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Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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201–210 of 384 posts

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#201
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that money we spent on roads has locked us into car-dependent infrastructure, killing 40k+/year directly and hundreds of thousands indirectly (air pollution, etc). Great job us.

I still don't see private corporations building better public infrastructure. You get the quality of government you deserve. Remove corruption and regulate lobbying and donations and government money will be spent more effectively.

Who built most of the rail lines, including commuter, in the US and Japan? Private companies.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#202

I have never understood the whole "tax the rich" idea and I am not rich, don't own a house or car or stocks or anything expensive. When and how will the taxes help you and me? The money just ends up going to a black hole for the government to spent inefficiently. And if you are in the US, the money gets spent on funding the military industrial complex for bombing more countries, regime changes, intelligence agencies,…

Here's a short list of things tax money funds: Roads Schools Healthcare (in civilized countries) Making sure companies selling medicine aren't killing people Making sure companies don't dump toxic waste into rivers and lakes Note that comparing Walmart vs the government is especially funny since most of Warlmart's expansion comes from the fact that it under-pays it's workers so much that the federal government has to…

Tax money funds nothing.

Read Stephanie Kelton's Deficit Myth for details.

Funding is provided by congressional appropriation. When congress says spend on something at this price, that is all that is required.

At that point the issue is whether the something is being used by the private sector. If it is then you have to stop the private sector using it somehow. Tax is one way of doing that, or you can just ban the private sector using that resource (nationalising healthcare for example).

Money isn't a thing, it is a unit of account. It grows and shrinks within the banking system as required to ensure all transactions that can be undertaken are undertaken.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#203
post #192
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I mean… Ireland has a higher English proficiency? There are of course a lot of things doable fully in English. But when running a company not mastering the native language (even when all of the people you talk to speak English!) can be a big drawback.

I'm willing to bet that an American would understand the English spoken in Amsterdam better than that spoken in pubs or on playgrounds in Ireland.

Having lived in the Netherlands (Eindhoven - not even Amsterdam) I can confirm that the English spoken there was superior to the English I was raised in in rural Ontario where my teachers said "warshing" instead of washing. The Dutch have an incredibly faculty for language and I admire it.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#204
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right, Poland is probably in worse position than Texas here. Texas at least has the promise of a federal system to reign in its more unpopular legislative instincts, Poland not so much.

> Texas at least has the promise of a federal system to reign in its more unpopular legislative instincts, Poland not so much. That's very weird? Wouldn't the state legislature, being elected by local people be more likely to be popular with local people than the federal government with is largely elected by people outside of Texas? (Or do you mean 'unpopular' with people outside of Texas?)

According to a few polls sb8 isn’t popular in Texas. Yet here we are.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#205
post #171
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just some of the carve-outs for Poland https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... " 1. The Charter does not extend the ability of the Court of Justice of the European Union, or any court or tribunal of Poland or of the United Kingdom, to find that the laws, regulations or administrative provisions, practices or action of Poland or of the United Kingdom are inconsistent with the fundamental rights…

See my other reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806878 I believe you’re confusing this reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights — a separate document — with the treaty itself.

No, what is called the Charter of Fundamental Rights is part of the Lisbon Treaty (which itself is just a series of amendments to the previous treaties on the European Union). It is, btw, what the European Court of Justice is intended to enforce.

You can see this from the (lengthy) title:

"Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union - Protocols - Declarations annexed to the Final Act of the Intergovernmental Conference which adopted the Treaty of Lisbon, signed on 13 December 2007 "

Now you are right that what prompted these carveouts was fear that the EU would promulgate various human rights provisions and force them on Poland, specifically abortion/gay marriage and other measures inconsistent with Polish Catholicism.

This is part of the strategic ambiguity of the Lisbon treaty, with conflicting claims in the treaty meant to satisfy different parties. Thus in one section it states that national laws will be respected, and in another it has a supremacy clause, and in a third it says the area of competence is subordinate to national parliaments.

All meant to create strategic ambiguity to get the thing signed.

But even more importantly for Poland as well as other countries, national Supreme Courts must enforce the constitution of each nation and that constitution is the Supreme Law of the land. A treaty cannot abbrogate a constitution. Thus Polish judges cannot side with a treaty when it conflicts with the Polish constitution. Recognition of this is respecting the rule of law, not violating it.

