Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they repealed all the Bush era tax cuts, the deficit would still be growing at a higher rate than before. Obama has run up the deficit at a faster pace (approaching double) than Bush and those tax cuts aren't even the major part of it. The biggest problem is the lack of a passed federal budget in over a 1,000 days. This is causing a lot of budget increasing in a time when we cannot afford it. What the media and po…
The point I made in showing that yummyfajita's remarks to be wrong stand. I might be wrong on my belief that repealing the Bush tax cuts would greatly improve the fiscal outlook of the federal government but this does not in any way detract from my point. Your last two paragraphs are not germane to my point and they are wrong in any case. However, let's assume your last statement is correct. Right now taxes around 15…
How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
101–110 of 215 posts
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#102I think a bot should auto repost Graham's Mind the Gap and How to Create Wealth in the comments of every economics post.
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not? (Honest question.) We have states that have no personal income tax. Not surprisingly, these states are doing fine because they raise revenue other ways.
Income tax only accounts for some of the taxes a state can take in. Property and sales tax are also forms states use to collect income, and they happen to be regressive in most cases. If you look at the CFED chart [2], those nine states [1] with no income tax make up the top 9 slots where the bottom 20% pay many times more in taxes than the top 1% (as a percentage of income), from 3.8 times (Tennessee) to a whopping…
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
You are referring to all government services and all revenue collected. I'm referring solely to services provided to corporations and revenue collected from corporations. I fully agree that the losses from the War on Iraqis/SS/medicare/etc don't outweigh the profits made by taxing Apple/etc and providing them with a few cheap services (corporate registration, enforcement of contracts, etc). That's a separate issue. R…
I fully agree that the losses from the War on Iraqis/SS/medicare/etc don't outweigh the profits made by taxing Apple/etc and providing them with a few cheap services (corporate registration, enforcement of contracts, etc). That's a separate issue.
Ironic that you mention SS and Medicare. Two programs designed to help companies out (and people too). Do the cheap services include a road system? Do they include an education system capable of producing adequate workers? Do they include protection from enemies? These things are not cheap. And it is especially helpful to be located in a country with great influence that helps smooth things in other countries.
I think you don't understand what regulatory capture is. When an industry has capture the regulators that is a good thing from the perspective of that industry. Regulatory capture is what oligopolies want. It's the good kind of corruption from their perspective. Large companies don't flee from corrupt societies. They use that corruption to their advantage. Obviously there are counterexamples to this but overall the gist is correct.
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#105The implied but never fully-articulated point of this article is that high-tax domiciles resent it when rational actors having a choice in the matter will routinely structure their business affairs to incur tax to the maximum extent possible in low-tax as opposed to high-tax domiciles. The issue becomes almost formulaic. Given (1) rational actors, (2) freedom to choose and to structure business affairs using a multip…
Your first sentence of your last paragraph shows one of the problems with globalization. We have seen in the U.S. municipalities competing with each other to see who can give the most subsidies to large corporations. The effects have not been so desirable. Now we are seeing this played out on a grand, global scale. It's potentially a race to the bottom. I think globalization without a proper international regulating…
> Most people don't have this luxury.
Maybe one way to make globalization great for more people, is to make international mobility practical for more people.
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taxes are purely a construct of law though. The only reason it's immoral not to pay taxes is because it's immoral to break the law, at least if the law is just. But we're not talking about people breaking the law, we're talking about people obeying the law. Think of it this way: if you can get an effective tax rate of x% by doing this and y% by doing that, and x other laws that allow you to effectively lower your eff…
The reason it is immoral to pay taxes is that you are still benefiting from the existence of the government but putting the burden of supporting it on others. You personally may agree or disagree with this, but that's what someone probably means when they say it is immoral to avoid paying taxes, even if it is perfectly legal. Taxes are part of the general social contract of our society, and aggressively finding ways…
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your first sentence of your last paragraph shows one of the problems with globalization. We have seen in the U.S. municipalities competing with each other to see who can give the most subsidies to large corporations. The effects have not been so desirable. Now we are seeing this played out on a grand, global scale. It's potentially a race to the bottom. I think globalization without a proper international regulating…
> Most people don't have this luxury. Maybe one way to make globalization great for more people, is to make international mobility practical for more people.
Indeed. As it is mobility barriers partially serve to keep masses of people stuck and this could possibly lead to a new, modern form of feudalism.
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#108So if Apple is operating as a foreign entity for selling this stuff, does that not mean they have to pay import taxes, or are they somehow exempt?
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#109The implied but never fully-articulated point of this article is that high-tax domiciles resent it when rational actors having a choice in the matter will routinely structure their business affairs to incur tax to the maximum extent possible in low-tax as opposed to high-tax domiciles. The issue becomes almost formulaic. Given (1) rational actors, (2) freedom to choose and to structure business affairs using a multip…
There's also the very real and reasonable question of where capital might be used more efficiently. Having seen first-hand how government agencies make spending decisions it is my opinion that a huge percentage of tax dollars is wasted. Private industry is almost always far more efficient in allocating resources out of necessity. I have seen cases where government agencies pay double --or more-- what a private entity…
It's a valid point. I think that there are a few reasons why this occurs.
1. Tax payers aren't as resilient as shareholders:
2. There's a psychological tendency to think that "this is not my money" leading to excessive spending.
3. The accountability isn't there. If a politician wastes taxpayer money then he's still a politician for the time being.
But it's not always valid. Many government projects are carried out by private firms that aren't efficient. You just have to look at the NHS IT project here in the UK to see how £12 billion can be wasted by private firms.
Re: How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes
#110There 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…
Uhm... the other problem increasing taxes on capital gains is that most Americans in the under 50 crowd are going to use those for retirement.
Capital gains in retirement accounts are tax-sheltered (in a Roth IRA, completely tax-exempt). And it's a serious exaggeration to say that "most" Americans are going to use capital-gains for retirement. For the vast majority of Americans, capital gains are a negligible proportion of their total income. Raising capital gains rates and using the proceeds to lower regular income tax rates (to bring the two tax rates closer together) would lower many more people's taxes than the reverse would.