrote: post #6
ebaysucks wrote: post #2

Love it. Makes my furniture cheaper. The only thing unethical about it is that these tax avoidance schemes have inherit economies of scale - startups can't afford the advice. The solution is not to eliminate the tax paradises (which would cause a revolution btw), but to eliminate the tax code altogether. If your ideology insists on coercion than at least make it a flat rate. Edit: I get accused of supporting corporat…

How about a progressive consumption tax replacing the income tax to encourage savings? It might be impossible to implement... for now.

Replacing income tax with a consumption tax would see the super rich pay even less tax as they spend a smaller percentage of their income compared to those with a lower income.

[edited to fixed a typo: "the" => "they"]

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#19

Post by ebaysucks »

xtho wrote: post #4
ebaysucks wrote: post #2

Love it. Makes my furniture cheaper. The only thing unethical about it is that these tax avoidance schemes have inherit economies of scale - startups can't afford the advice. The solution is not to eliminate the tax paradises (which would cause a revolution btw), but to eliminate the tax code altogether. If your ideology insists on coercion than at least make it a flat rate. Edit: I get accused of supporting corporat…

I generally enjoy reading hn but such right wing ideologies make me feel sick in the stomach. Please take into account when making such statements the US (or whereever you live) is not the world. And just because you got brainwashed after decades of conservative government doesn't mean the rest of the world is. But the rest of the world also participates in this community.

I'm an anarcho-capitalist i.e. I've never seen proof for objective morality of any sort (including democracy) hence I support free markets to make the rules of society by group selection and feet voting.

Just as humanity doesn't need a forced state religion to be religious, humanity doesn't need a forced tax system to be social.

Please consider this view point. Don't confuse personal ethics and political morality.

Re: How IKEA is structured to minimize tax and maximize control

#20

Post by zizee »

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #13

"FEW tasks are more exasperating than trying to assemble flat-pack furniture from IKEA" Am I the only one that enjoy assembling flat-pack furniture and believe it is extremely easy?.

The frustrating part of the exercise is running through the mouse maze that IKEA stores are designed after.
Post reply on HN