And when there is a conflict between a law and a treaty, the judges need to side with the law rather than the treaty. The treaty is an outward promise to the rest of the EU and the EU can find that Poland violated its treaty obligations, which would be a matter for the Polish Ambassadors and representatives to deal with, but unless the Polish constitution is amended to recognize the acts of the EU parliament as having the force of law in Poland, then the judges have to enforce the Polish law as enacted by the legitimate law creating mechanisms spelled out in the constitution.

Ironically, this insistence on enforcing the law and the constitution is what the EU calls "violating the rule of law".

And the same thing is true in the Czech republic -- when there is a conflict between an EU law and the Czech constitution, then judges have to side with the Constitution:

https://journals.muni.cz/cpvp/article/view/6637

This came up as the Czechs are seeking to enshrine the right to bear arms in the constitution, so it is very relevant to know who ends up winning: EU gun regulations or Czech regulations. Well, the Czech regulations win.

This should be obvious, if the EU requires its rulings to override national law without being enacted by the national Parliament, then it should have required Constitutional changes to delegate the creation of lawmaking to the EU before letting the nation sign the treaty.

But then no nation would join the EU.

Therefore you have this strategic ambiguity and feigned outrage whenever a supreme court says it is beholden to its national constitution rather than to a treaty (in those cases where there is a conflict).

There is a process for changing the constitution, and it is much harder than the process for signing a treaty. This is because the constitution specifies how laws are to be created and interpreted, not treaties.

Treaties are agreements between nations, but within a nation, the constitution is supreme, and that will remain the case unless the Polish constitution is changed. Polish judges are expected to enforce that constitution, and if the EU finds that Poland has not respected its treaty obligations, it can try to withhold aid or take some other EU specific measure against Poland, but it's not the job of judges to allow treaties to change constitutions.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#206
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands has the highest English proficiency in the world [0] (among non-native speaking countries) so I imagine it would be a compelling choice. [0] https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/

But I mean… Ireland has a higher English proficiency? There are of course a lot of things doable fully in English. But when running a company not mastering the native language (even when all of the people you talk to speak English!) can be a big drawback.

But the US company in Europe would have far more (big majority) of non-US employees. Those employees have far better understanding of Dutch English than Irish English in every day and in corporate life

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#207
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It struck me as highly dishonest. I have a hard time believing that anyone one seriously thinks 0.000000% of government spending benefits common people

Well we exist. That's a charitable phrasing even; government spending brings severely negative value to common people.

This is the one position on taxes I cannot believe is uttered in good faith.

There are many things people say about taxes I can agree with. There are many things people say about taxes that I disagree with, but I can understand their reasoning. There are even things people say about taxes that I disagree with, and I even suspect their purported reasoning is actually just post-hoc justification.

And then there's that statement. And I cannot fathom any way in which it is possible to honestly believe that without being utterly delusional, to a degree that makes me concerned the person is possibly incapable of caring for themselves. I can only conclude these people are most likely being intentionally disingenuous.

At least flat Earthers aren't continually confronted with blatantly obvious contradictions in virtually every aspect of their daily life.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#208
post #74
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mention Berlin and Paris, then also Amsterdam and Warsaw deserve mentions.

Why? This comment is not about Berlin or Paris, it is mentioning then as examples of non English speaking cities. Is the author supposed to mention every city in Europe?

I believe the reason they mentioned it is that they have very large english speaking populations, famously a german conservative said he doesn't know if a person in a shop in Berlin can speak German or "only English".

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A tax on revenues would kill a lot of high growth businesses And also low-margin businesses. If you tax a business on its total sales rather than profits, a low-margin and high-volume operation cannot survive as easily. Example. A supermarket chain makes many sales, collecting average 5% margins on a sale. A seller of high-end automobiles moves fewer units, but can take a 15% margin. Assume both businesses make the…

A VAT isn’t a sales tax though. I think you can subtract the cost of goods since they were already taxed? Compared with income tax, there are fewer expenses you can subtract from revenue, but there still are some. But since prices will adjust, the question is really one of tax incidence. Who gets to raise prices to cover their taxes? And that’s complicated.

You can subtract the cost of goods but you can’t subtract operating expenses like R&D.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#210
post #83

This is a shrewd move by Ireland. Multinational companies chose Ireland largely because: 1) Low tax basis 2) English speaking EU country 3) Part of the Euro zone (less important than #1 and #2 to be sure). Given the OECD tax agreement there are fewer low-tax destinations for companies to pick from. And because of Brexit there are no other English-speaking EU countries. Companies in Ireland aren’t going anywhere and i…

There’s still Malta with English as an official language inside the EU and Gibraltar is now part of Schengen area as a result of Brexit.

Both are pretty small though.

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