Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 373 posts

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#151

Post by abakker »

jessaustin wrote: post #123
bmelton wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren't seeking out the loopholes that apply to you, then you are paying more in taxes than you are legally required to. "legally required to" does not incur a balancing test between what is practicable vs the time it takes. If you're a regular, mid-income citizen, then there isn't likely to be a good ROI on hiring a dedicated accountant to find you loopholes. If you're making $200k a year, and you save 10%, ho…

The difference between "many Americans" (actually other highly-taxed subjects are probably the same) and hideous unkillable corporate zombies like Ikea is that the little people use the tax laws as they are. The corporate monsters write the tax laws, to their own exclusive benefit, in every nation they invade. That's not an option for the little people.

There's a narrative here that says we got into this situation by the little people being uniformed and complicit.

OTOH, it is rarely so simple, since many of the little people work for those companies. When your employer does this stuff, it is probably good for you.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#153

Post by literallycancer »

rectang wrote: post #107
charlesdm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to stop avoidance? Make proper laws. If it's legal (even through lobbying), then it is legal. And frankly I don't see why you shouldn't if you legally can. But to each their own views on this. You know who can stop avoidance? Politicians. They need to take responsibility. Feel free to shame multinationals or HNWIs for not paying taxes, but at the end of the day avoidance is only possible because politicians (or…

> shoddy laws that aren't well thought out The preservation of these loopholes is not accidental -- they are deliberately left there for avoiders to take advantage of in exchange for political donations. The two groups work together in a corrupt and unethical partnership, while the populace can only watch from the sidelines fuming.

Start a political party and fix it.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#154

Post by gaius »

saosebastiao wrote: post #139
gaius wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren't seeking out the loopholes that apply to you, then you are paying more in taxes than you are legally required to. Complete nonsense. Finding a loophole in the tax code is no different to finding a flaw in some computer code that gives you some access you were never intended to have. Should we all hire professional hackers too?

Are you kidding me? Loopholes like that don't exist. The tax code starts from the assumption that you owe them money, but for very specific reasons allows you to deduct or credit from that amount owed. They simply do not naively put in deductions that shouldn't be there. The idea that "loopholes" are unintentional vulnerabilities is completely disconnected from reality.

The legislators intended that via a complex web of shell companies obscuring ultimate ownership no taxes would be owed? I call shenanigans.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#155

Post by sooheon »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #101
dna_polymerase wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please cut the ’avoidance, not evasion’ bullshit. This scheme is outright evasion, legalized by lobbying in Brussels against national law. You know that otherwise you wouldn’t care to point out this nuisance.

I understand the frustration, but I really think this is an important distinction to make. Evasion is solved by rigorously enforcing existing tax frameworks. Avoidance is solved by closing loopholes. They're two different problems—although they share some things in common—and they require two different solutions.

> I really think this is an important distinction to make [...] they require two different solutions.

Agreed. The problem, and the source of the frustration, is that your average poster on hacker news (or average human being on earth) has 0% influence on either of the solutions. It is the mega rich who hold all the power, who have the resources, energy, and clout to play these games.

It doesn't really matter how you distinguish evasion and avoidance, both are driven by the same motivations, and where the line separating the two stands in any given jurisdiction is defined less by the qualities of the actual actions, and more by how much the rich have managed to encode into law vs. how safe they feel openly breaking it.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#156

Post by jacquesm »

oblio wrote: post #114
jacquesm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without cutting it equally short everywhere? That was my solution :) Saved me a couple of grand over the years.

That doesn't always work, depending on the shape of your head, the texture of your hair, etc. I for one don't care about it much, and my job allows me not to care, but many people do care for both personal and professional reasons. Any kind of job where you want to persuade people basically requires the best look you can afford. It's basically an investment.

Gah to think of all the times I managed to fail to persuade people because I have short hair :)

To me it is a mix of feeling that spending money on cutting my hair is wasteful, spending time to go to a hairdresser is wasteful and so on. It's just a maintenance chore. And I don't feel it has ever caused me to perform subpar in my job or to have people take my arguments less serious. But I can see that form some people this might be the case.

In a way this is a luxury that men can afford themselves, if a woman would go to work with a very short hair it would immediately count as some statement rather than being efficient.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#157

Post by charlesdm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #136
matthewmacleod wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree with this enough. Expecting profit-motivated companies to voluntarily choose to pay more tax than they have to is fundamentally doomed to failure. One of the powers of the free market is to encourage the elimination of inefficiency and waste—not that it's perfect at that—and we can't expect to both have our cake and eat it, in that sense. I strongly agree that many companies should be contributing more…

A related problem is that international stage is a market by itself. Nations compete for the business of large corporations. Which leads to creation of ridiculous tax exemptions and loopholes.

Countries can't have it both ways. You can't hate legal avoidance, while at the same time trying to steal tax revenue from your neighbour with similar tax incentives.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#158

Post by rectang »

literallycancer wrote: post #153
rectang wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shoddy laws that aren't well thought out The preservation of these loopholes is not accidental -- they are deliberately left there for avoiders to take advantage of in exchange for political donations. The two groups work together in a corrupt and unethical partnership, while the populace can only watch from the sidelines fuming.

Start a political party and fix it.

My activity in this realm has been to contribute to open source software, both as an author and as an administrator.

I see it as a win-win-win for workers (the developers who write the code), their employers (who invest in open source as a superior product), and the software industry and society at large (through increased productivity and a better model for collaboration).

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#159

Post by charlesdm »

sooheon wrote: post #147
charlesdm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to stop avoidance? Make proper laws. If it's legal (even through lobbying), then it is legal. And frankly I don't see why you shouldn't if you legally can. But to each their own views on this. You know who can stop avoidance? Politicians. They need to take responsibility. Feel free to shame multinationals or HNWIs for not paying taxes, but at the end of the day avoidance is only possible because politicians (or…

The politicians will never bite the hand that feeds. The mega rich both write the laws and benefit from them, this does not excuse the behavior morally, only makes it legal on paper (which, apparently is enough for some of you).

But who is at fault here then? You can blame the wealthy all you want, but it would not be possible without the cooperation of politicians that are elected by the people.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#160

Post by sooheon »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #90
jacquesm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get a $20 buzzer and cut it yourself. 70 euros to cut your hair is way overpriced.

Works for the sides, but how to do make a smooth transition to the top? Without cutting it equally short everywhere?

Giving yourself a fade isn't as hard as it seems. Short answer: use different sizes of the plastic guards, and do a bit of a flicking outward motion with your wrist where you want to blend.
Post reply on HN