G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals • Hacker News Board

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#461

Post by graphtrader » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

throwaway13337 wrote: post #44

This sounds like it will be hell for small software companies with customers all over the world. Paying taxes differently for each country of the customer you sell to is a ridiculous hardship. It only benefits the large multinationals to reduce their competition. These sorts of rules centralize markets to fewer and fewer companies able to spend the resources to fulfill more and more complex rules. The end result is h…

Not just software either. I mean what great business idea at this point is only going to have local consumers.

It is just a terrible idea on so many levels. It is like something Jay Gould would come up with once already at the top.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#462

Post by reedjosh » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #458

reedjosh wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In urban area's sure, but I don't think it's fair to call it hoarding in suburban or rural areas. There's tons of land in the US, it's just that there are no homes _right_ next to jobs and restaurants and the culture people want to live in. Now that I'm remote, I plan to move to a rural area and grow some of my own food in a single family home. I don't think that should be considered hoarding.

If you move rural you're not hoarding. If your holding a small single family home in the core of a dense city where lots of jobs are, you are hoarding. That land would probably serve society better if it had more than a single family dwelling on it, you could have 10 families in walking distance of their jobs rather than one, and 9 families commuting via car.

I'm fine with this statement, just wanted clarity. : )

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#463

Post by anoncake » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #329

Taniwha wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to legally treat corporations the same as actual humans - then tax them the same. We pay taxes for services we expect from governments, defence, policing, justice, water, sewers etc etc I don;t see why corporations that use all these things shouldn't pay their share

But then it's highly unfair to tax humans on revenue , but corporations on profit . I think the right answer is VAT + externalities taxes (LVT, Cabon tax, etc.) + UBI, which is both very easy to enforce and perhaps net progressive enough. Re "progressive enough": I don't so much care if BWM owners are screwed over relative to private jet owners on paper, I think reducing work hours and propping up demand at the botto…

If you can deduct work-related expenses, income tax is a tax on "profit".

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#464

Post by kileywm » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

rjknight wrote: post #162

I do wonder if we wouldn't be better off eliminating corporation tax entirely. The revenue of a corporation can, roughly, be: 1. Spent on goods or services from another company (including freelancers, contractors, etc.) 2. Spent on rent 3. Spent on capital purchases 4. Spent on wages 5. Spent on debt repayment or other forms of financing 6. Paid out in dividends 7. Spent on share buybacks 8. Invested in something els…

One thing to keep in mind is the non-monetary side of taxes: they are used to influence behavior. Offering employee benefits (healthcare, retirement, etc.) is incentivized by US tax code thus influencing more companies to do so.

I'm not saying that corporate behavior becomes uninfluencable when profit taxation is removed, but rather that it will require a different incentive mechanism. That is assuming that we still want to influence corporate behavior through government without legislating it.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#465

Post by williesleg » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

Great! Now we all pay more! Taxes come from somewhere.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#466

Post by mohanmcgeek » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

Naga wrote: post #15

amelius wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firstly, the G7 want a global minimum tax rate so as to avoid a "race to the bottom" where countries can undercut each other with low tax rates. Why is this necessary, if countries can just tax companies based on the money they made in their country ?

It's complicated. "Money they made in their country" is hard to define. Large companies abuse intangible assets to shift profits around, but it's hard to say at what point abuse starts. For example, Google USA sells advertising to its clients. But, the assets it is selling are actually owned by Google Ireland. Google Ireland charges Google USA a license fee of 100% of the revenue they made. Suddenly, Google USA has n…

> Probably the best solution is a minimum tax worldwide.

I saw a similar comment earlier this week. I don't understand why first world people think developing countries would agree to this minimum tax and not undercut them on day 1 to attract investments and jobs.

