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Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

theguardian.com

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Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#21

Post by mjburgess »

sbennettmcleish wrote: post #7

220bn profit? Really? Surely they mean "revenue"

Hard to say they mean either, financials are public,

https://ie.globaldatabase.com/company/microsoft-round-island...

It lists 9bn in profit.

The quoted document > https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20794038/microsof...

Disagrees with the public finances above: the issue is that the document says "$ 000".

It's a typo, the numbers are just dollar amounts.

And the text of the report proves it, it explicitly says profit of the year was 13bn.

EDIT: the report is very confusing. It looks like there could be an argument to say it is genuinely 300bn -- the issue is there's *operating profit* of 13bn... but a secondary "profit" from the liquidation of subsidy companies.

So the issue is the article presents this as an operating profit, but it isnt.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#23

Post by howaboutnope »

MikeUt wrote: post #8
malux85 wrote: post #2

I have to pay 40% of my income as income tax. I have HAD ENOUGH. This is infuriating. What can we do?

Respect copyright and patents as much as Microsoft respects taxation.

That's way too tame and already too hardcore for HN.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#24

Post by DrBazza »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #19

1. It's infeasible that Microsoft had profits of 200 billion euros. 2. A comment on the Guardian's journalists' potential financial conflicts of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27352245

And for non-UK HN readers, the Guardian is a rather left-of-political-centre newspaper.

Or generally, each UK newspaper has a particular take on UK politics, and generally employs journalists or freelancers that have the same or more extreme views.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#25

Post by neilwilson »

fallingknife wrote: post #12

Why can't governments learn that taxing corporations is pointless? The same revenue is can be raised more simply through sales tax and personal income tax on salaries and distributions.

The best tax is one that is imposed on an individual but paid at source by the corporation paying them.

Individuals shouldn't see tax. That way the voters don't complain when you need to put it up.

Sales tax is similarly a pain - particularly when you have differing rates. At which point we get into the famous is it a cake or a biscuit type cases to decide where the dividing line is.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#27

Post by zapdrive »

fallingknife wrote: post #12

Why can't governments learn that taxing corporations is pointless? The same revenue is can be raised more simply through sales tax and personal income tax on salaries and distributions.

Try saying this on leftist websites like reddit. They believe taxing corporations is the solution to all world problems.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#29

Post by weird-eye-issue »

kowlo wrote: post #5

Meanwhile my (single-person) company is paying around 20% corporation tax, and then I'm getting taxed a further 20-40% on top of that when I pay myself.

Are you in the US? If you have a single person company you could have a simple single member LLC set up so profits would flow through to you without getting taxed at the company level.

Of course you'd also have to pay self-employment tax on top of the regular income tax though (can get around some of that by using an S Corp).

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#30

Post by weird-eye-issue »

kowlo wrote: post #10
sbennettmcleish wrote: post #7

220bn profit? Really? Surely they mean "revenue"

In the UK you only pay corporation tax on profit

Is there anywhere in the world that this isn't the case? I'm genuinely curious
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