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

businessinsider.com.au

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

#181

Post by greycol »

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

In the same spirit it might be worth noting that 'earn about 20% of annual income" could also be considered a bit misleading 'receive about 20% of annual income" would be a less controversial term.

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

#182

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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

99% of the top 1% are "normal workers" like me - engineers at Google - or my cousin - a radiologist - or one of my best friends - an investment banker - or lawyers, or owners of successful small businesses, etc...

These "normal workers" pay a lot of that 40% of the tax bill.

There aren't that many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and board members, A+ list celebrities, and aristocrats. You're getting into the .01% - that's still 32,000 people!

Chicago Booth put together an article with graphs to really show how much the top 0.01% has diverged [1].

The top 0.01% still pays A LOT of the income taxes - about 5% - but that means, mostly hardworking normal people in the top 1% are paying the other 35% of that 40% share of the tax bill.

It's not like Bill & Melinda Gates are paying 40% of the tax bill by themselves...

[1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never...

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

#183

Post by lovich »

rattray wrote: post #149
happytoexplain wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? Dissatisfaction drives change. Yes, companies are expected to take advantage of legal means of increasing value, but there is a spectrum of behavior between "shrewd" and "immoral" that still falls entirely within "legal", and the individual human beings in the affected society reasonably have opinions about where the line is. When the numbers are too disgusting, it's OK for people to express dissatisfac…

> Why not both? It's hard to be mad at someone once you realize you'd do the same thing if you were in their shoes. Loopholes like this should be illegal, but their existence ~obligates executives to take advantage of them (fiduciary duty). You'd just be bad at business if you didn't. As someone who wants to be good at business, I can't get mad at the players here – just the game.

I wouldn't do the same thing in their shoes? And mind you I am not trying to claim sainthood here. If it was a few million for following a legal method of tax evasion I'd be highly likely to do so.

After I secured enough money to comfortably retire though, every dollar I got through unethical means would feel less like "securing my future economic safety" and more like "unabashed greed"

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

#184

Post by anonfornoreason »

rapind wrote: post #160
Zenst wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This exactly, and because of the absurd magnitude of wealth some people have they are setting policy with their foundations. Basically governing without ever being elected. The whole philanthropy argument is irrelevant PR. This wealth wasn't created in a vacuum.

I’ll start paying heed to this line of reasoning when a significant portion of tax revenue is spent bombing innocents. There’s very shaky moral grounds for many of our actions overseas, and I don’t blame any rich person for wanting to control policy for significant philanthropic efforts.

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

#185

Post by klyrs »

gruez wrote: post #103
tylersmith wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the money is in your company then it's in one of your accounts somewhere.

What are you going to tell the IRS when they ask you about the offshore wire transfers coming in? It's a "consulting fee"? You're going to be paying taxes on that at your marginal rate.

Sure, but if you pay yourself a very nice income and realize very many nice incomes in capital gains, then you're still coming out way ahead.

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

#186

Post by burkaman »

rattray wrote: post #170
ruined wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's hard to be mad at someone once you realize you'd do the same thing if you were in their shoes. this is projecting. your comment goes on a bit more like this but i'm not going to quote all of it there has been a cultural failure of some sort that rewards people that think like this, and encourages this kind of behavior. maybe we should expect people, especially people in positions of responsibility, to not loot…

I expect (well, I don't expect, but I WANT) my government to stop it from happening. It's foolish to expect people who are in a position of responsibility _to their shareholders_ to act like they're responsible _to you_. They're not. Close the loopholes, raise the taxes (wealth, cap gains, high-earner income, corporate, etc) and stop vilifying people for making money.

Becoming a CEO does not magically make your responsibility to society disappear. Shareholders are an additional thing you need to worry about, not the only thing.

> stop vilifying people for making money

Why? They're doing it in a vile way.

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

#187

Post by [deleted] »

shostack wrote: post #158
lumost wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core claim above is that ultimately the foundation is a lip service activity to preserve wealth. If a hundred billionaire pays out 1 billion dollars in philanthropy via the foundation, but earns 10 billion tax free then they are doing quite well. It's a trivial matter to write the terms of the foundation such that yourself/successors can draw permanent income via "board" positions, advisory roles, or other means.

How would that work exactly? Genuine question, I've never understood how donating saves on taxes, you have to pay at some point to access the money, no?

[deleted]

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

#188

Post by flukus »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #164
flukus wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not self defense because you aren't defending yourself in this scenario, you're defending your property. It's only your property because you can defend it, but most of the time you won't have to because we all agree that you own it. The same goes for money, you're money is your property because we all agree it is, especially in the modern world where their is no physical item and inherent value. All the money yo…

>>It's only your property because you can defend it, but most of the time you won't have to because we all agree that you own it. No, it's your property because you created it, or were willed it by someone who did. The basis of a right to property is the same basis as a right to your person: the inherently moral right for one to make exclusive use of unclaimed matter that they appropriated and reconfigured into more…

> the inherently moral right for one to make exclusive use of unclaimed matter that they appropriated and reconfigured into more valuable matter.

And what gave them the right to appropriate it in the first place? What is inherently moral about claiming something that was previously unclaimed?

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

#189

Post by CryptoPunk »

flukus wrote: post #188
CryptoPunk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>It's only your property because you can defend it, but most of the time you won't have to because we all agree that you own it. No, it's your property because you created it, or were willed it by someone who did. The basis of a right to property is the same basis as a right to your person: the inherently moral right for one to make exclusive use of unclaimed matter that they appropriated and reconfigured into more…

> the inherently moral right for one to make exclusive use of unclaimed matter that they appropriated and reconfigured into more valuable matter. And what gave them the right to appropriate it in the first place? What is inherently moral about claiming something that was previously unclaimed?

If we don't have a moral right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources, then we don't have a moral right to our body.

Our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees the granting of a right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources to reconfigure it into higher value economic resources for our own exclusive use, as just.

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

#190

Post by flukus »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #189
flukus wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the inherently moral right for one to make exclusive use of unclaimed matter that they appropriated and reconfigured into more valuable matter. And what gave them the right to appropriate it in the first place? What is inherently moral about claiming something that was previously unclaimed?

If we don't have a moral right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources, then we don't have a moral right to our body. Our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees the granting of a right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources to reconfigure it into higher value economic resources for our own exclusive use, as just.

> Our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees the granting of a right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources to reconfigure it into higher value economic resources for our own exclusive use, as just.

Just as our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees taxation as just. But just because we see something as useful and just doesn't mean there is an inherent moral underpinning to it.

> if we don't have a moral right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources, then we don't have a moral right to our body.

Maybe we don't have this inherent right? It is a fairly recent development for most humans. That's not to say that we shouldn't uphold this right, just that it's not inherent.

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