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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

#161

Post by exabrial »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #10
exabrial wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 kindergar…

That's fine if you want to pay them. But you should not and cannot ethically force others to consent to pay them.

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

#162

Post by exabrial »

exabrial wrote: post #6
systemtest wrote: post #3

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.

I'm a little stunned by the HN comments.

Taxes are non-consensual. I think that is all that needs to be said. If you want to pay them, that's your perogative but forcing anyone to do something under threat of jail or death cannot be justified.

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

#163

Post by Iv »

buboard wrote: post #103
Iv wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a theory saying that Brexit campaign was financed by the people afraid of the EU banking transparency laws, that would threaten many UK-based tax havens.

If you look at the data, there’s plenty of EU tax havens to use

But they won't protect you from US taxes, they won't protect you from Putin's probes, from EU sanctions or from anti-terrorism laws.

Switzerland's haven status was shot down by the GWB administration, and Cyprus surprise taxation made a lot of shady billionaires weary of EU.

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

#164

Post by exabrial »

SmartWa wrote: post #100
exabrial wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just an honest question: How do you think should we finance our society?

I think the correct answer is whomever will willingly pay for it. If we look at taxes through a framework of consent, I don't see another option.

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

#165

Post by throwaway34241 »

mcv wrote: post #153
throwaway34241 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't upvote this enough, you've just described the actual solution to this problem recommended by economists (which of course no one is interested in). It's a bit depressing to have it be almost totally absent from the conversation even on HN. It's called a border adjustment tax, you tax at point of sale and deduct domestic factors of production. So the tax is on what's remaining (profits and foreign production co…

> "For the foreign part apparently the currency exchange rate appreciates to cancel out the tax so it doesn't actually have a protectionist effect, although that's certainly not obvious to non-economists." I'm particularly interested in this part, because this does seem to be the weakest part of my idea. Do you have any links with more information?

Yeah that part isn't very intuitive (at least to me). This was actually proposed as part of a Republican tax reform attempt back in 2017 [1] but the idea was taken from Alan Auerbach who's the director of the tax policy center at UC Berkeley.

A lot of high profile economists on both sides of the aisle seemed to think the general idea checked out including Krugman who specializes in trade and is not known to be a cheerleader for Republicans generally [2]. Of course there was probably disagreement over the absolute rates but the general idea of it being a way to fix the tax haven problem while also being trade neutral seemed to be pretty widely accepted (although some people weren't sure if the currency adjustment would be immediate).

Unfortunately the Koch brothers and some other corporate groups were against it so it got killed, and what got passed was a bill that paid for a corporate tax cut by just borrowing money and didn't address the tax haven problem.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination-based_cash_flow_ta...

[2] https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/border-tax-two-...

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

#166

Post by yahwrong »

buboard wrote: post #78
cs702 wrote: post #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 custome…

The corp. tax loss is 10% Its becoming clearer that the world is shifting towards coordinated world-wide tax rates, similar to how central banks are coordinated. Modern trade is complex and almost always multinational. Clear and easy tax rates will actually allow anyone to enjoy fair taxation, instead of the current unequal situation in which megacorps can use complex schemes to drastically reduce their rates, while…

What's the point in being a big multinational conglomerate if you can't use your size to leverage favorable tax terms over your competition?

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

#167

Post by jaimex2 »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #57
jaimex2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do. If you have a trade just charge cash in hand and post believable losses every tax return.

Do I get that correctly and you're proposing tax evasion in all seriousness?

No, but its common knowledge that most tradesmen do this.

Same with tax deducting 5 seater commercial 4x4 pickups as work expenses and using mostly for family and recreation.

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