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40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year

missingprofits.world

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Re: 40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year

#4
Corporations already pay myriad income taxes and distributed profits (capital gains and dividends) are taxed, paid by the recipient. Corporate tax is double taxation and is inefficient. The optimal corporate tax rate is zero and I wish people would understand this.

35% corporate tax rate the US had before the tax cut was completely absurd and the only corps that paid it were small ones that didn’t have in house staff to get around it. Even your favorite socialist European countries have far lower rates than 35%.

If we set the rate to 0% companies would stop playing all these stupid games and fire all the people who spend their lives waging this war. It drives me bananas!

Re: 40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year

#5

Remember when the Panama Papers came out and absolutely nothing happened? On the plus side, exploitation of the system by the richest has been going on for millennia, the only difference is that today more people are aware of it.

That's not quite true - a lot of stuff happened see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers

Also, Mossack Fonseca was shut down.

Mind you - nothing happened to the basic approach of offshore shell companies - which is the real problem.

Re: 40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year

#6

I am fairly certain 40% of all citizens would shift their income to a tax haven if possible.

That's exactly how I feel about it. I don't think "paying" taxes are something that is honorable. The money is removed from you forcefully.

Re: 40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year

#7

Remember when the Panama Papers came out and absolutely nothing happened? On the plus side, exploitation of the system by the richest has been going on for millennia, the only difference is that today more people are aware of it.

No, scriptural money and globalization are big differences too. Not too long ago it would have been easy to physically steal rich people, now it requires far more organization.

Re: 40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year

#9
Wow.

Power, in all its forms -- economic, cultural, social, political -- is highly concentrated among impersonal giant corporations today.

For this kind of legal tax avoidance would be impossible without mutual understanding, collaboration, and coordination across national boundaries among many disparate groups of people, all serving their corporate masters in one way or another (as their employers, as their customers, as taxpaying entities, etc.).

Consider only how many people and organizations must be involved to make tax treaties and regulations around the world amenable to this kind of tax avoidance.

Whether this kind of concentration of power is good or bad for society, I'm not sure.

My best guess is no -- but I'm not certain. For there is also evidence that large-scale, concentrated business investment has been a force for good worldwide.[a]

--

[a] See, for example, Marc Benioff's book, "Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change" at https://www.amazon.com/Trailblazer-Business-Greatest-Platfor...

Re: 40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year

#10
post #6

I am fairly certain 40% of all citizens would shift their income to a tax haven if possible.

That's exactly how I feel about it. I don't think "paying" taxes are something that is honorable. The money is removed from you forcefully.

Honestly, I'm down for paying taxes. It pays for my lifestyle and is propostional to my lifestyle. If I own land, that land is only valuable due to the society that land exists in. It's protected, and safe, due to public services like roads, which law enforcement, fire control folks, postal service, and ambulances drive upon. I've earned my income from a lifetime of education, starting from my public school kindergarden all the way to me state university attendance, which in of itself is only useful to attend because there are bright minds teaching what they research via government grants.

All of that costs money, and paying taxes is more or less funding my lifestyle as it is now. If you want to not pay taxes, then stop paying taxes and give up everything you purchase with them. Go subsistence farm in the woods or something, or deal with bartering instead of money (which itself is only useful because there is some regulation to keep it useful).

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