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

Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

businessinsider.com.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 431 posts

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#171

Post by ploxiln »

rhizome wrote: post #154
bartart wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but unfortunately no rich person actually paid those rates: "despite these high marginal rates, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the 1950s only paid about 42 percent of their income in taxes. As a result, the tax burden on high-income households today is only slightly lower than what these households faced in the 1950s." https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/

Your 42% is overall, right? The 90% was a marginal rate, the first bullet point at your URL.

That implies that significantly less than half of their income fell into the highest bracket. This is true of the top 0.01% as well (the top 1% of the top 1%), they paid about 50% overall.

So, the top 1% of the top 1% of high-income earners, found a way for their income that would fall into the top tax bracket, to not be income. They turned it into capital gains or something else. To not do so would be crazy, so literally no one let a significant amount of their income fall into the top tax bracket, in the 1950s.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#172

Post by [deleted] »

vxNsr wrote: post #157
seaourfreed wrote: post #93

Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 8…

Honest question: When you have an agenda that wants to spend an additional $6tillion do you really care that much about tax revenues? (On top of the $5 trillion from the past year) At that point does it really matter how much you collect? You’ve clearly given up all semblance of trying to balance a budget. At this point we’re pretty deep in the new-age progressive economic policy ideology, where taxes aren’t about bu…

[deleted]

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#173

Post by kube-system »

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #89
IdontRememberIt wrote: post #67

If IP and shell companies infuriate you. I invite you to investigate why all billionaires have foundations or its cousin structures and "give" their wealth to it... Clue: tax and inheritance (tax) avoidance. Bill, Buffett, etc. are hypocrites. But it is not new, even in the Bible they spoke about it (Matthew 6:2): "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues…

Anyone with any money should setup a trust. Especially if they want to marry. Done right it’s an amazing way to protect your wealth. Better protection than a prenup can provide.

Where can I read more?

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#174

Post by _carbyau_ »

Zenst wrote: post #142
lifeformed wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could reframe it as: The tax benefits are there to incentivize philanthropic giving. Society benefits from their giving and they receive a tax benefit and PR boost in return. It's not like they're saving more money total by giving it away. And sure, it'd be nice if philanthropists were super humble and anonymous, but the money helps either way, and I don't think those who are helped by the giving care if the give…

In some aspects it is controlling how your TAXES are spent by cutting out the middle man.

I don't see how this is generally desirable though.

Replacing the government middleman with a rich-person & associated bureacracy middleman. At least the government is meant to be accountable to the people.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#175

Post by colechristensen »

seaourfreed wrote: post #93

Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 8…

One: this seems to be about uber activities outside the US

Two: the US is actively working on what it is calling a global minimum corporate tax

Three: anonymous shell companies were made illegal in the US in January

It seems your comment is rather uninformed. There is of course much to do but it is hard to look at what is happening and come to the conclusion that it is all nothing

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#176

Post by [deleted] »

Fern_Blossom wrote: post #143
seaourfreed wrote: post #93

Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 8…

Hot take: Stop thinking of lobbying as a corporate only tool and understand the system was devised as a way for specialized interested (technocratic) to influence congress in an efficient and informed way. The lobbyist system is open to all by purpose. The real problem: the general public doesn't actually give a shit about wiping its own ass when it comes to dealing with their own government. Whose fault is it when y…

[deleted]

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#177

Post by dnautics »

ericmay wrote: post #124
dnautics wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real thing is that Buffet knows that wiring your fortune to the IRS is a perilously stupid way to do good with your money; just statistically such a huge chunk of that will go to, say, bombing children halfway around the world, bureaucracies that spend money better than actually provide healthcare, and anti-poverty programs that are better at lining the pockets of 'social entrepreneurs' that are better at…

It’s fine if he thinks it’s stupid, but then he shouldn’t complain that he doesn’t pay enough either as if only he could pay more then he would do so. BS! I don’t have a problem with the guy or with his wealth, but the whole “oh but if they’d only tax me” thing is infuriating. Hell, he could just endow any number of non-Ivy League schools and pay for kids to go to college.

Exactly this. I don't even make nearly as much as warren Buffett and I'm actively contributing to an unrelated kid's (single mom, service worker, spotty job reliability) college fund.

You just have to step up and do it one day, or, if you're warren buffet, tell your personal assistant to set it up.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#179

Post by spacephysics »

0xy wrote: post #147
seaourfreed wrote: post #93

Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 8…

It's really hard to evade personal income tax, so why shouldn't the government just give up and tax corporations at 0%, while having high progressive personal income taxes? Or, better yet, proper sliding consumption taxes. If you want a yacht or private jet, pay 150% in taxes. Norway already taxes luxury cars at over 100% of their value.

That hinders technological progress. Typically newer technology in most consumer fields is bought and “tried out” by the wealthy. If it’s popular enough, economy of scales comes in and makes it more affordable.

Adding that heavy of a tax will disincentivize some wealthy from buying the product, leading to slower, if any, feedback loop to give that tech to the lower income classes.

You may ask, well the tech is already made. And a private jet won’t become affordable to normal folks anytime soon. True, but then the issue is, who determines exactly which items are taxed, and how much?

Most likely a domino effect that was not intended or predicted will occur, causing worse outcomes than the pseudo planned-economy hoped for.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#180

Post by lovich »

bartart wrote: post #117
seaourfreed wrote: post #93

Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 8…

It's also worth noting that the top 1% pay about 40% of all income taxes at the federal level, and they earn about 20% of annual income from all sources ( http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/186106 ). So classifying 88% of federal revenue as paid by regular workers might be a bit misleading

Did 100% of the wealth generated by the 1% come from their income taxed at that rate, or did they have a significant portion of their generated wealth come from capital gains?

Classifying the 1%'s wealth by talking about their income as if its 100% of their wealth might be a bit misleading.

Post reply on HN