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

Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 485 posts

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#431

Post by bryan_w »

apta wrote: post #158
andrewstuart wrote: post #33

Here's what big tech companies don't pay their fair share of: * defence * education * infrastructure * health * etc But our political systems are so corrupt there's nothing can be done about it because they just line the pockets of the political parties who in turn make sure they never have to pay their fair share.

Why are you constraining it to "big tech"? All large companies in all fields want to avoid paying tax as much as possible.

Why constraint it to large companies? Most companies avoid paying taxes. Heck, most people who have their taxes professionally prepared are avoiding paying tax

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#432

Post by anoncake »

dantheman wrote: post #428
anoncake wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not. People judge their own wealth relative to that of others. Thus reducing inequality is a lot more important than increasing total wealth.

I completely disagree - increasing total wealth allows new things and is more important than how people judge their wealth relative to others. People are not equal in many ways - I don't see why we always focus on wealth. What about influence, what about looks, what about education, what about family life quality, etc...

>

I completely disagree - increasing total wealth allows new things and is more important than how people judge their wealth relative to others.

You just restated your opinion without providing any new arguments.

> People are not equal in many ways - I don't see why we always focus on wealth. What about influence, what about looks, what about education, what about family life quality, etc...

Most of these things can't be redistributed.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#433

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #237
axlee wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Workers are also a pretty big beneficiary FANNGS, by definition, are 1% of the Fortune 500. In term of headcount, it's even lower. They should not even be part of this argument. You can't base taxation policies around the personal experience of hyper-specialized, in-demand trained professionals. Fortune 500 no1: Walmart. no2? Amazon. Are you arguing that those kinds of companies have a upward pressure on salaries?…

Agree. The most pro-Wal-Mart economists will tell you that Wal-Mart as a firm has boosted the US economy by at least 1% of GDP, by being more efficient, and forcing its competitors to be more efficient as well. Suppose for a moment that we accept that claim uncritically -- it is still very clear to see that these gains do not accrue through the vehicle of employment. Indeed, the non-logistics savings from Wal-Mart co…

Even the most anti-Walmart economists will concede that Walmart has had a non-trivial positive effect on combating inflation for staple goods. When everything's cheaper, it's a bit like everyone gets a raise - the only people who get screwed are the workers.

As much as I support local, family-owned businesses on an individual level, I also recognize that for the vast majority of people, cheaper goods are much better for their lives.

I do wish we forced large corporations to pay for any government benefits that their workers collect, though, and continue to push for living wages that make sense at the local level.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#434

Post by tsimionescu »

nickpp wrote: post #353
tsimionescu wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually believe that? How much money will I get from 1 share? How much money would I have to invest before my fortunes actually rise with the real fortunes of any particular company?

That is the principle and it works. I know countless examples, yes, including me. Not happy with 1 share? Save more, buy more. Want cheaper shares? Found your own company and you’ll have infinite shares for free. You’ll have to make it successful afterwards, though, to raise each share's value up from 0. That’s what "They" did.

> Save more, buy more. > Found your own company and you’ll have infinite shares for free.

You seriously misunderstand how little money people at the bottom actually have, and how little access to the kind of credit you'd need to start a business. Like, saving for a car when their old one breaks down will probably take some people months or years. Saving to buy shares????

> That’s what "They" did.

A minuscule handful of them, if even that. For every Jack Ma there's a thousand Mark Zuckerbergs or Bill Gatess who were born with a silver spoon and will die with a silver spoon, as will 3 generations of their children at the very least. The descendants of the people who laid the railroad tracks, the large slave plantations, all of these people are the vast majority of the top. Even people like Elon Musk are still coming from a background of pretty high privilege. The people who were born in the bottom 50% that you have ever heard of (outside show-business) can probably be counted on at most a few people's hands.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#435

Post by xrd »

roamerz wrote: post #422
xrd wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't done the math on that kind of infrastructure project. I would be very curious (and open minded) about seeing an analysis of how payment for roads plays out, especially with toll roads. In the Portland, OR area (where I live) there are zero toll roads. Maybe that's why I am biased to feeling like state funding these projects is necessary. If Amazon (and anyone else that uses them) were paying for them, perha…

The roads in Oregon are paid by a fuel and or license tax. Thus everyone that uses them weather it be commercial or personal pays for them not the state. When you consider the recently failed joint OR-Wa bridge project you get to see what happens when state bureaucracy is in control.

That's a good point. But, isn't it necessary to have the state instituting those taxes?

