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

Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 308 posts

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#261

Post by arcticbull »

Aunche wrote: post #227
arcticbull wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just replying to myself, I was incredulous that cruise lines were requesting a bailout from the US taxpayer. They've been registering their ships in Panama, the BVI and Liberia to avoid minimum wage law, labor laws and paying taxes. They make staff work 8-20 hours a day 7 days a week for months on end, paying well below market wages. [1] Need a bailout? Ask the Liberians. Similarly, these companies should be asking f…

> I was incredulous that cruise lines were requesting a bailout from the US taxpayer. Why wouldn't you expect them to ask for free money? It doesn't cost them anything. They didn't receive the bailouts for the reasons you mentioned.

I mean I can ask for anything I want, that doesn't make it a good look haha.

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#262

Post by Sammi »

dang wrote: post #244

This submission broke HN's rules by editorializing the title. Doing that eventually causes your account to lose submission privileges on HN, so please don't do that. " Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Cherry-picking a detail from an article and making that the title is editorializing—in fact it's the leading form…

What if the cherry picked detail is the interesting detail worth discussing on hn?

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#263

Post by [deleted] »

kleiba wrote: post #157
oconnor663 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should tax payers bail out a tax avoiding company? I think that depends on our answer to the prior question, "Why should tax payers bail out any company?" If the answer is "because we like them and we feel a patriotic/moral/righteous duty to help them", then the distinction between tax-paying and tax-avoiding companies does seem relevant. But if the answer is "to help workers keep their jobs", then the distinct…

There is some truth to that line of thought. Either it is legal to avoid taxes, then no distinction should be made. Or it is illegal, in which they should be persecuted. But making this distinction as a means to "punish" certain companies seems to conflate two unrelated issues.

[deleted]

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#264

Post by WorldMaker »

greendave wrote: post #211
dehrmann wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should tax payers bail out a tax avoiding company? Tax avoidance also tends to be on profits. A lot of companies in the US have done corporate inversions, but they're still paying local payroll, property, and sales taxes. Freezing dividends and buybacks punishes the people who benefited from the tax avoidance, but you have to be careful not to do this at the expense of workers. The other argument, and this is f…

I think the response would be that most of these governments* are not spending the money to keep the businesses open - they're spending it to keep employees solvent. To accomplish that, not all businesses need to be saved. *The USA is an obvious exception where for at least a substantial group of people, the purpose is to keep the businesses intact. They really couldn't care less about the employees.

The USA has the self-inflicted problem that we need to keep a maximal number of corporations intact in order to keep employees solvent because US healthcare is unfortunately primarily "employer managed".

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#265

Post by caseysoftware »

flexie wrote: post #184
caseysoftware wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government should take a small ownership stake in companies that receive that kind of money. I'm only familiar with US law, not Danish so question for you here. Under US law, when a company closes (bankruptcy, acquired, etc), the common shareholders are last in line for payments after debt holders and preferred shareholders. Does Danish law have a similar provision? If so, wouldn't being a debtor be a stronger…

Yes, if we look at the bankruptcy scenario only (and provided the debt is not secured). But the shareholder is typically better off if there is an upside. What we saw in the last financial crisis is that large corporations quickly paid off their loans and the government - the taxpayers - missed out on the upside. The natural way to give government ownership would be through convertibles so they could chose whether to…

That makes total sense, thanks for the info and perspective.

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#267

Post by nathanaldensr »

Sammi wrote: post #262
dang wrote: post #244

This submission broke HN's rules by editorializing the title. Doing that eventually causes your account to lose submission privileges on HN, so please don't do that. " Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Cherry-picking a detail from an article and making that the title is editorializing—in fact it's the leading form…

What if the cherry picked detail is the interesting detail worth discussing on hn?

Ex post facto. We can't know that until after the discussion has happened--ergo, avoiding editorialization allows community interest to happen more naturally.

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#268

Post by toomuchtodo »

ed312 wrote: post #246
toomuchtodo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is the role of government, deciding who does and does not get a bailout based on criteria developed by policy makers, using taxpayer funds. Bailouts are not entitlements.

A key point missing is defining that criteria in advance. If your market economy rewards buybacks heavily and you didn't know it was a moral hazard, why should your company (and its employees & shareholders) suffer? I can see banning future buybacks until the gov't loan is repaid though.

Bailouts might be necessary, but they absolutely should not be expected. And if the are needed, we should take a piece of your equity for our troubles. If you don't agree to that, which is your right as a business, make do without.

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#269

Post by BeetleB »

kortilla wrote: post #260
BeetleB wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find a lot of people do not agree with your definition of "penalized". Not giving something to someone who was never entitled to it is not penalizing. > So, companies acting completely legally by seeking to minimize their tax burden, which serves to further maximize the money available for their owners, get penalized It's fairly simple. If you don't want to pay the government, the government doesn't wa…

All companies are being penalized by nearly every government. Penalizing all companies and then only bailing out some is picking winners and losers.

> Penalizing all companies and then only bailing out some is picking winners and losers.

Without going into the semantics of the word, I will point out that yes, that is the role of the government. They provide incentives for certain behaviors, and lack of incentives (or even disincentives) for others.

Re: Denmark: No aid for companies which pay out dividends or are reg. in tax havens

#270

Post by BeetleB »

thrill wrote: post #224
BeetleB wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find a lot of people do not agree with your definition of "penalized". Not giving something to someone who was never entitled to it is not penalizing. > So, companies acting completely legally by seeking to minimize their tax burden, which serves to further maximize the money available for their owners, get penalized It's fairly simple. If you don't want to pay the government, the government doesn't wa…

IF someone is offered an advantage not offered to me then I have been penalized.

Responding to "you'll find a lot of people do not agree with your definition of penalized" with your preferred definition of the word doesn't exactly further the conversation.
Post reply on HN