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Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

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Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all the arguments to be made about corporate taxation, this one makes the absolute least sense.

Taxing revenue does shut off many tax loopholes. Accounting can play lots of games with profit/loss, but revenue is much harder to obfuscate. However this basically just seems like a Sales Tax to me, which we already have in most countries.

Which is why this thinking morphs from sales-tax to VAT, so it captures the revenue across the supply-chain.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#72

The idea that politicians and bureaucracies can defer to external international conventions to be the bad-cop for wildly unpopular policy decisions - and then claim to be powerless to stop them - is anathema to democratic principles like national representation, consent of the governed, and other concepts of human rights. This proposal seems like a global group of government affiliated people colluding to fleece each…

International corporations are not citizens. That premise is absurd.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#73
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all the arguments to be made about corporate taxation, this one makes the absolute least sense.

I would say that most of the problems with wealthy people not paying their "fair" share (what ever that might be) is the fact that people are taxed on income and corporations are taxed on profit. Many wealthy people do what they want to do with companies (taxed only on profits) or non-profits (not taxed at all!), while the average Joe is taxed on their income. It would be a good idea to have both people and companies…

The answer seems to be that we should tax capital gains and income at the same level. This would disincentive investment on the margin, but it seems like it might be the better tradeoff. Alternatively you can go the other rough and tax consumption (progressively) which would benefit accumulation.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#74

This is a new kind of imperialism. The G7 makes up the rules, under the guise of fighting tax evasion or financing of terrorist activities. Then they make all the less powerful countries comply to those rules. If they do not, they get greylisted or blacklisted by some "international" watchdog, making it much harder for those countries to participate in the global economy. Of course only the poorer less influential co…

Do you actually have any backing for these claims, or is this all pure speculation?

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#75

This is a new kind of imperialism. The G7 makes up the rules, under the guise of fighting tax evasion or financing of terrorist activities. Then they make all the less powerful countries comply to those rules. If they do not, they get greylisted or blacklisted by some "international" watchdog, making it much harder for those countries to participate in the global economy. Of course only the poorer less influential co…

Also interesting (secret TPP) bit: "The deal also reportedly includes a framework to eliminate digital services taxes, which targeted the biggest American tech companies."

In other words, if you sell to us, we'll call it dumping, but in areas we monopolize, sovereign governments must have no role in the free market.

Up next, countries in the system must respect human rights as defined by Radio Free Europe.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#76

This is a new kind of imperialism. The G7 makes up the rules, under the guise of fighting tax evasion or financing of terrorist activities. Then they make all the less powerful countries comply to those rules. If they do not, they get greylisted or blacklisted by some "international" watchdog, making it much harder for those countries to participate in the global economy. Of course only the poorer less influential co…

It does seem like e.g. the US could impose this unilaterally. You, a company, have to make two tax returns: one on all the money you made here, and one on all the money you and/or your relevant "parent" corporation made elsewhere. Same rules to calculate taxes in both cases. On the latter return, you can subtract the sum of the taxes you paid elsewhere from the tax owed. The rest belongs to the US government.

At that point there'd be no point in a country offering cut-rate taxes to any corporation that does substantial business in the US, because taxes on any profit realized internationally will still be collected. It's just that the US is taking them rather than the country that's offering the cut-rate tax deal. So that country (Ireland or whoever) no longer benefits from having low corporate taxes, and they might as well have taxes at least as high as those in the US.

It seems like any sufficiently important country or union could impose a rule like this if they wanted to. There must be some facet of international law that prevents it, or some other complexity to the idea that I'm missing.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#78
post #59

“For decades, the United States has participated in a self-defeating international tax competition, lowering our corporate tax rates only to watch other nations lower theirs in response. The result was a global race to the bottom: Who could lower their corporate rate further and faster? No nation has won this race,” Translation, "We want to have these corporations in our country so badly that we keep paying more and…

Isn't it a consensus position among economists that corporate taxation is inefficient and badly targeted? That taxes on individuals (wages, goods&services, capital gains) and on land are easier to collect and better at providing desired incentives?

Really, isn't a "race to the bottom" a virtuous cycle here?

Kinda weird to see Yellen -- Treasury Secretary and former Fed Chair -- making this kind of statement.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#79
post #13

Anyone got a list of the countries? I tried googling around a bit to try to find it. At least other articles[1] mention all G20 countries are on board. That would include India, Russia and most importantly China. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57573380

I worry about a place like Russia. I could easily see them signing on to this. 15% of profit, just like everywhere else. But the reality might turn out to be that, for 1% of profit, under the table to the right person, they'd only take 5% of profit, but supply you with the paperwork saying that they took 15%. You know that someone will do that. If not Russia, someone else. There's too much money for it not to happen.

Big companies would avoid this like the plague.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#80
post #29

When the benefits of creating a new country outweigh the costs (to shareholders), does it fall within the fiduciary duty of corporate leaders to form a new country?

A corporate country. Is that a dictatorship of the shareholders?
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