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

Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 333 posts

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#11

Post by seibelj »

andrepd wrote: post #10
seibelj wrote: post #4

I 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?

There will always be loopholes. Any corporate tax rate above 0% will have carve outs for any number of industries that are favored for any number of reasons. If it was 0, huge swaths of busy-work jobs in law and tax industries would go away. They provide no value to society.

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#12

Post by bpodgursky »

seibelj wrote: post #4

I 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…

This is a 100% reasonable policy, but it's a really hard sell for people who don't understand how business income actually works, and how the money would be captured by far more functional taxes as dividend income or cap gains. I don't think your comment is going to do well on HN.

Maybe leave INCREASE CAPITAL GAINS in all caps. Or, CAPTURE THE SAME MONEY AS DIVIDEND INCOME OR CAPITAL GAINS.

Perhaps: IT IS THE SAME MONEY CAPTURED LESS CONFUSINGLY AND LESS PRONE TO CHEATING

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#14

Post by Marsymars »

ThrowAway14592 wrote: post #2

Is this actually illegal though? Or is it just clever exploitation of the rules? Tax avoidance is not the same as evasion.

I think that if there’s no legitimate business purpose to a particular business activity other than avoiding taxes, it qualifies as tax evasion. If that’s not illegal in your particular jurisdiction, that just means you have legalized tax evasion.

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#15

Post by seibelj »

bpodgursky wrote: post #12
seibelj wrote: post #4

I 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…

This is a 100% reasonable policy, but it's a really hard sell for people who don't understand how business income actually works, and how the money would be captured by far more functional taxes as dividend income or cap gains. I don't think your comment is going to do well on HN. Maybe leave INCREASE CAPITAL GAINS in all caps. Or, CAPTURE THE SAME MONEY AS DIVIDEND INCOME OR CAPITAL GAINS. Perhaps: IT IS THE SAME MO…

Many of my comments do poorly on HN, but I’ll keep writing them because alternative opinions to the hive mind are valuable. I may even convince a few people!

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#16

Post by coral-snake »

seibelj wrote: post #4

I 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…

How would you avoid companies-as-expense accounts? If I form "Coral-Snake & Co.", wouldn't I be able to pay 0% taxes by just directing all income/expenses into that shell?

(Granted, I don't understand basically anything about tax law, so maybe this is already a well-defined problem with a well-defined solution.)

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#17

Post by BurningFrog »

seibelj wrote: post #4

I 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…

You can make a good argument* that taxing corporations is weird anyway, since they're abstract legal concepts.

Taxing the income real people get paid from the corporation would be the logical, and much simpler system.

* You can of course also make a decent argument against this :)

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#18

Post by devmunchies »

seibelj wrote: post #4

I 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…

Just capture it all as sales tax when the money is coming and and income tax when it being distributed to employees. get rid of corporate tax for ANY business, small or large.

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#19

Post by [deleted] »

Marsymars wrote: post #14
ThrowAway14592 wrote: post #2

Is this actually illegal though? Or is it just clever exploitation of the rules? Tax avoidance is not the same as evasion.

I think that if there’s no legitimate business purpose to a particular business activity other than avoiding taxes, it qualifies as tax evasion. If that’s not illegal in your particular jurisdiction, that just means you have legalized tax evasion.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#20

Post by TaylorAlexander »

seibelj wrote: post #4

I 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…

Wouldn’t business still lobby for tax reductions in other areas? I feel like your argument that setting the corporate tax rate to zero would eliminate the incentive to influence the government ignores the many other reasons to do so.
Post reply on HN