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

theguardian.com

121–130 of 467 posts

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

#121
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.

Which country are you in that your own payroll isn’t at least corporate tax deductible?

edit: ah, it looks like you are paying yourself via dividends.

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

#122
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no tax free allowance in NL? Do you pay extra for healthcare or is it paid for out of that amount?

Healthcare is paid from post-tax income. As a single person, I pay approx. €150 monthly. There is also a deductible of €385-885, and choosing a lower amount means you pay more per month too. There is no tax free allowance. There is general/labor tax credit, but it’s incredibly minimal and reduces with income: * €2.837 for those with a taxable income under €21.043 * €2.837 - 5,977% x (taxable income - €21.043) for peo…

TIL. I thought absurdly high tax rates were a nordic specialty. NL seems very wealthy whenever I visit. Are median incomes substantially higher than surrounding countries?

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

#123
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Individuals shouldn't see tax. That way the voters don't complain when you need to put it up. If taxation is such an inherent good then why does it need to be hidden from people? If the rate is justifiable the government shouldn't need to hide it. When you consider a democratic society where the government at least indirectly serves the will of the people the idea of the government needing to pull a fast one on the…

> If taxation is such an inherent good then why does it need to be hidden from people? Because the externalities are not always visible, and people do not have enough free bandwidth to spend the time understanding them.

Call me old fashioned, but I believe it is the role of the person being paid to justify the expense. If you get hand wavy and tell me its too complicated I'm just going to presume you are stealing from me.

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

#124

Microsoft's Irish subsidiary paid zero tax because it owed zero tax—and there's no reason it should have paid, or that this should change in future, apart from the greed and envy of others who want to take money from others to which they are not entitled. Those who are unhappy at the taxes they are paying should perhaps take it up with the tax attorneys and/or legislators who have failed them.

In case you are unaware, tax is needed to pay for schools, universities, research, health care, social care, police, civil infrastructure, environmental agencies, regulators, defence, bank bailouts, pandemic bailouts, etc.

The Big tech firms benefit from all of the above, but are not contributing anything back. The system is broken and needs to be fixed, so let's not pretend there is no problem.

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

#125
post #4

Isn't the US levying corporate tax on worlwide income anyway (since the last tax reform). So it's "only" a matter of deciding whether those taxes should be paid in US vs. other countries (and if the intellectual property was developped mostly in the US, it seems fair for the US to get most of it).

That isn't fair at all. If you're opening a location in another country, and that location takes X in revenue, the tax should be paid in that country. Why on earth do you think its fair for US based organizations to spread across the globe, reap the huge profits from that but funnel all the cash back into the US?

>If you're opening a location in another country, and that location takes X in revenue, the tax should be paid in that country.

It all hinges on how "location takes x in revenue" is defined.

The simplified version of how all these transfer pricing tax avoidance schemes work is this: The good is produced in Country X (e.g., US) then sold to a subsidiary in the tax haven Country Y (e.g., Ireland or some Caribbean Island) for just a tiny amount of profit over cost, and so they owe taxes to Country X on that de minimis profit. The subsidiary in Country Y then sells the good to Country Z (e.g., the rest of the world) for the retail price, and so they earn almost all their profit in Country Y and so pay taxes there, but it's a tax haven so the actual tax rate is minimal. Logic would dictate that the profit should be recognized in the jurisdiction where the good was produced or the one where it was sold to the end customer or some combination of both, but logic does not prevail when it comes to tax law.

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

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There you pay 40-50% incometax first

No one pays that much in a progressive tax system. Every time this discussion comes up people spout off these numbers but if you calculate out how much you actually pay it's probably in the 20-30% of total salary range. That's still high but it's just dishonest and makes people look like idiots when they throw around 40% etc. If you are truly paying 40% of your income in tax you are earning millions and are benefitin…

I pay an effective income tax of 45% (14.1% "arbeidsgiveravgift"[1] and 36% income tax after deductions).