There are no global tax authorities. Nobody is going to enforce these things. Even this G7 treaty is going to be a mess in practice because multilateral treaties are flawed like that.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#467

Post by EastSmith » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

galangalalgol wrote: post #154

cblconfederate wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This taxes everyone along with the multinationals. The complex deals they do mean they always pay a lot less than the 12.5% or whatever the tax rate is so i don't see how raising it for everyone else will help

A flat tax on business without deduction seems like it would squash smaller players that must devote a larger percentage of their profits to fixed costs.

Deduction means hiring people to do your deductions. Flat rate for everyone means less money spent on tax consultants.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#468

Post by ncallaway » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #383

ncallaway wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the point that we call the bundle of rights corporations get “corporate personhood”. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood ) Frankly, if OP doesn’t want me to anthropomorphize corporations for tax purposes, they’ll need to go back in time and stop the courts from anthropomorphizing them for various rights. If a company gets 1A rights under citizens united, then it can have tax obligations as well.…

The anthropomorphizing I speculate about goes something like this: "I work hard and pay my taxes, Ford makes billions and pay much less tax!" But Ford is an abstract entity that is not a person and doesn't have a better life than you. All those billions are eventually paid to living humans, who do pay taxes on that income. This is the economist perspective, but it requires a level of analysis not compatible with rage…

I’m 100% fine with that perspective. However, I think it means taking away other “anthropomorphic” rights from the entity.

If you say: we’ll only collect taxes from the individuals that are paid by Microsoft, instead of taxing Microsoft, that’s fine by me. But, I would then say that Microsoft also doesn’t have free speech rights as a corporation, after all each individual in the corporation has free speech rights.

If we decide that a corporation *is* entitled to some rights granted to people (such as a right to free speech), then the corporation should also be subject to taxation, separately from all the individuals that compromise it.

I’m unwilling to give one without the other. If a company want rights, it should have obligations. If it has obligations, then the company should have rights.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#469

Post by HWR_14 » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #329

Taniwha wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to legally treat corporations the same as actual humans - then tax them the same. We pay taxes for services we expect from governments, defence, policing, justice, water, sewers etc etc I don;t see why corporations that use all these things shouldn't pay their share

But then it's highly unfair to tax humans on revenue , but corporations on profit . I think the right answer is VAT + externalities taxes (LVT, Cabon tax, etc.) + UBI, which is both very easy to enforce and perhaps net progressive enough. Re "progressive enough": I don't so much care if BWM owners are screwed over relative to private jet owners on paper, I think reducing work hours and propping up demand at the botto…

> But then it's highly unfair to tax humans on revenue, but corporations on profit.

Wow, it's a good thing we don't do that. Good news, the income you spend to further your business is deductible. We include a personal exemption for generic costs, child exemptions, mortgage exemptions, healthcare cost exemptions, retirement savings exemptions, and numerous others.

Additionally, the whole concept behind a progressive income tax is to tax people in a similar way to taxing them on profit. After all, percent of income spent on necessary goods goes down as income goes up.

But I don't think anyone wants a system where this is done by itemized receipts instead of with generalizations.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#470

Post by jfengel » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

throwaway34241 wrote: post #448

bumby wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this similar to a gross receipts tax?

No, a gross receipts tax is on sales and not profits. If I understand it correctly (I don't know the details for every state), a gross receipts tax doesn't even adjust for value added (the VA in VAT). For example say a few companies are involved in producing a good (starting from raw materials) so the supply chain looks like this: $7 (raw materials) -> $8 (components) - > $9 (finished good wholesale) -> $10 (store pr…

With a VAT each layer deducts the tax they pay. The net tax is only on the the value added. The company in the middle pays tax on $7 and collects tax on $8, and forwards the difference.

It's very elegant and fair, but imposes a lot of accounting. Sales tax is easier in that it only collects at the end, but it's actually hard to define "end". (Buy a screw and you pay tax, buy a manufacturer buying the same screw usually does not.)

There are still problems about regressive taxation (are stock profits value add? Services? Plain old labor? What's the difference? Usually poor people end up paying the taxes on everything while rich people buy things that aren't subject to the system). Still, if you want to tax profits on consumables, it's remarkably straightforward.