21–30 of 68 posts
On one level, this is a good thing as there has been a race to the bottom going on in terms of taxes for some time. But on another level, this is very bad because national tax policy is now being set by unelected diplomats instead of congress. It's an ominous admission that western democracy is now unable to operate as it's meant to and set policy in a way that reflects the desires and interests of the citizens. I kn…
On one level, this is a good thing as there has been a race to the bottom going on in terms of taxes for some time. But on another level, this is very bad because national tax policy is now being set by unelected diplomats instead of congress. It's an ominous admission that western democracy is now unable to operate as it's meant to and set policy in a way that reflects the desires and interests of the citizens. I kn…
That comes off as a little hyperbolic to me. Those governments are supposedly already taking choices they feel reflect the desires and interests of their citizens which means entering into this tax agreement is such a reflection.
There’s no world government enforcing that states remain a member of this agreement so they can always leave them later if their citizens feel that way as well.
It’s not like this was done entirely out of altruism from states looking out for their fellow man. Nation states are pretty nakedly self interested hence the phrase “nations have no friends only interests”. They all must feel they are getting something from the deal
Why is there such pessimism/paranoia about this deal in this thread?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whenever some one visits Hacker News, where is Ycombinator "doing business" from? The country where the visitor is located? The country where the Hacker News moderators/programmers are located? The country where Ycombinator is headquartered? The location of the Hacker News servers? The location of the advertisers on HackerNews? If each country makes up their own tax rules to determine where Ycombinator is doing busin…
I think there is a single entity that determines allocation. Details TBD. It’s a one liner in the following doc; https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-on-a-two-pillar-solu...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
US: 21% China: 15%/25% Japan: 29.74% Germany: 29.65% UK: 19% France: 26.5% India: 15%/22% Italy: 27.9% Countries with two values listed have different rates for different types of companies e.g. China has a lower rate for “high-tech” companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
That makes this sound more like a corporate win - 15 % is already the lowest one, and this agreement can be used as a way to wiggle out from something more useful, like revenue tax or VAT.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Repub...
"Ireland's "headline" corporation tax rate is 12.5%, however, foreign multinationals pay an aggregate § Effective tax rate (ETR) of 2.2–4.5% on global profits "shifted" to Ireland, via Ireland's global network of bilateral tax treaties."
Step 1) global harmonization of trade Step 2) common monetary system Step 3) global harmonization of tax structure Step 3) one global government (similar to EU) Is that a good thing or a bad thing ? Yes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is a single entity that determines allocation. Details TBD. It’s a one liner in the following doc; https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-on-a-two-pillar-solu...
I just now read that... a lot of details to be worked out, and lot of opportunity for this to fail long before implementation.
Did something happen to cause mutual cooperation between most of the planet to be viewed as a bad thing? All these countries have come to an agreement by negotiation instead of economic or martial war. Why is there such pessimism/paranoia about this deal in this thread?
You see, the way that we made exchange was translated from a moral domain to a material domain, which was finally transposed to a symbolic one. Dollar valuations of a lifetimes is an intrinsically abhorrent concept. A life can never be repaid, thus it can never be valued in real terms - yet it is, billions of times over. Globalism is just a long-range result of this. Exploitation and undervaluing of billions of lives in order to create increasingly competitive products to grow dollar values of a investments in the hands of an increasingly small proportion of the population. This itself founded on false pretense.
Every move towards globalism is increasingly dangerous, this is no exception.
Step 1) global harmonization of trade Step 2) common monetary system Step 3) global harmonization of tax structure Step 3) one global government (similar to EU) Is that a good thing or a bad thing ? Yes.
as long as Americans don’t go mad and get another crazy elected
I think this type of harmonization is incredibly harmful and reduces experimentation among states. I personally think the concept of corporate taxes doesn't make sense and encourages reckless behavior - there are a lot of unintended consequences do this. We should be encouraging experimentation in governance. It's the same how inflation doesn't just devalue the currency, it encourages riskier behavior because investo…