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

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#811

Post by CalChris » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 3:07 AM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #791

CalChris wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate taxes are not expenses. An expense is the cost of operations that a company incurs to generate revenue, either on cost or accrual basis. Corporate taxes are based on declared profits, gross revenue net of these expenses. Furthermore, these taxes are not paid by all of us. They are paid by the owners of the corporation who and which receive considerable benefit from the government services they are paying fo…

Effectively they're paid by the customers though. Investors will want to get their return on the money they invested regardless what happens. If they can't get their return they will simply invest in something else and the business never gets off the ground.

These are accounting definitions.

For example, if a corporation has no profit, common for startups trying to get off the ground, they pay no corporate income tax. This is the case because corporations pay income tax on profit not revenue. Having no corporate income tax would only shift that burden from the economic use case to elsewhere which is what happens with the FAANGs and multinationals. That elsewhere ends up as brick and mortar and individuals. BTW, tax fairness means lower as well. Brick and mortar and individuals would pay less if the FAANGs and multinationals paid fairly.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#812

Post by hliyan » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 3:33 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #696

thinkloop wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is a wealth tax is almost impossible to implement. People will form crappy charities or put the money in their kids' names or move it to the Caribbean or some other gymnastics that will make worse use of the money overall.

If the wealth tax is uniform it doesn't matter if they put it in crappy charities or their kids names or whatever - the crappy charity or kids will still need to pay the tax. I see bigger problems with evasion and valuation. Evasion can be solved by coupling the wealth tax with enforcement of property rights. You own an offshore bank account, somebody steals from that offshore bank account, you show up in court to pr…

Tying property rights to declared wealth only, is how I envision solving this problem as well. The proposal may have flaws, but I suspect it's still better than what we have now.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#813

Post by heliodor » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 3:37 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #518

heliodor wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the self-sustaining farmer who doesn't need to work in society? Completely capable individual, has a certain way of life, and suddenly they don't need to contribute? How about the person who has so much wealth that they will never need to work in their life? Government is labor that benefits the people. The only way an individual can escape the duty is if they are incapable or if society deems that they des…

Indeed. Which is the reason why my conclusion was opposite to the opinion. The real world gets in the way of it being practical. But in my ideal world inheritance is considered income and is taxed as such. And on a logistical curve a billionaire inheritance is taxed really close to 100%. Anybody that has earned so much money they no longer need to work has paid as much in taxes (and continue to do so as interest is t…

Wow, that's some pretty dystopian stuff.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#814

Post by known » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 3:39 AM UTC

I think rich nations should collect tax on behalf of poor nations from the multinationals;

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#815

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 3:55 AM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #801

bumby wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to underscore what was previously stated, I think this philosophy would drastically change the paradigm. I’m guessing it would severely restrict the money flowing into stocks which would have repercussions in other areas like pensions etc. Point being, I don’t think it can just be layered onto the existing system without serious blowback.

As I wrote, there could be an exception for non-voting stock. At least temporarily. But ultimately, it's supposed to change the paradigm. Because currently the economy is run by paperclip maximizers that no human is held responsible for. Which is not ideal.

[deleted]

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#816

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 4:01 AM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #801

bumby wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to underscore what was previously stated, I think this philosophy would drastically change the paradigm. I’m guessing it would severely restrict the money flowing into stocks which would have repercussions in other areas like pensions etc. Point being, I don’t think it can just be layered onto the existing system without serious blowback.

As I wrote, there could be an exception for non-voting stock. At least temporarily. But ultimately, it's supposed to change the paradigm. Because currently the economy is run by paperclip maximizers that no human is held responsible for. Which is not ideal.

[deleted]

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#817

Post by dingaling » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 4:06 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #792

humaniania wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Two companies with $100M in revenue, one with 2% margin and one with 50% margin. You’d fine then the same amount?

> You’d fine then the same amount?

