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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

#211

Post by zelos »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #114
rorykoehler wrote: post #75

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…

In the UK you pay a flat 40% over around £45k, no ambiguity whatsoever, then 45% over £150k. Not exactly millionaire status.

You also lose your personal allowance between £100-125k, which bumps up the effective tax rate.

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

#212

Post by TimPC »

Lionga wrote: post #188
rorykoehler wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use your currency because they get paid in it. Government spending doesn't disappear into a black hole never to be seen again. [FALSE]>>> Also it's illegal to use other currencies as tender in (probably?) all countries in the world (Zimbabwe uses/used(?) the US dollar but I'm not aware of any other instances).

People of Venezuela would like to have a word with you

Venezuela did a lot of things to restrict the use of the US dollar including forcibly converting all USD accounts at their banks to their own currency at an unfavourable ratio.

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

#213

Post by pimterry »

rorykoehler wrote: post #143
jefftk wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that the government prints money to cover expenses. If you could somehow force everyone to hold all their wealth in cash, this would act as a wealth tax. This doesn't work, however, because with very high planned inflation no one wants to use your currency, and without taxation there's no reason they have to.

They use your currency because they get paid in it. Government spending doesn't disappear into a black hole never to be seen again. [FALSE]>>> Also it's illegal to use other currencies as tender in (probably?) all countries in the world (Zimbabwe uses/used(?) the US dollar but I'm not aware of any other instances).

> Also it's illegal to use other currencies as tender

That's generally not true - it's not the case in the US (https://mises.org/wire/use-us-dollars-mandatory-united-state...) or the EU (https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/euro-area/eu...).

It is impractical in most places of course, but only because there isn't much demand for it, so it's hard to get bank accounts, contracts or purchases denominated in foreign currencies. Companies and individuals are free to do so, but they don't because using the predominant local currency is useful and convenient for everybody (usually).

The places where using foreign tender is illegal or tightly controlled are generally places where they have huge problems with inflation of their primary currency, like Venezuela.

Venezuela is an illustrative example of the original point here: in practice, if you make your official currency very inconvenient/impractical/expensive, people _absolutely_ will switch to an alternative. Even though paying for things in dollars in Venezuela is illegal and awkward, everybody goes through convoluted mechanisms to do so anyway because the official alternative is worse.

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

#214

Post by rorykoehler »

tgv wrote: post #178
rorykoehler wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add a UBI and it would work. There needs to be an economic floor which ensures there is no destitution. The aim isn't to get rid of wealth. The system now isn't working because wealthy people are securing their income and wealth without paying tax at the expense of social and civil programs.

Then UBI fails and everyone becomes a beggar. No thanks.

If it fails you can always revert to the current failed system.

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

#215

Post by ben_w »

Nextgrid wrote: post #135
benjaminwootton wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK you pay a flat 40% over around £45k, no ambiguity whatsoever, then 45% over £150k. Not exactly millionaire status.

150k sounds very low when you take into account this tax rate and the property prices in London.

London property is considered abnormally expensive in the U.K., and £150k is only slightly less than the £157k which the Prime Minister earns.

Median U.K. income is £29,400: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom

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

#216

Post by Grustaf »

rorykoehler wrote: post #75
jbverschoor wrote: post #64

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…

Or you live in Europe. The _average_ Danish taxpayer pays 45% in income tax. This is not counting payroll taxes that the company pays on top of that, or of course 25% on everything you buy. So the overall effective tax rate is more like 75% than 50%.

There used to be a slogan in Sweden, "half left", meaning people wanted to keep at least half of their gross pay.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2016-01-...

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

#217

Post by TimPC »

adolph wrote: post #38
neilwilson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People not knowing their tax burden: feature or bug?

The original purpose wasn’t to hide taxation but to effectively get more money via interest by the government getting paid sooner.

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

#218

Post by knuthsat »

rorykoehler wrote: post #75
jbverschoor wrote: post #64

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…

Check Austria. Without any expenses a dev with a US salary will pay more than 40% in taxes and social benefits. Let's say you have 250k EUR, 12% of it you can take without any taxes (given no expenses, which is ~25k EUR), but then on 225k you pay 112.5k to the government. That's it. Then you take into account VAT and you realize they are really sucking you dry but all of the giants in collusion with Austrian banks avoid taxes easily.

Of course, you can game the system with fictitious useful expenses (travelling but saying you went to a dev conference etc.) but it's hard to really accumulate much if you live a somewhat normal life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Austria

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

#219

Post by nivenkos »

oblio wrote: post #100
breakfastduck wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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 Random guess, they're American :-) Facebook, Google & co. are absolutely ravaging local economies, pardon me, disrupting legacy economies all over the world and a small chunk of that ends up as compensation in the US. The rest of that, FAANG are just sitt…

And the EU loves it!

Absolutely no support or protection for local companies, Linux, etc.

Where is our Baidu, Samsung, Yandex, or Sony, etc.?

The whole continent is practically a vassal state of the US, under German administration.

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

#220

Post by Grustaf »

rorykoehler wrote: post #128
edp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can expect whatever you want, but no middle class person pays as little as 25% in Europe, only the wealthy and the desperately poor get away that cheap.
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