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

businessinsider.com.au

201–210 of 431 posts

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

#201
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This begs the question of what purpose the shell companies serve.

Shell companies are just companies without offices. You can use corporate entities to organize assets, create trusts, hold certain obligations, create joint ventures, provide equity to align interests, etc. All of these things are beneficial. If you treat this like a game and try to win it, though, the 'building block' of legal personhood can be broken. The mechanics aren't perfect. You can book profits to one entity…

Thank you, this is one of the most insightful explanations on the subject of shell companies in less than 300 words!

Based on your name handle, are you happen to be one of the lawyers for these oversea tax heavens ;-)

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

#202
post #40

I always feel a bit sad when I read my home country is used for these kind of things. Most of the time the companies still are depending on services of these countries to be able to be in business but don't pay their fair share.

> I always feel a bit sad when I read my home country is used for these kind of things. Het is toch echt andersom. Nederland doet dit al jaren om in de ‘good graces’ van Amerika te zijn. Are you surprised when you see this news?

But hey, maybe NL will get proper FANG companies instead of Uber and Amazon.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate tax does not make sense because "income" and "profit" for a company are very loosely defined. Instead, a simple GST on products and services should be enough. Unambiguous and easy to reason about, with very less maneuverability to avoid. In fact, I would rather income tax for individuals also be done away with. Just tax every transaction in the market. That is much fairer and presents less avenues to avoid…

A simple tax like that on its own is also socially regressive. Implemented on its own, people would go hungry, causing social unrest. What would you suggest as a simple social stabiliser on top? A negative personal income tax up to a certain rate?

> Implemented on its own, people would go hungry, causing social unrest.

Why would that happen?

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

#204
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say this but I really wish harm on this company. Whatever hacker group decides to have fun with them will bring me great joy.

They should be held to account, but legitimately, legally. Their whole business model is based on crime. I don't understand why we don't see not only prosecution of their leaders, but RICO charges against their investors too.

Because they created the best service so far. Taxi was a shit show before Uber.

Sort of like Jobs and smartphones.

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

#206
post #19

> Uber transfered its intellectual property through a $16 billion “loan” from one of its subsidiaries in Singapore that in turn owns one of Uber’s Dutch shell companies, a manuever that grants the company a $1 billion tax break every year for the next 20 years, the researchers found. Shit like this makes my head hurt and infuriates me at the same time.

I've taken to calling it anti-American (or anti-whatever country in which they're minimizing their taxes). How better to tell the world that you don't care about the societies that made your success possible than to refuse to help fund them?

This seems to presuppose that it is an inherently good thing to maximize tax revenue.

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

#207

The only way to stop this, is to create income (eg. 1-2%) based tax regulations instead of profit based. No way to cheat.

Most countries already levy VAT/sales tax. But almost everybody believes that those are all paid by consumers while corporate taxes are all paid by business owners (mental picture: Bezos/Gates/top hat wearing Monopoly dude, not poor old lady drawing on small pension).

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

#208

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…

This reminds me of a saying I once heard:

"In it's grand equality the law forbids both the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges"

I mean, sure the lobbying system is "open" to all, but not everyone can actually participate in it or utilize it, even if they're technically allowed to.

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lite…

The difference between 42% (1954) and 36% (2016) is massive, and we lowered their taxes even more since then!

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

#210

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…

>Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists)

The most a single company spent on lobbying last year was Facebook at $19.7 million, which is a whopping .17% of their marketing expenses. At the same time, they shelled out $130 million, forming a irrevocable trust to fund a supreme court of moderation decisions. If lobbying were really effective, Facebook would have given money to any Congressperson willing to make any decisions at all, regardless of whether they are pro or anti-censorship. Either way, it's a win for Facebook because they can deflect all blame to the new regulations. The less Zuck has to think about moderation, the more he can focus on making money. The problem is that no representative was ever willing to do so. During the hearings about Section 230, Congress loved to grill Facebook on why they shouldn't have censored this and should censor this other thing. However, none of them attempted meaningful questioning that would aid them in writing a bill to achieve their supposed goals.

The real reason Congress is so ineffective is much more mundane: they have no incentive to do otherwise. Voters love hearing spicy soundbytes, so that's where all Congresspeople's effort goes into. People just want a simple problem that they can point their fingers at and knock down, but the real world doesn't work that way. When you blamed "lobbying", did you bother to look up the myriad existing regulations and their shortcomings? The result of all this is that an increasing number of real decisions are being made by unelected officials, from the SCOTUS effectively legislating Google v. Oracle or the Federal Reserve's increasingly aggressive monetary policy.

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