Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
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Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#2Is this actually illegal though? Or is it just clever exploitation of the rules? Tax avoidance is not the same as evasion.
Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#3Is this actually illegal though? Or is it just clever exploitation of the rules? Tax avoidance is not the same as evasion.
It's definitely a worthwhile question - whether facebook actually broke the rules, or whether the IRS just wants blood.
Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#4I truly wish that the corporate tax rate was 0. Not 25, not 15, but 0%. Then all of this ridiculous nonsense around crony capitalists lobbying for special tax breaks, “double Dutch Irish sandwiches”, and the insane discrepancies between big business and small business in regards to tax games would all go away. Just increase capital gains to match income tax and be done with all of this bullshit. Amazon pays an effective rate of 0% anyways.
Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#5Comes down to what was the value of Facebook’s intellectual property when it was sold to its Irish affiliate. The IRS is saying they valued it much too low to their benefit.
Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#6Is this actually illegal though? Or is it just clever exploitation of the rules? Tax avoidance is not the same as evasion.
It sounds like a standard “double Irish” tax scheme. It’s possible FB did the same thing as everyone else and the IRS is just going after one of the big fish to get case law in their favor. If that were to happen, they’d potentially get to go after everyone else who has done it, like Microsoft, Apple, etc.
Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#7Is this actually illegal though? Or is it just clever exploitation of the rules? Tax avoidance is not the same as evasion.
Well, I guess it depends on the interpretation of the rules. The point of contention seems to be the valuing of assets, which of course FB has incentive to not value highly:
> The IRS argues that Facebook understated the value of the intellectual property it sold to an Irish subsidiary in 2010 while building out global operations, a move common among U.S. multinationals. Ireland has lower corporate tax rates than the United States, so the move reduced the company’s tax bill.
The value of intellectual property is kind of a murky thing, especially before it is fully monetized. So I guess the question comes down to: Did FB executives knowingly undervalue the assets to save money on taxes? Is there a paper trail to that effect?
Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#8Is this actually illegal though? Or is it just clever exploitation of the rules? Tax avoidance is not the same as evasion.
It's an exploitation of the rules which isn't illegal but should be, but isn't because of lobbies and special interest groups.
Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#9[deleted]
Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal
#10I truly wish that the corporate tax rate was 0. Not 25, not 15, but 0%. Then all of this ridiculous nonsense around crony capitalists lobbying for special tax breaks, “double Dutch Irish sandwiches”, and the insane discrepancies between big business and small business in regards to tax games would all go away. Just increase capital gains to match income tax and be done with all of this bullshit. Amazon pays an effect…
What about closing the loopholes? They're known for decades, why not stamp down, with teeth, on this sort of thing?