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IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

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Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#401

Post by ashtonkem »

piokoch wrote: post #14

This smells like some really bold and really ridiculous PR attempt. "Ikea uses about one percent—yes, one percent—of the world's entire commercial wood supply. That amounts to about 17.8 million cubic yards of lumber last year. " [1] I guess they need this PR purchase to appease some eko organization. And this is equally ridiculous. Ikea is making furniture, something people really need. Why they have to explain them…

They’re also making more of it because it doesn’t last anywhere near as long as it used to. A chest of drawers made out of oak or good plywood (yes, plywood can be good) used to last a literal lifetime. It also costs a lot more.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#402

Post by kwhitefoot »

vidoc wrote: post #388
nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

> I never understood why people hate IKEA Besides not providing the most durable furniture, albeit at the most competitive price and reasonably good looking designs, they've had a few PR disasters over the years like this one :p https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/02/25/172869585/ho...

Pretty much everyone in Europe was caught up in the horse meat scandal. I suspect that IKEA was not the one at fault here. The horse meat was inserted into the supply chain right at the slaughtering stage.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#403

Post by dhdhhdd »

rocqua wrote: post #377
agarden wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are using the money saved on taxes to sell their products cheaper, then it is not themselves (only) that they are enriching thereby, but (also) you and I and everyone else who buys IKEA products. The consumers end up being the ones paying less money into governmental coffers.

It is unfair to competitors who do pay taxes. Besides, it still leaves governments unfunded.

Simplify tax code? It's a bit ridiculous that a full tax return of an individual can be 40+ pages

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#404

Post by sandworm101 »

Sodman wrote: post #361
rychco wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, the first definition I found for the word evade is “escape or avoid, especially by cleverness or trickery.”

In the US, they are very specific, distinct things. Tax Evasion[0] is not paying taxes you legally owe. Tax Avoidance[1] is finding ways to owe less tax. Evasion is considered illegal, but Avoidance can practically be considered encouraged, as it's perfectly legal and rewards practitioners with lower tax bills. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/taxevasion.asp [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tax_avoida…

>> an practically be considered encouraged

It is openly encouraged. All those little policies, those loopholes, are there to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others. Want to funnel profits into live insurance on your employees in order to avoid tax? (Walmart does this) Go right ahead. That bit of tax code is there specifically to encourage the use of life insurance. If it is in the code, it is there because the government wants you to use it.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#405

Post by franga2000 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #325
hiq wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why people hate IKEA. Did you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Criticisms ? There seems to be many reasons to dislike the company, even as a happy customer. One thing that stuck with me is this: "The IKEA group has a complex corporate structure, which members of the European Parliament have alleged was designed to avoid over €1 billion in tax payments over the 2009–2014 period." It seems e…

That’s a problem of unnecessarily complicated tax laws.

The problem is the fact that they are willing to do shady things like that to avoid taxes. The fact that they're allowed to do that is a bug in the law, yes, but doesn't take any of their blame away.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#406

Post by LeifCarrotson »

Sodman wrote: post #361
rychco wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, the first definition I found for the word evade is “escape or avoid, especially by cleverness or trickery.”

In the US, they are very specific, distinct things. Tax Evasion[0] is not paying taxes you legally owe. Tax Avoidance[1] is finding ways to owe less tax. Evasion is considered illegal, but Avoidance can practically be considered encouraged, as it's perfectly legal and rewards practitioners with lower tax bills. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/taxevasion.asp [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tax_avoida…

Most people reading this are probably aware of the distinction in technical, legal terms. But it doesn't matter, because we're not prosecutors or the IRS.

But I still call it tax evasion colloquially, because I'm just an average Joe who can't prosecute anyone so my legal opinion doesn't matter. My judgement is not whether it's illegal, but whether it's immoral and scummy.

My neighbor, a self-employed painter, claiming his work truck (that he also uses to pull the family camper) as a depreciating business asset is tax avoidance, and I can get behind that. Ikea registering as a nonprofit with 99% overhead is tax evasion, and it's scummy.

Society, as represented by the government, wants charities to exist to assist with causes that society values, like, I suppose, architecture. They encourage this through the tax code. Society also want for-profit businesses to pay their fair share of taxes. This is blatantly a deceitful manipulation of the tax code, whether it's legal or not I don't care, they've abused the law to do things it wasn't intended to do

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#407

Post by chopin »

yohannparis wrote: post #370
hiq wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why people hate IKEA. Did you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Criticisms ? There seems to be many reasons to dislike the company, even as a happy customer. One thing that stuck with me is this: "The IKEA group has a complex corporate structure, which members of the European Parliament have alleged was designed to avoid over €1 billion in tax payments over the 2009–2014 period." It seems e…

This is an issue caused by the European Parliament. I'm sure if they want to stop this behaviour they could write some laws.

Afaik they can't. The European Commission can. Which is not elected.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#408

Post by johnp314 »

ashtonkem wrote: post #393
lotsofpulp wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a problem of unnecessarily complicated tax laws.

IKEA also has a will to abuse them to a degree that their peers don’t, and we should judge them as less ethical for it.

'abuse' is a subjective word, you could have left off the 'ab' and you sentence would still be correct, arguably more correct. Also, why not consider that by using the complex web of tax laws to their advantage allows them to sell products at a lower price. This allows folks with lower incomes to enjoy similar products to those who can afford getting their stuff from more posh places. One could judge Ikea to be more ethical for this practice.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#409

Post by throwawaygh »

candu wrote: post #303
nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

Personally, I dislike IKEA for registering as a non-profit, when they're very clearly not. To me, this belongs in the same bucket as any number of tax avoidance schemes that ensure wealthy individuals pay far lower tax rates than the average person, and that large corporations pay effectively nothing. If they're able to provide great customer service - well, good on them, but I'd much rather the public purse have the…

> Personally, I dislike IKEA for registering as a non-profit, when they're very clearly not.

They're clearly not a charity. But there are TONS of tax-sheltered businesses that aren't charities.

To me, it's morally equivalent to eg churches that use tax-free money to buy and operate super nice concert venues. Or any other non-profit that uses pre-tax money to pay salaries.

IMO, Ikea > Churches.

> or talk to anyone who's ever received a DARPA / NSF / etc. grant

Y Combinator recently published an article about how to bootstrap a biotech startup on a small seed round, and they included an example company. Step Zero was "get NSF/NIH grants and hire a student/post-doc at a university". Incidentally also the Step Zero for lots of tech companies in the 80s, 90s, and even today.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#410

Post by robertlagrant »

nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

Older people who lived in a world of more resources per person and better craftsmen are used to high quality furniture. That luxury isn't really available at the moment, which is a shame, but IKEA have helped a lot of people.
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