Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 931 posts

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#561

Post by nohuck13 »

CameronNemo wrote: post #549
rufus_foreman wrote: post #540

>> The G7 group of advanced economies has reached a "historic" deal to make multinational companies pay more tax No, it hasn't. Some finance ministers met and talked: "Finance ministers meeting in London agreed to battle tax avoidance by making companies pay more in the countries where they do business. They also agreed in principle to a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% to avoid countries undercutting each ot…

The executive is allowed to make executive agreements without consent of congress.

In the US, executive orders cannot change tax law, since the "power of the purse" is constitutionally reserved for congress.

If you're thinking of the Iran nuclear deal, that's head-of-state stuff where the president is considered to have more powers (though of course it still was never a treaty, so could be/was scrapped easily by the next administration).

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#562

Post by mnouquet »

jokoon wrote: post #158

I already said that the pandemic would force the entire world to lean to the left in terms of politics. It's inevitable. I'm very happy about that decision, but I'm not really confident it will lead to something. I'm also a bit cynic that it took a pandemic to make countries realize they need money. I'm also waiting to see if government are really planning to fight against tax havens. The problem is that it's impossi…

> I already said that the pandemic would force the entire world to lean to the left in terms of politics. It's inevitable.

Do you mean totalitarian, correct ?

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#563

Post by pmalynin »

HWR_14 wrote: post #469
Ericson2314 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Huh? How is it not unfair that, for example I can’t deduct rent from my income? A company would be able to do that. What about amortizing the cost of my domicile over 30 years?

The personal exemptions are a sham and do not reflect the reality of high cost of living areas.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#564

Post by mnouquet »

logicchains wrote: post #229
dgb23 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The massive infrastructure and education is free then?

If you actually looked at any western country's budget, you'd see the vast mmajority of tax revenue is spent on welfare (and in the US case, warfare); only a miniscule amount is spent on infrastucture. Singapore for instance has way better education outcomes and infrastructure than most western countries in spirte of way lower taxes.

> you'd see the vast mmajority of tax revenue is spent on welfare

By "welfare", I guess you meant the sponsoring of useless administrative job meant to ensure easy mechanical turk work to appease the masses.

The money actually going for care is pretty minimal.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#565

Post by a1369209993 »

bckr wrote: post #551
usrusr wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. It's a fixing the algorithm vs tweaking some parameters situation. PS: if I were to design a state I would make it a part of the constitution that laws must either be written with placeholder variables for any concrete numbers you'd want to put into them or specify only concrete values for those placeholders and nothing else. And no single vote can contain both kinds at once.

Expand on this please? What would be excluded in the "nothing else"? And what good would it do to ban single votes on both parameters and constants?

Based on pattern-matching on my own political science knowledge, they're saying that a legislative act can either: establish a law, but all numbers must be unspecified placeholder parameters, or: specify the (new) values for the parameters of some existing law, but without changing the text of the law. A single vote cannot apply to both.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#566

Post by summerlight »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #540

>> The G7 group of advanced economies has reached a "historic" deal to make multinational companies pay more tax No, it hasn't. Some finance ministers met and talked: "Finance ministers meeting in London agreed to battle tax avoidance by making companies pay more in the countries where they do business. They also agreed in principle to a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% to avoid countries undercutting each ot…

Yeah, it is merely a high level blueprint for the actual treaty. There should be lots of details to be hashed out coming months (or years).

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#567

Post by rsj_hn »

pmalynin wrote: post #563
HWR_14 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Huh? How is it not unfair that, for example I can’t deduct rent from my income? A company would be able to do that. What about amortizing the cost of my domicile over 30 years? The personal exemptions are a sham and do not reflect the reality of high cost of living areas.

> How is it not unfair that, for example I can’t deduct rent from my income?

Tax policy isn't set by moral arguments, it's set by government need for revenue which is then tweaked by political pressure groups.

The reason why you can deduct mortgage interest but not rent has nothing to do with fairness, which is undefined and a massively ambiguous term, but because banks, which are the primary beneficiaries of mortgage subsidies, have a lot more political power in Washington than landlords, who would be the primary beneficiaries of national rent subsidies.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#568

Post by oceanplexian »

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…

> 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 net profit of 0 and Google Ireland has a large net profit.

I have an even easier solution, and it doesn't require an International Tax Police or Global Government. Lower taxes. Perhaps even eliminate them. There are many ways to achieve this such as eliminating government pensions, removing entitlements, and cutting defense spending and foreign aid. Instead of robbing Apple or Google to buy F35's and ship cash to the Middle East, perhaps we could cut them a break to hire and build things in the USA.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#570

Post by marcosdumay »

cal5k wrote: post #556
Tostino wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a reductionist view of things. No one serious is arguing for that.

Top marginal income tax rates in many countries now exceed 50%, not even considering payroll tax, property tax, sales tax, etc. The question is: how can anyone seriously support tax rates that high? After a certain level, more than half your time is spent working for the government - failure to pay means fines and possible jail time. This is serfdom. Higher corporate tax rates should not be applauded by anyone. Highe…

> Top marginal income tax rates in many countries now exceed 50%

You mean, for people right? I have never heard about any place that taxes anywhere near 50% of a corporation revenue, but yeah, it's not rare to find places that tax more than 50% of a worker's income (all taxes in, if you are talking exclusively about income tax, I never heard about it either).

Why do corporations need lower taxes than individuals?

Post reply on HN