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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

#391

Post by stjohnswarts »

bluecalm wrote: post #356
refurb wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this satire? I mean, you’re pointing your finger at the And I love the call out about your everyday working schmuck cousin, you know, the radiologist, who is in one of the highest paid professions and if he’s in the US is likely making close to $500,000 per year. Almost 10x the median US salary. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/radiologist...

They make more money because they are more productive and their services are highly valued. Those people already bear disproportional burden when it comes to taxes. I mean, what do you really want? Everyone works according to abilities and everyone is provided for according to their needs?

"Disproportionate" in raw numbers sure. Disproportionate in quality of life and lifestyle? lol 50% for the 1% is like "damn the government!" 50% for people under median salary is putting them into poverty and likely government assistance to get by.

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

#392

Post by notahacker »

rcpt wrote: post #367
notahacker wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When corporate tax is zero and corporations don't hire tax specialists because nobody audits them, individuals don't need an army of specialists to hide most of their income and expenditure in a corporation, and basically anyone that isn't an entry-level employee can do it...

How do I hide most of my income?

"Expenses". They get audited at the moment though, because the companies paying them owe tax...

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

#393

Post by shard »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #362
shard wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax evasion should be prosecuted, but I believe most of the time I read about these companies and taxes, it's about tax avoidance, such as the source article for this thread.

It's probably legal, even though it's not as intended. If you need 50 shell companies you are clearly abusing some loopholes, which I morally/ethically consider wrong. But that's something society has to fix ...

Finding loopholes seems like it's perfectly aligned with the hacker ethos. We cheer when we read about the guy who figured out how to always win at Press Your Luck, the guy who gamed the lotto system to greatly increase his odds, the guy who bought large quantities of pudding and got enough free air miles to last the rest of his life. I wouldn't be surprised if the first lawyers who figured out these loopholes got the same hacker high from finding the cracks in the system. Of course, for the first 3 examples, the loopholes were closed after those people exploited it. Now if the governments don't close these well-known loopholes, isn't it equivalent to implicitly condoning them?

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

#394

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

aaronchall wrote: post #238
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #182

Earlier 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…

So using your numbers, the top percent of the top percent pay 1/8 of the taxes that the top percent pay, and the remaining 99% of the top percent pay 7/8 of those taxes. That is still quite disproportionately more. I pay a big chunk of my income in taxes too. Everyone needs to contribute. There's not enough money otherwise, and demanding that Bill Gates pay more, as much as I dislike him, isn't going to do it (and do…

The top 1% - minus the top 0.01% - are paying 35% of all income taxes. The top 0.01% themselves are paying another 5%. The bottom 99% are paying the remaining 60%.

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

#395

Post by SilasX »

shard wrote: post #393
johannes1234321 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably legal, even though it's not as intended. If you need 50 shell companies you are clearly abusing some loopholes, which I morally/ethically consider wrong. But that's something society has to fix ...

Finding loopholes seems like it's perfectly aligned with the hacker ethos. We cheer when we read about the guy who figured out how to always win at Press Your Luck, the guy who gamed the lotto system to greatly increase his odds, the guy who bought large quantities of pudding and got enough free air miles to last the rest of his life. I wouldn't be surprised if the first lawyers who figured out these loopholes got th…

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d say the hacker ethos would be to, yes, exploit that loophole but also publicize the dickens out of it so it gets fixed and refactored into a more rational system that obviates that whole class of errors.

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

#396

Post by [deleted] »

flukus wrote: post #190
CryptoPunk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#398

Post by CRConrad »

DrSiemer wrote: post #270
briffle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so harsh, but I would stop allowing them to sue in US court for some things. Sorry, your IP is in the Netherlands, go file there. See how quick many companies pull their IP back.

Not many I expect. Needing to hire Dutch lawyers is not such a big hurdle when you are saving billions.

"That's a Dutch verdict you're waving around there. We'll do something about the IP violation you're claiming when you have one from this jurisdiction... And we'll see that case once you've registered the IP in question here."

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

#399

Post by CRConrad »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #250
flukus wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>>Just as our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees taxation as just. Our commen sense has nothing to do with support for income taxation. The system of taxation is too complex, and has too many intermediaries, for the typical person to fully assess it in all of its moral dimensions. If it were laid bare, without layers of intermediaries obfuscating its nature, and a multitude of ideological and polit…

Oh, funny how your common sense just suddenly stopped being able to process stuff once the discussion got to a conclusion you didn't happen to like.

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

#400

Post by rhizome »

slver wrote: post #337
dontreact wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws get written with a lot of help and influence from lobbyists who do sit at the companies.

Let's get couple of things straight: 1. Politicians are responsible for the laws. 2. Companies are responsible for following the laws. If you have a beef with any of the above, address the right parties. How they interact and depend on each other is a fact, but also it's not relevant to the above two points. Everyone has a clear responsibility. Furthermore the phrase "dodged taxes" means "they structured their revenu…

>Who the hell says you gotta structure your revenue in order to MAXIMIZE your taxes?

I don't think it's about rules ("gotta"), it's about ethics. I wouldn't say that maximizing taxes is anything, but the desire to minimize taxes is definitely anti-social.

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