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Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

theguardian.com

161–170 of 467 posts

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#161
post #5

Meanwhile my (single-person) company is paying around 20% corporation tax, and then I'm getting taxed a further 20-40% on top of that when I pay myself.

We're also in the UK, make sure you're taking advantage of any tax benefits you may be entitled to such as R&D tax credits. They are back datable.

And Entrepreneurs' Relief on capital gains

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#162
post #69
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Republic of Ireland isn't part of the UK, but your point still applies.

The company is tax "resident" in Bermuda, a British Overseas Territory. In fact I'm not even sure what the Ireland connection is here except that there is a registered office in Dublin. It seems like all the action is taking place in Bermuda, so this is really a story about UK overseas tax havens.

Just for clarification, British Overseas Territories are not part of the UK. They set their own laws and manage their own internal affairs while their foreign relations and defence are managed by the UK.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#163
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in France, as a contractor, if I bill a client 100 000€ annually and decide to get as much as possible in personal income, 30 000€ will go as social taxes (health, retirement ...) and for the remaining 70 000€ you will have to pay around 25% as income tax (if you don't have any children). You will have an income of ~52 000€ for 100 000€ billed during the year. You're not earning millions and yet around 50% of re…

25% is what I would expect. You're getting some of the other expenses back eventually (hopefully) in form of pensions, unemployment (if you ever need it) etc. Health itself is a service you are buying. I wouldn't call it a tax despite it being mandatory. I think taxes are too high and the system needs to be redesigned but I just think we need to be exact on our figures when we discuss this stuff.

it sure feels like taxes because it is based on your pay. In other countries like Switzerland it costs the same if you earn 5 or 10 k CHF.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#164
What is the solution to this? I've wracked my brain and can't come up with anything.

Companies will just continue to flee to whatever country is now offering 0%. Christmas Island has a new 0% corporate tax policy? Let's go buy a mailbox there and move our "headquarters".

The old-school thinking is that low corporate tax policies encourage business, creating jobs in the process and boosting that country's economy. In the real world it's a shell company with zero employees that pays that country zero in taxes.

This push for a global minimum tax is interesting, and obviously scares the hell out of a lot of conservatives and others who want nothing to do with "global" anything. Also, how would that even work? Countries would simply not agree to play along, no?

The only thing I can think is that this entire thing has to be flipped into some sort of "VAT"/usage situation.

So if a US company is using Microsoft Azure and pays them $1 million annually to do this, Microsoft has to pay US taxes on that $1 million. Track where the customer is based and pay tax based on that countries tax policy.

I'm clearly no tax person, so my ideas mean nothing. But I've put a lot of thought into this "race to the bottom" and it's difficult to come up with a solution.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#165
Previously Microsoft shifted 39 billion in North and South American profits to Puerto Rico. (It used Singapore for Asian profits and Ireland for EU profits.) The IRS's case against the company is still active. This was the largest IRS audit in history by dollar amount.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-to...

The ProPublica reporting apparently inspired the Judge to get things moving again.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/479417-microsoft-order...

Truly sickening.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#166
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in France, as a contractor, if I bill a client 100 000€ annually and decide to get as much as possible in personal income, 30 000€ will go as social taxes (health, retirement ...) and for the remaining 70 000€ you will have to pay around 25% as income tax (if you don't have any children). You will have an income of ~52 000€ for 100 000€ billed during the year. You're not earning millions and yet around 50% of re…

25% is what I would expect. You're getting some of the other expenses back eventually (hopefully) in form of pensions, unemployment (if you ever need it) etc. Health itself is a service you are buying. I wouldn't call it a tax despite it being mandatory. I think taxes are too high and the system needs to be redesigned but I just think we need to be exact on our figures when we discuss this stuff.

His numbers aren't false for France. I don't have my last payslip on hand right now but it show cost for employer and it's roughly the double of what you get after taxes. Something like 3k€/month before tax turn into around 2100€ for you but your boss have social charges on top of it so for him it's more like a 4k€ cost.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#167
post #2

I have to pay 40% of my income as income tax. I have HAD ENOUGH. This is infuriating. What can we do?

Why should “we” (aka mostly other people) do something about your problem (aka HAD ENOUGH)?

If the cost of getting to net Y cash inflow is X gross income where X = Y + (.66Y) then solve for X and move on, or perform the cost benefit analysis for moving to another tax jurisdiction. The solution is yours to execute.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#168
post #46
post #2

I have to pay 40% of my income as income tax. I have HAD ENOUGH. This is infuriating. What can we do?

> I have to pay 40% of my income as income tax. So do all the engineers, PMs, etc working at Microsoft.

Many of those are in Washington state, which doesn’t have an income tax. It is almost impossible to get to 40% with federal income taxes and payroll alone. They are probably maxing out their 401k as well as various other pre tax contributions that can be made.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#169
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I do not condone benefits fraud, it’s just a drop in the pond. Government projects are quite corrupt, and often go way over budget. Of course, this is a global problem as well. The main problem is corporate tax evasion. Pretty much every multinational funnels money via NL, while paying almost nothing. For example - IKEA, Walt Disney, FAANG, Uber, and innumerable more are all Dutch BVs for most global activities…

Sorry I agree with you. I didn't mean fraud was a big cost, only that social spending (including non-fraudulent) seems to be very high and not tightly controlled (which as a side effect allows for easy fraud). From the outside society seems very stratified. Plenty of Telsa's in Amsterdam and people with expensive tastes. NL is obviously a very wealthy place even compared to neighbouring countries but also has a large…

Social spending is quite high, but I’d like to believe that atleast it’s enriching the average person and not only corporate execs.

The reason there’s so many Teslas is because up until 2021, you could get significant tax benefits, if you purchased an electric car via your employer for “work”. If you look past Teslas, you’ll see that most people own average family cars.

Amsterdam does have people with “expensive tastes”, but that’s not representative of the rest of the country. It’s similar to what you’d see in New York or London vs. the rest of their respective countries.

Most of the wealthy people I know own businesses (and as such benefit from the lower taxes), or own lots of rentable real estate.

Re: Microsoft Irish subsidiary paid zero corporate tax on £220bn profit last year

#170

Microsoft's Irish subsidiary paid zero tax because it owed zero tax—and there's no reason it should have paid, or that this should change in future, apart from the greed and envy of others who want to take money from others to which they are not entitled. Those who are unhappy at the taxes they are paying should perhaps take it up with the tax attorneys and/or legislators who have failed them.

so those who are unhappy with paying taxes should probably stop using roads, schools, hospitals, drainage, defence, police, firemen, universities, grants, etc. There are a few places where such things do not exist: they don't do very well.
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