Taxes are theft.
Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
381–390 of 431 posts
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, I assume when you write "normal workers" that you mean non-executives and non-passive income earners. (Executives can get a lot of equity or dividends that accrue taxes at lower rates; passive income earners use asset depreciation to lessen tax burden.) The top 1% in the US is ~400K USD. Real question for OP (and others): What do you think is a reasonable effective income tax rate? (Please do not confuse effec…
>What do you think is a reasonable effective income tax rate? (Please do not confuse effective and nominal tax rates!) In my view: "All in" should be about 50-55%. When I say "all in" I mean absolutely everything -- federal, state, local, national pension, national health (if applicable), yada yada yada. Who is this for? The “rich” or for everyone else? An effective rate of 50-55% is obscene. I would relocate for any…
If unclear, the "reasonable effective income tax rate" was for the top 1%.
1) Where do you live?
2) Are you in the top 1%?
3) In your location, what is the effective income tax rate for top 1%?
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
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% - tha…
Reading the other comments, I looked closer at your choice of professions. 1) Engineers at Google earning 400K+ USD per year are receiving a large chunk in stock grants. I guess 1/3 to 1/2. (And the last 10 years have been very, very good for equity prices in tech majors.) I assume those receive capital gains tax treatment when sold. If held for at least one year, you receive generous tax savings. Is that fair? 2) Ra…
1 - RSUs are taxed as earned income from the time they vest.
That means - if I was granted $75k worth of Google stock to be paid this year - but it has quadrupled in value... Upon vesting - I'll receive $300k worth of Google stock this year...
I pay "earned" income tax on all $300k of that - meaning, after taxes, I get about ~$185k of that.
If I should hold that for a year - and it goes up 20% in value - I would pay capital gains tax on that 20% / ~$37k just like anyone else who bought and held Google stock for a year.
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair to Ireland it also would require other countries drop the hidden advantages to business that countries grant to gain unfair advantage. Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, France's support to state industries and use of its intelligence services to gain competitive business contracts, the US subsidising research through military inv…
Ireland, is far from a rocky poor outcrop. A look at the cost of living indexes will convince anyone. And what is frequently missed on it is that this -surreal COL- is yet another form of indirect taxation on the salaries of people. So, it's a bit more sinister than letting the companies tax evade. Ireland is moving the tax burden down to its workers, out to the rest of EU and off the big companies and the landlords…
Poster said "rocky _previously_ poor outcrop". If you take a look at any of the economic indicators before the early 90s, you'll see a very different picture.
There is absolutely no doubt that the policy of encouraging foreign-direct-investment has transformed Ireland into a modern and wealthy nation. The question is whether we sold our souls to the devil to achieve that. My personal take is no, but I respect the opposing opinion.
The issue today is indeed CoL, but that is a function of the government's failure to build. We were poor before the celtic tiger, we got addicted to property, the financial crisis hit us incredibly hard, and we are not building housing nearly quick enough today, especially with the (welcome!) influx of continental europeans to Ireland as multilingual workers servicing the european market for these US companies. There's a fresh batch of emigration happening now for this very reason.
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#385This is the definition of hacking: using a system (in this case the global financial system) in ways it was not intended to be used.
'Hacking' kinda loses its novelty when almost every single large multinational corporation is doing it, though. How boring ...
The equivalent of script kiddies.
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can in theory vote for people that wont bomb innocents we can't vote out the rich people in any meaningful way.
The laws that allow this philanthropy are controlled by us. We most certainly can vote them out of existence
We can't vote their wealth out of existence easily when they own the legislators.
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagree. Why would you arbitrarily pay the IRS money if you didn't owe them anything. It would put himself in a weaker competitive position against his competitors and for what benefit? I completely disagree with you. The move should be to change the system.
You pay them because your argument is “i should be paying more”. It’s hard to take someone seriously when they say they should pay more tax, have every opportunity to pay more tax, yet choose not to pay more tax.
Your argument is illogical because it implies that people should be able to alter the tax law by intentionally overpaying taxes.
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really see a situation where the US government collapses and US society does not?
Every scenario where the US government ends/collapses is such, outside of the Dr Strangelove ending.
A huge portion of the population is directly receiving benefits that enable them to pay for life critical medical care/meds, food, and shelter including a majority of people receiving social security and every military member and other government employee.
The entirety of the population is doing business in dollars that would end up worth nothing which means everything grinds to a halt while people figure out how to reorganize this brave new world. Right now you own what you own courtesy of the government providing armed men to keep others from taking it and courts to settle differences.
This reorganization would inevitably mean that different groups compete to be the new powers that be. The obvious inheritors would be the existing state power structures which controls lots of armed men and women but nothing is stopping people from setting up their own feifdoms and disagreements about who controls what could trivially have to be settled by shooting each other.
It's not like we don't have plenty of examples of failed states collapsing. Look at Yugoslavia for example. Can you provide me with some counterexamples?
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having large multinational corporations is hugely beneficial to the Irish economy, through direct employment. Sure any company that is just a brass plaque and funneling money through Ireland is of no benefit, but most of the big ones have significant high quality high tech jobs here. Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, you name it, they all have huge operations here.
Yes and no. Ireland may seem materially better off than they were before, but they've effectively been recolonized. Putting aside matters of tax evasion, these corporations aren't sticking to just employing labor. They're also politically influential. The rapid shift in Irish cultural norms in recent years is jaw-dropping.
I think the shift in culture is directly correlated to being better off for the average person. Dublin is very different from rural places, that have changed more slowly. Its modernisation, for better or worse. Politics is as crooked as ever. Some serious sennanigans were had well before the multinationals were big
Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue
#390Congress 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…
Why do people always bitch about Congress? They are playing governments all over the world for this, not just the US government.