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Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

businessinsider.com

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Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

#81

Post by doikor »

bko wrote: post #58
technicolorwhat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im dutch too and im super frustrated about this. I don't care about paying taxes (I've done so for the last 20+ years) even if they go as high as 52%. But it really irritates me that: - other companies with this tax deals pay almost nothing - its unfair and destroys local competition i.e a Starbucks vs mom's coffee bar.

> its unfair and destroys local competition i.e a Starbucks vs mom's coffee bar. Do you think tax compliance is higher in small local businesses than large mega corps? Based on my experience in the US, tax fraud is much easier and more common with small businesses. Think about how many small shops don't even have a proper point of sales system, encourage cash, and hire under the table. Stackbucks would not be able to…

American banking and tax system is archaic and really inefficient when compared to some places in Europe (especially the nordics).

Here cash heavy businesses are rare and meaning the money is going through the banks. And as the money is moving through the banks it is pretty much impossible to have income that the local tax office would not see. And the banks are by law required to ask for proof of any irregular money moving in/from your account.

For retail/coffee shops/any direct to consumer business you have to pay VAT and thus are required to always print a receipt to the customer. This means you have to input the sales into the register and now it is in the books and thus really hard to not end up paying all the taxes.

Also companies get a part of the VAT back so they really really want to register the sale into their system or they are out of that (VAT is 24% for most stuff at the moment here in Finland)

Basically the only business where just plain not reporting taxes is still happens sometimes is small scale construction (ie you pay some guy to come and rebuild your bathroom etc).

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

#82

Post by rambambram »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #38
dstick wrote: post #4

I'm getting more and more frustrated by my own country's willingness to facilitate this. It just doesn't make any sense. From what I can tell it's all based on old-fashioned debunked economic theories in the same vain as "trickle-down-economy". There's a growing resistance to the Netherlands as a "Doorsluisland", and our current administration's political turmoil will hopefully provide the momentum for actual change…

I think the Fear is that if the loophole is closed, the businesses will move elsewhere, taking an X amount of jobs with them - from which the government earns some income taxes. They take the crumbs instead of nothing, because there's no chance they get the cake. It may take EU wide legislation to fix, but even that is no guarantee because companies may just opt to not operate in the EU.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the things I vividly remember from law school is that the European Union leaves taxation to the member states.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

#83

Post by sumedh »

vmception wrote: post #3

Any details on why 50 instead of 1? Even if it was to segregate liability for individual pieces of IP, it still seems excessive Many jurisdictions offer a single entity with segregated limited liability. Specifically “Segregated Portfolio Companies” or Series LLCs offering the same concept in other jurisdictions. Would seem out of character for the Netherlands not to have this in their catalogue of entities, since th…

Maybe some companies are used just for one specific kind of transaction to take advantage of some loophole in the law.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

#84

Post by kokey »

sschueller wrote: post #64
Acinyx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly should they pay tax on? AFAIK, most countries like the US go for a tax on profits, but profits of a multinational country are extremely hard to "locate", as in: in which country was the profit made? Some obvious examples are IKEA stores licensing the rights to the IKEA brand from some company in the Netherlands, which means most stores in the US almost have no profits. Or starbucks USA buying extremely e…

Some rate dependent number of customers and employees in the that country. Also assets held in that country and capital gains made in that country.

This is why I'm keen on seeing corporation tax on profits abolished because it's pointless most of the time. If you want to tax it properly, rather:

- tax sales in the country where things are sold, this is the price of access to that market.

- tax distribution of income and profits to shareholders and staff where they work and live, that's the price of access to the society they live and work in.

- tax distribution of the gains of selling shareholdings where the beneficiaries of these live and work.

- if people spend in a country different from where their earnings are taxed, the sales tax will still get them.

The above is actually how the vast majority of tax is collected anyway, it doesn't really matter if a company paid 0% corporation tax on profits when they generated much more sales and income tax than any tax on their profits will ever be. It just doesn't make great rage inducing headlines and soundbites for politicians. I think the best political strategy would be restructure corporation tax to simply be a component of the above sales and income taxes

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

#85

Post by bbojan »

f6v wrote: post #46
dstick wrote: post #4

I'm getting more and more frustrated by my own country's willingness to facilitate this. It just doesn't make any sense. From what I can tell it's all based on old-fashioned debunked economic theories in the same vain as "trickle-down-economy". There's a growing resistance to the Netherlands as a "Doorsluisland", and our current administration's political turmoil will hopefully provide the momentum for actual change…

Which movie was that when someone wanted to arrest a guy in Curaçao and the local police was like: "No no! Can't do it front of the bank! It will scare off other clients"?

I don't think it was a movie, but Narcos the series.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

#88

Post by MomoXenosaga »

kossTKR wrote: post #54
technicolorwhat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im dutch too and im super frustrated about this. I don't care about paying taxes (I've done so for the last 20+ years) even if they go as high as 52%. But it really irritates me that: - other companies with this tax deals pay almost nothing - its unfair and destroys local competition i.e a Starbucks vs mom's coffee bar.

The same thing is happening in _all_ countries. I'm from Scandinavia, and plenty of large US corporations pay zero taxes because of very complex arrangements. Regular people with smaller companies have to pay high taxes though. It's called soft imperialism. The US / Transnational empire forces all countries to "open their markets", either via direct war, og in allied states, via soft power. Then various firms like Mc…

The Chinese never opened up their markets for US/Western corporations. I observe that they have their own local, Chinese equivalents to Amazon and Google.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

#89

Post by rambambram »

jeltz wrote: post #14
varispeed wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some tax havens banned IP holding companies. Why is this not written in international law and closed once and for all?

Or at least just eu regulations.

EU doesn't touch taxation, as far as I know. That's up to the individual member states.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

#90

Post by busymom0 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #80
eptcyka wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starbucks doesn't need to resort to fraud to effectively pay 0% tax.

right if you're a small company and you pay 0% tax you're probably getting shut down and owner is having some legal problems when they investigate you, if you're big enough you might get a small fine or maybe just have investigation dropped.

Not really. The main problem is that if you are small, you most likely don’t have expensive accountants who will find every possible way to find legal loop holes to reduce our tax burden plus you don’t have the political connections to lobbying for certain exclusions or deals by the politicians.

This is why small businesses are the ones which get hurt the most by things like raising taxes, minimum wage etc. There’s a reason why Amazon, Walmart etc are all pushing for those things- they know they can find loop holes and can afford to pay a bit more whereas the small business competition can’t and will legally eliminate competition.

Also I am not a financial genius but is the author of the article trying to deceive the readers with this:?

> In 2019, Uber claimed $4.5 billion in global operating losses (excluding the US and China) for tax purposes — in reality, it brought in $5.8 billion in operating revenue, according to CICTAR, an Australia-based research group.

“in reality” usually means contradiction but losses and revenue are not proving contradictions.

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