51–60 of 215 posts
There is a really important lesson from all of this, and it is not that Apple is wrong for rationally exploiting global tax laws to avoid paying US taxes. The fact that California has no tax jurisdiction in Nevada, and that the US has no tax jurisdiction in Ireland, is an unassailable fact of life. Tax laws are subject to regulatory competition like many other things, and ignoring that -- insisting that this is an is…
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Of course it is an issue of morality. I could choose to avoid paying taxes in the society that I'm a part of. It would be in my economic interest to do so. But it is morally wrong because it is that same society that enables me to make my money in the first place. Simple, right?
That doesn't make any sense at all. Tax avoidance is perfectly legal. Tax evasion is not. Playing within the rules created by society is not morally wrong. Every deduction you take on your personal income taxes falls under tax avoidance which you can't possibly be describing as morally wrong. "The legal right of an individual to decrease the amount of what would otherwise be his taxes or altogether avoid them, by mea…
When companies pay 0% tax rate, quick, defend them. If they did pay the tax, the CA state certainly wouldn't have any money problem. But no, that's not important, right? Shares etc are!
I'm surprised everyone finds it ok. I'd almost dare to say it's an issue that is especially present in the US (that people think it's fine and to "blame the game not the player" kind of crap)
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Ireland can't lower it's taxes to the point of unprofitability, so it will lower it's taxes until revenues raised == cost of services + small margin. That's a good thing. Don't complain that others provide the same service at lower cost, try to innovate and outcompete them.
Well Bush II lowered taxes to the point of unprofitability (I assume you are speaking from a national governmental view). Governments engage in deficit spending and some foolishly lowers taxes at the behest of its monied interests. You appear to assign to the government of Ireland some sort of rationality and ignore things like regulatory capture and corruption. Your belief that a government will only lower until "re…
The US has been running up the debt for many years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_pu...
That they try to legally avoid taxes is beneath obvious.
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Shaming them for what? They're simply taking advantage of the confusing and loophole filled tax laws you provided them. Nobody pays more taxes than they absolutely have to. If you don't want people to abuse loopholes, fix the loopholes.
Using loopholes when you know they are loopholes seems pretty immoral to me. You don’t have to agree with me on that, but that would for example be a prime reason for shaming them. Morals are not equal to the law. Immoral things stay immoral even if they are legal. And there is nothing wrong with calling out immoral behavior.
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Well Bush II lowered taxes to the point of unprofitability (I assume you are speaking from a national governmental view). Governments engage in deficit spending and some foolishly lowers taxes at the behest of its monied interests. You appear to assign to the government of Ireland some sort of rationality and ignore things like regulatory capture and corruption. Your belief that a government will only lower until "re…
"Well Bush II lowered taxes to the point of unprofitability" The US has been running up the debt for many years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_pu...
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> If the US had a globally competitive corporate tax rate (say 15%), it would make most of these tactics irrelevant. Until Ireland further lowers its taxes. Your argument leads to a race to the bottom. The problem with only taxing dividends is that corporations only pay out a small portion of their profits in dividends. I may theoretically be a billionaire in my holdings, but I only need a million in dividends per ye…
Ireland can't lower it's taxes to the point of unprofitability, so it will lower it's taxes until revenues raised == cost of services + small margin. That's a good thing. Don't complain that others provide the same service at lower cost, try to innovate and outcompete them.