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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

#331

Post by unglaublich »

jamsiedaly wrote: post #261
cheph wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Ireland not a democracy? Can't they vote to change their own tax laws if they have a problem with them?

I am from Ireland and from talking to friends and family most people are pretty happy with it. We give them a pass on taxes and they employ thousands of high end engineers here. We then collect large income tax revenues from these workers and subsidise the rest of the country.

Yes, skim off trillions of potential tax revenues of other countries to earn a billion or two as a single country. Effectively a Prisoner's dilemma on an international scale.

Countries like Ireland and the Netherlands are nothing more than tax avoidance puppets of a few big companies. And the sad thing is that their governments think it's good what they do while it's a downwards spiral instead.

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

#332

Post by G3rn0ti »

chipsambos wrote: post #309
G3rn0ti wrote: post #245

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.

Well, thanks for your snarky comment. ;)

The profit goes out to shareholders as dividends, to employees as salary rises and into investments of a corporate’s means of production hopefully generating more growth and, hence, growing tax returns.

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

#333

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

new_here wrote: post #182

Take a moment to comprehend those numbers: FY18/19 - under $10bn profit FY19/20 - $314.7bn profit (3/4 of Ireland's GDP) and paid no tax on it. > The subsidiary, which collects licence fees for use of copyrighted Microsoft software around the world, recorded an annual profit of $314.7bn in the year to the end of June 2020, according to accounts filed at the Irish Companies Registration Office. Its profits jumped from…

TBH, it looks like this was just money moved around from other low/no-tax subsidiaries.

    Profit after tax increased ... due to the liquidation of two subsidiaries.
Like, it's still bad, but this money presumably represents many years of accumulated profits, as otherwise the number makes no sense (MS made a profit of $14bn in 2020).

See: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20794038-microsoft-r... for the actual directors report.

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

#334

Post by yohannparis »

nix23 wrote: post #312
pembrook wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income No thanks, you have no right to tell us (Switzerland) how much taxes we have to pay. First fix your own US-tax-system. EDIT: I think he meant that: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/11/bidens-plan...

I think the author of your quote meant global as in "one form for all USA taxes related to income", not as in "international".

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

#335

Post by djbebs »

axlee wrote: post #283
pembrook wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Better yet, dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income, both capital gains and salary. Fraudsters skirted that by keeping their corporation's assets on the books and expensing everything, never actually receiving/spending anything themselves.

Small sibgle owner companies do that a lot. Big multinationals? No

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

#336

Post by m12k »

nix23 wrote: post #312
pembrook wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income No thanks, you have no right to tell us (Switzerland) how much taxes we have to pay. First fix your own US-tax-system. EDIT: I think he meant that: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/11/bidens-plan...

Agreed, trying to get the whole world to agree on a single tax rate (0 or otherwise) is unrealistic, and completely ignores the sovereignty of countries to design their tax system as they please. What needs to happen is a modernized way to calculate which percentage of global profits from each company are taxable in which country, and then leave it up to each country how to tax that (or not). The current system lets companies cook the books in a way where they can effectively relocate their profits to any country they want.

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

#337

Post by softveda »

nly wrote: post #89
oarsinsync wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the UK and still using dividends as a significant method to self-compensate, you may benefit from speaking to a (better) accountant. (Your circumstances may vary, this is not financial advice, YOLO, etc)

It mostly depends if you intend to make significant pension contributions. Let's say your company has £100K to play with and you want it all. - You can pay yourself a £100K salary, of which take home pay will be about ~£67K - You can pay yourself a £8,840 salary tax free in order to qualify for the state pension but minimize national insurance, and pay 19% corporation tax on the remaining £91,160, which leaves £73,83…

I am surprised such loopholes still exist in UK. In Australia if you setup a company and 80% of the company's income is only from your own personal services from a single client then your company has to pay tax on personal income tax rates. These sort of loopholes were closed many moons back.

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

#338

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

rwmj wrote: post #69
nly wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Republic of Ireland isn't part of the UK, but your point still applies.

The company is tax "resident" in Bermuda, a British Overseas Territory. In fact I'm not even sure what the Ireland connection is here except that there is a registered office in Dublin. It seems like all the action is taking place in Bermuda, so this is really a story about UK overseas tax havens.

The Irish part is there to allow it to funnel EU profits, and ireland allows for countries to be registered there, but not tax-resident.

Interestingly enough though, almost all of the zero tax places are British Crown dependencies, so presumably the UK government could exert pressure on them, if it really wanted to.

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

#339

Post by pc86 »

msiyer wrote: post #328
pc86 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument comes up a lot but nobody is paying 50% income tax in the US. Even if you make a million dollars a year in W2 income, in California, which has the highest marginal tax rate, you'll pay roughly 40% effective, almost entirely to the federal government. Realistically you're going to make a lot less than that W2, which drives the effective rate down considerably, and as remote work becomes more of an expect…

Income tax is not the only tax one pays. Every penny one spends, saves and withdraws is taxed. It may add up to more than 50% in some instances.

The thread is specifically about income taxes. Everyone always wants to act like $0.75 of every dollar they make goes to The Man but it's just not true. Most of the money you make, you keep, to spend on your needs and wants.

People making a quarter million a year whinging about income taxes is offensive by its own right, but it becomes even more so when they arbitrarily double the amount actually paid to try to prove from technolibertarian talking point nonsense.

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

#340

Post by msiyer »

new_here wrote: post #182

Take a moment to comprehend those numbers: FY18/19 - under $10bn profit FY19/20 - $314.7bn profit (3/4 of Ireland's GDP) and paid no tax on it. > The subsidiary, which collects licence fees for use of copyrighted Microsoft software around the world, recorded an annual profit of $314.7bn in the year to the end of June 2020, according to accounts filed at the Irish Companies Registration Office. Its profits jumped from…

It will trickle down one day. You just have to wait for it.
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