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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

#391

Post by apercu »

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #374
apercu wrote: post #327

This is really, really, really a problem. I know a lot of us make decent money and we write large "checks" to the government because we're in high tax brackets, but seriously. The middle class has gotten smaller. If you live in a city a house costs a million dollars. Many people don't have adequate healthcare. Yet we are allowing the richest people in the world to have astronomical profits and pay no tax to help cove…

- a government borrows heavily and spends on useless things that won't generate future revenue (unlike roads, education which would) - government raises taxes because they can no longer borrow to spend on things - companies decide to keep their international profits in international accounts because that money to their country seems foolish at that point. - somehow that's affecting the "poor" people in the said very…

Libertarianism makes me smile.

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

#392

Post by ornornor »

pc86 wrote: post #291
ornornor wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And seen in another thread: Microsoft is lobbying the US govt to spend 250 million to make more software engineers by introducing computer courses in schools so that there are more SE on the market in the future so that they can hire for cheaper. Meanwhile, individuals are paying 20–50% income tax. What a wonderful world.

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…

- the world is bigger than the US, there are places in Europe where a 50 or 55% tax rate is a thing (hi Netherlands)

- if it’s not to drive the cost down, why else increase supply? It’s a sellers market at the moment and the big five hate it because it means they must pay engineers more because they have to, gasp, compete (for talent in that case)

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

#393

Post by ornornor »

pc86 wrote: post #339
msiyer wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The world extends beyond the US and there are places in the EU where a 50–55% marginal tax rate is a thing.

I’m not against paying taxes at all, my comment was about MS (in that case) making over 300bn and paying 0.00$ of taxes while individuals make 10–100k and pay significantly more taxes than MS Ireland did on their 300bn. I don’t think that’s fair. Furthermore, individuals are unable to make business deductions that MS and other companies can (and spend pretax dollars to buy things while the rest of us spends after tax dollars)

My post was to point out that corporations are massively advantaged in comparison with actual, alive human beings.

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

#394

Post by tgv »

rorykoehler wrote: post #214
tgv wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

In my country, UBI is supposed to go hand in hand with dismantling all social welfare, subsidies, whathaveyou. Once all the laws have been changed, and the civil service has been completely reorganized, it's a titanic fight to get them reverted, and after that, all the institutions still have to be put back in place. It would take 20 years.

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

#395

Post by gher-shyu3i »

apercu wrote: post #389
gher-shyu3i wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you recommend as a solution? Do you honestly think if MS and a few other companies paid more in tax things will magically get better? Do you trust the government to send that money properly? The problem runs much much deeper. This is only scratching the surface.

I can't speak for places outside of the Americas because I've only travelled in the Americas for the last 10 years. But from Northern Quebec to Idaho to Florida to Nassau to Saskatoon bridges are cracking, rail is buckling, public transportation is lacking, etc. Health care wait times are bad or prices are ridiculous because of the false market we have created. So do I think governments having more money NOT by squee…

> So do I think governments having more money NOT by squeezing me and all those I live near more is a good thing? Why yes, yes I do.

Unfortunately, those same governments don't see it as a mutually exclusive matter. They want to both tax you and everyone else. Not only that, they will end up wasting that money and nothing will get accomplished. You said it yourself, Canada has very bad wait times for healthcare. We need a fundamental solution.

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

#396

Post by Semaphor »

pembrook wrote: post #390
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> simply enforce a global flat tax Enforced by whom? Why would a developing country want to tax companies at the same level if they're trying to attract investments? Anyway, why should any country listen to any other country on what the tax rate should be? Why should a company be forced to pay tax on foreign income if the country in which they supposedly made that income doesn't want to them to pay taxes? The worst p…

> Why would a developing country want to tax companies at the same level The point of removing corporate tax is to not tax companies at all. Remove the decision of how to position your country against others altogether. You could enforce these things by creating a free-trade area for anybody who joins, and excluding or putting stiff tariffs on those who don't.

> You could enforce these things by creating a free-trade area for anybody who joins, and excluding those who don't.

Then you need those free trade agreements. Remember the last time when it was only between EU and US? Protests in many European countries and in the end Trump decided to break it off.

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

#397

Post by pembrook »

axlee wrote: post #362
djbebs wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because they don't have to. They would go back to that in a heartbeat if they had to. It's about maximizing shareholder's revenues, post-tax.

There would be no way to do that with a giant public company.

Instead of distributing profits to shareholders, is Microsoft going to buy 1,000,000 BMWs for their investors and hold them on their books as company cars to dodge taxes? Not practical.

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

#398

Post by Grustaf »

rorykoehler wrote: post #387
Grustaf wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I wrote elsewhere, if you make below 50 k in Germany and your wife isn't working, I don't think that's a very comfortable life style.

I want for nothing. Edit: I just want you be clear here. I think the tax rate is way too high even at 25% effective tax rate. The system is overburdening poor people no doubt about it but I also think we should not fudge the numbers by claiming we pay the top tax band rates as effective rate because it invalidates whatever else we say after that. It’s dishonest. IMO effective tax rate should be <5% and actually 0% fo…

As I wrote somewhere, most middle class people people in Europe pay way more than 25%, the average in Denmark being 45%. With payroll tax it would be more like 55%, and it really makes no sense NOT to count payroll taxes.

And 5% is not realistic, even if you eliminate all the pork, corruption and inefficiencies. You can't provide education and healthcare and maintain infrastructure for 5%.

I hate paying taxes but 20% would definitely not feel unreasonable for all those things, I'd pay that happily.

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

#399

Post by nivenkos »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #338
rwmj wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why haven't Germany, France, etc. pressured Ireland to stop this?

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

#400

Post by rorykoehler »

tgv wrote: post #394
rorykoehler wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In my country, UBI is supposed to go hand in hand with dismantling all social welfare, subsidies, whathaveyou. Once all the laws have been changed, and the civil service has been completely reorganized, it's a titanic fight to get them reverted, and after that, all the institutions still have to be put back in place. It would take 20 years.

There are no hard rules on structure of other programs in relation to ubi. It would be foolish to remove support for special needs etc. Unemployment benefits, public pensions etc can go away but the rest must be looked at on a case by case basis.
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