And when I buy stuff I then have to pay 25% VAT (12% on groceries). So the effective tax is 59% except for groceries.

[1]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/rates/employers-national-insu...

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

#127
post #86
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taxing corporations is pointless the argument for taxing profits: - incentivise investments - companies are less likely to hide expenses like salaries - It's more fair for high cost business (car company vs google) Personally, I'd tax all corporation 3% of their revenue. You could lover it by to 2% by what is your operating profit ratio to revenue. You can lower it to 1% by a list of 20-30 deductibles e.g. you inst…

FYI, this setup would be extremely beneficial to gigantic companies and likely would lead to immense consolidation, since effectively you would tax 1% on every supplier transaction down the chain, whereas the vertically integrated gigacompany would only pay 1% once.

nope this tax scheme would only apply to certain corporations

e.g.

Revenue 0-20mln EUR, you keep the existing tax scheme

Revenue 20-100mln - you can choose the tax scheme

Revenue 100mln+ - you have to tax revenue

Thresholds are up for debate.

Also, companies already pay around 0-5% of their revenue in income tax. Gigantic companies pay close to 0.

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

#128
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one pays that much in a progressive tax system. Every time this discussion comes up people spout off these numbers but if you calculate out how much you actually pay it's probably in the 20-30% of total salary range. That's still high but it's just dishonest and makes people look like idiots when they throw around 40% etc. If you are truly paying 40% of your income in tax you are earning millions and are benefitin…

Here in France, as a contractor, if I bill a client 100 000€ annually and decide to get as much as possible in personal income, 30 000€ will go as social taxes (health, retirement ...) and for the remaining 70 000€ you will have to pay around 25% as income tax (if you don't have any children). You will have an income of ~52 000€ for 100 000€ billed during the year. You're not earning millions and yet around 50% of re…

25% is what I would expect. You're getting some of the other expenses back eventually (hopefully) in form of pensions, unemployment (if you ever need it) etc. Health itself is a service you are buying. I wouldn't call it a tax despite it being mandatory. I think taxes are too high and the system needs to be redesigned but I just think we need to be exact on our figures when we discuss this stuff.

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

#129
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare is paid from post-tax income. As a single person, I pay approx. €150 monthly. There is also a deductible of €385-885, and choosing a lower amount means you pay more per month too. There is no tax free allowance. There is general/labor tax credit, but it’s incredibly minimal and reduces with income: * €2.837 for those with a taxable income under €21.043 * €2.837 - 5,977% x (taxable income - €21.043) for peo…

TIL. I thought absurdly high tax rates were a nordic specialty. NL seems very wealthy whenever I visit. Are median incomes substantially higher than surrounding countries?

The Netherlands is a tax haven for corporations. Individuals bear the brunt of ensuring a high QoL. Median income in 2021 is €36.500, so quite low tbh.

The only kind of income you can avoid taxes on is capital gains - i.e. investing in stocks or real estate. Obviously this is not feasible for the general population, and as such, most people spend their entire monthly income on rent/mortgage, kids, and living expenses. There is no concept of saving, because the assumption is that you can accumulate enough pension to live off of.

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

#130

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

Saying someone has a conflict of interest reporting on financial matters because they are unionized? So by your argument, we definitely can not trust nearly any other news organisation, because they have shareholders and are operating for profit? How about your conflict of interest? Do you own stock? If yes, by your own argument you have a financial conflict of interest and can't be trusted.

>>So by your argument, we definitely can not trust nearly any other news organisation, because they have shareholders and are operating for profit?

Being in a union, and your employer not being able to replace you with people outside of the union as a result of left-wing laws that are predicated on an extremely left-wing ideological conception of the world, creates a far more extreme conflict of interest in my opinion.

We don't need to take a centrist position between shareholders operating in a free market to earn a profit, by providing consumers with goods/services they want at competitive prices, and unions extracting economic rent through restrictive anti-free market laws that limit other people's right to free association. One position is inherently fairer and less likely to lead to corrupting conflicting interests.

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