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

theguardian.com

301–310 of 467 posts

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

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, so Microsoft still (not so) indirectly contributes to the tax coffers. But it's still pretty bad that the rich MS shareholders can benefit from schemes like these, while employees can't.

I'm not defending MS at all, but it's not correct to say "I'm contributing 40% plus corporation tax while Microsoft contributes nothing".

I'm not saying that, I'm saying the opposite. But perhaps you're referring to what someone else said.

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

#302
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the current corporate tax laws basically punish single-nation companies, while giving multinationals a free pass. International tax laws desperately need an overhaul.

Better yet, dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income, both capital gains and salary. The amount of human time and energy wasted on taxation is mind bogglingly stupid. Politicians trying to influence the behavior of their minions by designing these convoluted "tax-based incentive" schemes is the whole problem in the first place. Just tax all money that comes in…

There is no single change that could be made to tax policy that'd fix this. Instead, we have to find ways to empower the government and make them willing to take what's ours - ours in the sense that the people deserve that their representatives take hold of what belongs to the people. Individual changes to policy will force the artistic accountants to devise new workarounds.

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

#304
post #43

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.

Taxing mega corporations is essential. I would add that you need to tax them to oblivion after shareholder’s expectations are reasonably satisfied. If you don’t, you essentially create rogue institutions with deep pockets that will attempt to take political control of the nation for their selfish interests. Adam Smith had interesting things to say about that.

Why is a corporation with political power worse than a government? You will probably say that I have more control over government because of democracy. But in practice I have a stronger control mechanism over corporations, who I can choose to pay for services. When there is a problem with my Amazon package, I get quick responsive customer service. If you have a problem with government, good luck!

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

#305
post #289
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they do that ? The light tax they require from those entity still benefits them immensily, because those entity choose to pay them there instead of elsewhere. If Ireland introduced more taxes those big corps would move away, so they would actually receive less...

The definition of a parasitic economy. Other countries are well in their rights to pressure Ireland as hard as they can to end this theft.

I agree other countries can do what this wish but realistically what's the carrot for Ireland though?

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

#306
post #113
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country is your corp registered in? In U.S. you can register and S. Corp to avoid being double taxed.

The disadvantage of an S. Corp is that you don't have any flexibility in evening out profit distributions between good years and bad years, right?

This is correct. If you know the income will arrive in the future, you should aggressively shop banks looking for a line of credit to even out your lumpy income. The interest paid to the bank for the LOC is tax deductible by the business.

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

#307
post #272
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they do that ? The light tax they require from those entity still benefits them immensily, because those entity choose to pay them there instead of elsewhere. If Ireland introduced more taxes those big corps would move away, so they would actually receive less...

You can't receive less than zero

Income taxes from employees of these megacorps is where Ireland makes the money back.

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

#308

There shouldn’t be „corporate taxes“. They tend to be difficult to collect, troublesome to declare and actually can not contribute much to national budgets. Think about it: Employees of multinational companies pay billions of income tax. Customers buying products and services from multinational pay billions in VAT. Shareholders of multinationals receiving dividends pay billions of capital gains tax. So what exactly i…

Well it all depends on your ideas about taxation, society and the role of government.

It is true that huge corporations already "give back" a lot of the money they collected under various forms (income tax, VAT, etc.)

But if you think that the role of government is necessary, then you agree that it should collect taxe to exercise this role. And money is taken where money is. We tax corporations because they make benefits, and a benefit is just a way of saying that even after deducting everything they can think of, they still have money they don't need. So why not take a part of it and re-invest it elsewhere where it is needed ?

Ultimately there is no proper justification for any tax, except its necessity to let society fonction properly.

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

#309

There shouldn’t be „corporate taxes“. They tend to be difficult to collect, troublesome to declare and actually can not contribute much to national budgets. Think about it: Employees of multinational companies pay billions of income tax. Customers buying products and services from multinational pay billions in VAT. Shareholders of multinationals receiving dividends pay billions of capital gains tax. So what exactly i…

> So what exactly is left for a corporate tax to collect?

£220bn in profit last year.

It's in the headline.

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

#310
post #289
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they do that ? The light tax they require from those entity still benefits them immensily, because those entity choose to pay them there instead of elsewhere. If Ireland introduced more taxes those big corps would move away, so they would actually receive less...

The definition of a parasitic economy. Other countries are well in their rights to pressure Ireland as hard as they can to end this theft.

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