Gas is much cheaper in other states, I wonder how they pay for the same roads.

I actually always viewed the failure of the bridge project as a sign that people won over bureaucrats. I felt like it would add a lot of traffic congestion and not solve problems the right way. I would like to read more about what you are suggesting, do you have any links that speak to your viewpoint?

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#436

Post by ThrustVectoring »

sideeffffect wrote: post #341
m12k wrote: post #20

Transfer pricing and tax havens are draining money out of the economies of most European countries, breaking the virtuous cycle where consumer spending also leads to salaries, taxes and more investment in the community, to keep the economy going - instead we have a shrinking middle class, as the fuel is drained from the engine. Ireland, Luxembourg and certain other countries are complicit in this. We clearly need bet…

This problem has a rather profound solution: Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Consolidated_Corporate_... Companies should have never been taxed based on a virtual, and fundamentally nonsensical, figure as the location of their headquarters. They should be taxed based on substantial things, like (the location of) capital, labour and sales. This is what CCCTB establishes. Stat…

The problem is more fundamental: corporate profits are easy to move, and make a poor practical target for taxation. Corporations are free to optimize their structure for tax purposes, so there's nothing stopping the surplus cashflow from returning as bond coupons, intellectual property rent payments, or whatever other clever thing that doesn't book "profits" in the taxing jurisdiction.

Like, as a concrete example, suppose you're an American who owns some car washes in France. $15m in sales, $10m in costs, $5m profit. You could do an equity-for-debt swap, and own the exact same assets in the form of bonds that pay $3m per year and a more indebted company with a $2m per year profit. Poof, you've just moved $3m of European profits and transformed it into $3m of American interest income. Maybe not the best idea, but if you live in the right jurisdiction...

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#437

Post by setr »

groby_b wrote: post #387
ogre_codes wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU argument was that Ireland's "previous established policies" were against EU treaty, and so the (alleged) special deal that IE gave Apple should be considered annulled since it was invalid from the day it was signed. Yet the EU sat on this for 12+ years allowing this agreement to continue. If they felt this was a concern, they should have addressed it in 2004... or any year between.

Remember when you were a kid, and your parents told you to clean your room last week , and they gave you a whole week to catch up? And then oddly, you were still on the hook even though they waited a whole week before grounding you? Same principle. Statutes of limitation exist for a reason.

As I see it, apple didnt fail to clean its room. It was told not to clean it by the parent, who then got yelled at by the grandparent, and now a week later apple's being grounded by the parent.

Ireland is the one that broke the treaty, not Apple. Apple played correctly within the rules & scope available to it, and is being retroactively told that those rules, in fact, did not exist, though certainly every other rule does exist, except for those that might not, depending on our decisions in twenty years.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#438

Post by ThrustVectoring »

nodamage wrote: post #359
negrit wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure Apple has an entity in Europe therefor the money this entity makes in Europe should be taxed in Europe.

You could certainly make that argument but with a multinational company with sales in every country it's not exactly obvious where the money is "made": Scenario A: Apple (USA) pays $200 for an assembled iPhone from their Chinese manufacturer. Then they turn around and sell the phone to Apple (Europe) for $1000. Apple (Europe) then sells the phone to a customer for $1000. Apple (USA) records a profit of $800, Apple (E…

It gets even more complex and game-able when you consider how easy it is to shift deductible expenses to different locations. Suppose you fix things and force Apple(USA) to sell iPhones to Apple(Europe) for $600. What's to stop Apple from moving $400/unit of debt payments to their European subsidiary?

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#439

Post by rusk »

secondcoming wrote: post #338
rusk wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this sounds like fairly shaky ground to build your economy on

Sure was, but 1980's Ireland had pretty much no economy at all. Emigration was an expectation, not a privilege. The country needed all it could get. And it eventually did very well, then screwed it up in the Global Financial Crisis, but now seems to be doing quite well (until Brexit starts to have an effect).

That was 40 years ago, and it brought real actual manufacturing to these shores. The situation nowadays is very different.

Re: Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned

#440

Post by fidelramos »

istjohn wrote: post #424
fidelramos wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, huge companies exists because large accumulations of capital put to productive uses allow for better economies of scale, producing better and cheaper services and products, which the public benefits from. Our overgrown states don't foster innovation and wealth, but hinder it.

Yes, this is true. Thus Somalia's ascendant tech scene. No pesky state to get in the way of innovation.

There need to be law and order, either by a minimal but efficient state or by private enterprises. Somalia has neither.
Post reply on HN