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Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

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Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#11

Post by tvanantwerp »

lossolo wrote: post #9
drcross wrote: post #6

I cannot understand the indignation, the system is working exactly as designed- board members have responsibilities to the shareholders to maximise profits, it would be imprudent if they didn't move to reduce tax burden. The miles of column inches written on this topic is being tediuos. Solutions are simple, anyone telling you otherwise are the same people who hold economists in high regard- 1. Reduce your local tax…

No, it's not that simple. 1. What if you can't ? You have your budget that can't go lower. 2. And what if it employs 100 000 people in your country? Good luck with that. 3. You know what costs are ? Because they can have 0 earning in your country when mother company will take all for licensing.

I don't know of anyone choosing #2, but #1 and #3 are extremely common. The US surprisingly has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the OECD and is one of very very few countries with a worldwide rather than territorial tax system. Those two points taken together are why US tech firms transfer their IP to Ireland in the first place. It's also why so many US companies (at least pre-Brexit) would merge with European countries and establish new headquarters in London rather than the US. The American corporate tax system strongly incentivizes US companies to move.

Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#13

Post by tn13 »

rm999 wrote: post #3

>The IRS claims Facebook’s tax adviser Ernst & Young LLP undervalued the company’s property as it was transferred to Facebook Ireland Holdings Ltd. by evaluating pieces of the online platform separately, according to court filings ... “I don’t think Facebook is necessarily hiding anything, but it’s a fight over pricing,” said Stephen Hamilton, a tax lawyer in Philadelphia. “This is what companies do when they transfe…

Accountants and Lawyers end up doing value addition because government regulations are far too complex.

Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#14

Post by Lazare »

maaaats wrote: post #2

How can countries avoid the spiral of death with taxing? I hate how google, facebook etc. makes hundreds of millions in my country, but barely pay taxes. While local companies do.

> I hate how google, facebook etc. makes hundreds of millions in my country, but barely pay taxes.

Figuring out how much a large company makes is complex, which is why we have a very complex system of rules and laws to let us calculate it. And according to those laws, Google, Facebook, etc. don't actually make hundreds of millions in profit in your country.

That's why they don't pay taxes, and it's what the linked article is about: Because your country (and mine) has passed laws which say that they aren't making money despite what your intuition tells you.

If you want to fix it, the starting point would be those laws. Except...we've been trying to improve those laws for a long, long time. Many are now many decades old. Transfer pricing rules exist for a reason; simply abolishing them would cause other problems and greater imbalances.

At some point maybe we need to step back and focus on taxing the consumption of real people (which is, in comparison, much easier). Facebook may be inherently hard to tax; but those profits flow into the pockets of real people, and they are (in comparison!) easy to tax.

Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#15

Post by thisisbad »

Corporate income taxes should be eliminated. Instead of focusing on building a company and good products, companies have to dedicate resources to figure out how to escape the taxation.

Taxation should be done when profit is distributed to shareholders (similar to Estonia). There is also unfair double taxation - paying taxes after company pays them.

Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#16

Post by known »

elgabogringo wrote: post #12

And Facebook COO Just endorsed Hillary publicly on FB, the day after WSJ reported that Hillary has taken $48.5 Million from hedgefunds/Wall Street vs $19,000 for Donald Trump. We know who is on the little people's side in this election.

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

Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#17

Post by tn13 »

maaaats wrote: post #2

How can countries avoid the spiral of death with taxing? I hate how google, facebook etc. makes hundreds of millions in my country, but barely pay taxes. While local companies do.

Why do you think paying taxes is a virtue ? Why does US government need 40% of our hard earned money ?

May be American politicians should stop the war on drugs, wars in far off countries and medicare and reduce tax levels to 20%.

Facebook, Google, Apple and push the frontiers of human knowledge at rapid rate if they can spend that money themselves. In case of government it will be used to by some junk airforce planes that dont fly.

Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#18

Post by spyspy »

thisisbad wrote: post #15

Corporate income taxes should be eliminated. Instead of focusing on building a company and good products, companies have to dedicate resources to figure out how to escape the taxation. Taxation should be done when profit is distributed to shareholders (similar to Estonia). There is also unfair double taxation - paying taxes after company pays them.

Then we'd have companies like Amazon that refuse to pay a dividend indefinitely.

Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#19

Post by throwaway729 »

thisisbad wrote: post #15

Corporate income taxes should be eliminated. Instead of focusing on building a company and good products, companies have to dedicate resources to figure out how to escape the taxation. Taxation should be done when profit is distributed to shareholders (similar to Estonia). There is also unfair double taxation - paying taxes after company pays them.

Wow.

I mean, if you're going to argue that corporate tax rates should be lower, just make that argument.

But the argument that corporations should be able to pay fewer taxes because they (and/or other corporations) lobbied to create a byzantine tax law that they then exploited is... a special kind of argument.

Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B

#20

Post by thinkdevcode »

spyspy wrote: post #18
thisisbad wrote: post #15

Corporate income taxes should be eliminated. Instead of focusing on building a company and good products, companies have to dedicate resources to figure out how to escape the taxation. Taxation should be done when profit is distributed to shareholders (similar to Estonia). There is also unfair double taxation - paying taxes after company pays them.

Then we'd have companies like Amazon that refuse to pay a dividend indefinitely.

You don't have to invest in Amazon if it doesn't meet your expectations.
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