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

761–770 of 931 posts

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#761

Post by kebman »

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…

This is not about fairness nor liberty. It's about control; incentives and subsidies, made to keep the big bosses in check, and also about making sure they don't get undue competition, since taxation like that makes it harder to compete with the giants, by both outsiders and by smaller companies since margins are lowered. In short, it's about stability and keeping up the status quo of the too big to fail.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#762

Post by saddlerustle »

dragonwriter wrote: post #759
saddlerustle wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of Apple's sales is to consumers, so it's equivalent for the sake of argument.

Its not equivalent to a revenue tax, because a VAT excludes purchase price and revenue doesn’t.

I'm not sure what you mean. If you assume all sales were to consumers it's true that the government receives ~~18% of Apple's revenue compared to if Apple sold nothing. Or are you just referring to the small difference between counting "revenue" as inclusive of VAT or exclusive of VAT?

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#763

Post by kebman »

duped wrote: post #610
oblio wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's works only if you're an investor. You're going to rebuild your home immediately, finance optimizations be damned.

But that's not what happened. People didn't rebuild their homes, they left and never came back.

As a consequence of the tax, or because of the risk of rebuilding in a flood zone?

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#764

Post by noobermin »

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…

I love the imaginary world where people debate this based on hand waving and I suppose emotional feelings and how it literally contradicts recent memory[0]. The debate is over, just like for trickle-down economics because the results have long been in, so at this point the only reason I can surmise is people who make this argument are either ignorant or selective of the facts they use, are disingenuous, or are just too high on their own supply to really interrogate it.

[0] https://apnews.com/article/438fae12f9204b1fbd8e8b1985ae554f

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#765

Post by kebman »

burlesona wrote: post #386
tzs wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note that land taxes are only assessed on the value of the land, not the value of any buildings on the land. This incentivizes land owners to put the land to its highest and best use. Doesn't it incentivize them to put land to the use that generates the most revenue? I don't see how that is necessarily the "best" use. There will almost always be a way that a yard or garden could make more revenue, for example, such…

Most serious study on this suggests it would have the opposite effect: make it harder for the wealthy to horde land in the form of low density residences in prime locations where townhomes and apartments would be a much better economic outcome enabling many more people to live affordably in close proximity to their jobs.

I don't buy that. If there's one party benefitting from such tax, it's big players who can afford tighter margins. It's a play that mostly favours monopolists, who can also afford to have "serious studies" made.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#766

Post by humaniania »

reacharavindh wrote: post #403
alien_ wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confiscating profits wouldn't work, many companies are reinvesting their profits. Probably the best way would be to just make the fines hurt more, by using a fixed and non-negligible percentage of the monthly/yearly revenue, much like Finland does for traffic fines.

I can’t believe we as a society don’t adopt this idea more. Punishment should be a percentage of taxable income of that year. The impact should equally felt regardless of your current financial status. Extending this to a corporation would simply put them in back foot in a market.. which is indeed the punishment.

Percentage of revenue seems like the least likely to be gamed metric.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#767

Post by CaptainSwing »

kinkora wrote: post #752
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…

"Every journey of a 1000 miles begins with 1 step" Maybe we should laude and celebrate that at least loads of effort was put into getting all the G7 finance ministers in one place and actually have a discussion + agree to a next step? Feels unnecessary negative and very arm chair criticism to just hand wave the whole endeavour and say "oh nothing was done and all they did was talk". I sometimes think people in the la…

You saying all politicians, even the aweful ones, should get participation awards, while us plebs should just know our place and shut up?

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#768

Post by rufus_foreman »

kinkora wrote: post #752
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…

"Every journey of a 1000 miles begins with 1 step" Maybe we should laude and celebrate that at least loads of effort was put into getting all the G7 finance ministers in one place and actually have a discussion + agree to a next step? Feels unnecessary negative and very arm chair criticism to just hand wave the whole endeavour and say "oh nothing was done and all they did was talk". I sometimes think people in the la…

> Feels unnecessary negative and very arm chair criticism to just hand wave the whole endeavour and say "oh nothing was done and all they did was talk"

They don't have the authority to negotiate the agreements that were described in the headlines as already being made.

That's called bullshit. Doesn't matter which side politically you are on, it's bullshit. Why is the BBC printing bullshit?

They don't have that authority, the BBC is lying to you, why are they doing that?

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#769

Post by [deleted] »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #23
greenwich26 wrote: post #10

Why are governments allowed to collude like this? Isn't this the same idea as price fixing? Exploiting their monopoly (governments' monopoly on the right to do commerce) to unfairly raise prices (taxes)? The world needs at least somewhere where you can opt-out from Western neoliberalism and socialism.

>Why are governments allowed to collude like this? Because otherwise everything becomes a race to the bottom.

[deleted]

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#770

Post by tormeh »

skissane wrote: post #737
occamrazor wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are actually many steps. In this case: 1. The finance ministers reach an agreement. This is what has happened. 2. A treaty is written and signed, normally by the head of state, but sometimes by the head of government (for the US in both cases the President). At this point the treaty in not yet legally binding, although according to international law the signatory country has an obligation "to refrain, in good f…

> 3. The parliament (for the US the Senate) ratifies the treaty, making it binding. Under international law, ratification happens when a state’s international representatives (head of state, ministers, ambassadors) formally lodge instruments of ratification with the depositary. (See Article 2(1)(b), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.) When the US Senate "ratifies" a treaty, that is not ratification under inter…

International law is very much a gentlemen's agreement, though. It's not like domestic law. Domestic law always wins.
Post reply on HN