Progressive fines on people are based on their income, not how much they have left in the bank at the end of the month.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#818

Post by Ericson2314 » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 4:18 AM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #744

Ericson2314 wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah not sure what GP is saying. VAT can absolutely suck up a huge amount of money. The UBI makes it far less regressive, basically to the point I no longer care. (VAT + UBI is great for everyone but those 90th percentile luxury-car-and-McMansion-owning inner ring suburb types that are the Democrat's favorite constituency :/)

Coupling a regressive tax with money transfer creates an inverse "V" shaped effective tax rate that will squeeze some part of the society (probably on the middle class). If the taxes and transfers are diverse enough, one can reduce that problem by making them compensating each other, but if you make VAT + UBI make the lion share of the government's money flow, it will be a really large problem.

Yes the nadir of the V is the inner-ring BMW suburb class, I so disparaged. And I really meant it when I said I didn't care about them.

It might sound like I'm being a culture warrior chest-thumper about those "liberal elites", but I really do mean something more material / economic here. I think most of that classes struggles (and they do take on huge debts) would not be worsened by taking away their money.

- This is the class most thirstiest about getting their kinds into good schools without being able to donate their way in. But the scarcity of "good jobs" that motivates this credentialism relates to inadequate demand of the masses. Giving them more money won't help the fact that the Keynesian feedback loop has broken down, causing the job scarcity. (And really, consumption not work is the goal, we should fix the feedback loop by working less not consuming more, beyond guaranteeing basic needs.)

- This the class hitching lots of their wealth on real estate, but it's precisely because our cultural obsession with owning single family homes that good land (i.e. that with good access to the other good land where people need to go) is in perpetual short supply. Even if they are the "vacation home" winners of the current ponzie skin, the portion of winners will bleed away in successive generations if housing continues to be a "good investment" --- and thus unattainable to increasingly many people.

- Perhaps this class is less affected by expensive healthcare (other than the richer ones above), but would still benefit from it being cheaper. Not a majority of them is doctors or biotech researchers or whoever else benefits from our shitty healthcare system.

So yes, I think even if they are at the tax advantage nadir, they still are benefitting:

- Richer masses fix their job anxieties

- We should separately fix real estate and transit so they can be at peace in condos not mcmansions

- We should separately fix healthcare to their slight advantage.

Also, I sincerely hope and empowered working classes / lower classes will prevent the richest billionaires from emerging (at least more than transiently), so the 0.1% stuff should be far more of a theoretically problem as we get a "thinner vertical tail" power law.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#819

Post by anfilt » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

skissane wrote: post #785

tormeh wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't agree that domestic law always wins. It all depends on the situation. If a country's domestic law violates international law, the extent to which that country gets away with it depends a lot on how powerful that country is. Great powers have much more ability to violate international law with impunity than small countries do. And in this particular case, it is not that US law and international law are actuall…

Nations are sovereign they can do what they want. Short of going to war its hard to force a country todo something it does not want too. Although if you pull out of agreement don't expect the other country to continue following it.

Also there are other countries not part of this talk nothings stops a company from setting up there and doing the same tax games. So i dont see how this idea does anything

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#820

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #240

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…

If you’re going down this route, many will argue that all forms of income tax are equally “wrong”. Henry George - a 19th century political economist - proposed exactly this, and suggested the only thing that should be taxed should be land: impossible to hide from a tax inspector, potentially a waste to the public commons if useful land that could be exploited isn’t and you can even protect land you wish to keep prist…

This is more about corporate activities leading to other kind of taxes. E.g. they pay rent, the landlord pays property tax, they pay salaries, employees pay income taxes, dividends are taxed, capital gains on stock price rises are taxed, etc...

The problem with corporate taxation is that...we really want R&D and employment to be tax deductible for them, but a company like Amazon can just plow all their profits into R&D and focus on growth (even without R&D tax credits, they would still take a loss on earnings due to R&D outlays). Of course, all of that R&D money is still mostly taxed (via tech worker income taxes), so its not like the government isn't seeing any of it. Corporate income taxes really come down hard on a successful company that doesn't have any avenue to grow...maybe they should?