Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement • Hacker News Board

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#331

Post by GekkePrutser » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

papower wrote: post #286

GekkePrutser wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth mentioning that I'm Ireland most schools teach in Irish, not English.

Another Irish resident confirming that this statement is not true. Most schools teach in English and teach Irish as a second language. Irish is rarely used in normal day to day interactions and never at work unless you work in an Irish language related area or government department that supports Irish as an official language. There are some niche exceptions: - "All Irish" schools where you optionally learn through Ir…

Indeed I was living in the Gaeltacht (West of Galway). I didn't realise the number of Irish-spoken schools was so low in the rest of the country.

My colleagues all said that all the good schools were Irish spoken (as in everything taught through Irish). I extrapolated this to the rest of the country which is clearly incorrect. Sorry. But I wasn't too much into this as I don't have any kids myself.

If I did have kids I would have left Ireland anyway... At least in the area where I lived most schools were Catholic and I would never accept my child being raised with religious values. I wouldn't want to constantly have to deprogram them.

In fact one of my colleagues had a child who was giving a presentation about the dinosaurs. His parents were called to the school and told off because this was a subject that could not be discussed because evolution was "unscientific" and they shouldn't spread this kind of "nonsense" to the other pupils. Another colleague was shunned for being a "lone parent".

And this was actually a colleague who was living in Athlone, not in the Gaeltacht at all. So forgive me if I hold the Irish education system in low esteem :) Perhaps in Dublin it's better but I've only lived in the more remote areas.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Post by rusk » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

_abox wrote: post #328

rusk wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Official Ireland were dragged into this kicking and screaming. There really wasn’t much choice involved - unless the OECD brass were thinking in generous terms towards Ireland. If anything I’d say the timing of this is in part what drove Brexit - this has been coming for a few years now and “City”* of London is one of the worlds biggest hubs for processing funny money. * This is the somewhat cryptic name for the fina…

The OECD has zero legal power however. It's just a "thinktank", they have no way to enforce anything they come up with. I'm sure soft power pressure from the EU was a big factor in this, sure. But they weren't forced to as such.

It doesn’t have any enforcement power, but this is an agreement that Ireland have had to sign up to out of political necessity. It’s not the OECD forcing Ireland, it’s the other OECD members.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Post by lovemenot » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

pnut wrote: post #247

TexanFeller wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.” — Davy Crockett…and also me

I've never understood that quote... Is he rising in defense of Texas, or is he saying Texas is his personal hell?

Like "oh wait", it seems to derive humour from its implicit logical rebuttal:

"But, Mr. Crockett Texas is hell."

In a similar vein, this also from the 19th Century: A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

"But, Mr. Kipling a good woman is a ... oh wait."

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Post by seoaeu » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

cpursley wrote: post #280

seoaeu wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what metric? The crime rate is down and the stock market is up. Not to mention that given the scale of the country, just continuing the same level of government services costs trillions

The murder rate has skyrocketed in the past two years in the US. As have other crimes.

That's not the full picture. Population adjusted, violent crime is at nearly the lowest level it has been at it decades. Murder has spiked, but is still way below the peak of the early 90s [0]

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/57581270

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Post by p2t2p » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #315

p2t2p wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poland not so much Oh, EU has got ways to screw Poland all right, don’t you worry. Like right now lots of local governments there are reverting certain anti-LGBT laws to get to EU grants or whatever it’s called.

I’m perplexed by the combination of “screw Poland” and the idea that what the EU is doing is making Poland respect the human rights of its own citizens. Are you implying that what the EU is doing here is bad?

Thank you for asking instead of just downvoting, it is very valuable to me to be able to see how my message can convey different meaning from what I intended.

What I'm saying is that EU has means of causing negative consequence for Poland (and any other member) should they decide to engage into activities that are incompatible with EU values (like violating human rights, breaking trade agreements made by EU, etc).

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Post by lrem » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #190

pbourke wrote: post #103

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.

Maybe? A Polish colleague happened to spend some time with, IIRC, a Scott and an Aussie. The two native speakers would resort occasionally to use him as an interpreter, because the native English tends to diverge out of bounds of their tolerances.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Post by lrem » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #253

eru wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, though still not quite as compelling, because you still have to speak Dutch eg at the playground.

It's worth mentioning that I'm Ireland most schools teach in Irish, not English.

Irish being the native language of Ireland is just barely more impactful than the native language of New York being Lenapese.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Post by ido » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

dfawcus wrote: post #322

ido wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dutch is probably the closest language to English that isn’t a dialect of English.

No, that would have to be Scots. Especially compared to the region versions of English spoken in Northern England. It should not be too surprising, given that Scots in large part derived from Northumbrian Old English, with various admixtures including from Scandinavia. The versions of English spoken in Northern England also had a large input from Norse due to the Dane Law period, and that is part of what drove the ch…

Fair enough, but Dutch is a much more “major” language than Scots (which I believe even in Scotland only a small % of the population speak as their first/mother tongue rather than English).

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#339

Post by repsilat » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

midasuni wrote: post #252

Digit-Al wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, we in the UK often talk about the government giving us a golden shower as well. We do phrase it "slightly" differently though :-/

America calls it “trickle down”, but the principles the same

I guess if you mean "money is a small amount of liquid" then the analogy is fair? Otherwise the terms are very different -- handouts are not called "trickle down" in the US. The principle is not the same, it is literally the opposite.

"Trickle down" in the US is a term used to disparage the idea that a strong economy benefits the poor even in the absence of explicit redistribution.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Post by oaiey » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

fcanela wrote: post #284

oaiey wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about asking for more money. This is about companies cannot fleeing rational tax rates of normal countries into countries which specialize in "stealing" the companies from normal countries and making this their code business.

Why shouldn't people or companies be able to move where they can grow, prosper or have rules according to their values or projects? Curiously, when we talk about taxes the focus is often in the country that is harboring people instead the one that made itself unattractive.

I think it does not matter where you put your company, you have to follow the rules of the market where you sell your goods. And these markets just said: you have to pay at least 15% tax to continue selling stuff here.

Free trade is not a one direction story.