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

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

#201

Post by jernfrost »

pipio21 wrote: post #9

When I was young and getting my driving license in Madrid I had to take a bus to the place were exams were done, in the south of Madrid(Mostoles). A friend of mine worked on IKEA and he told me that it was a lot of expectation as the founder had gone to Spain and it was taking the same bus that I took in order to visit the stores in Spain. It was surprising to me that someone owning billions will take the bus, while…

The king of Norway in the 70s, Olav the 5th took the tram with regular Norwegians. This was during the oil crisis so it was a way of showing solidarity with citizens who could no longer afford to drive.

I think trying to not put yourself too high about everybody else is a cherished ideal in Scandinavian countries. It has not gone down well that the present crown prince and princess transferred their kids to private school e.g. They claim it is to immerse them more in english. But people are not happy about it.

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

#202

Post by 1337biz »

fetbaffe wrote: post #188

One have to remember why this was setup in the way it is, to protect the company forever. In Sweden during the 70-ties 80-ties the Social democrats was pushing a radical socialist agenda ('löntagarfonder') to take over companies by taxing profits and then buying shares with it, all controlled by trade unions. Result of these policies was that many companies left Sweden to protect itself (of course). IKEA, Tetra Pak a…

His anti-tax setup makes a lot more sense to me now. If I had build a company from nothing just to seen the government getting so close to stealing it away from me, I would also do my best to make sure they will benefit the least amount possible from it.

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

#203

Post by bearcobra »

fetbaffe wrote: post #188

One have to remember why this was setup in the way it is, to protect the company forever. In Sweden during the 70-ties 80-ties the Social democrats was pushing a radical socialist agenda ('löntagarfonder') to take over companies by taxing profits and then buying shares with it, all controlled by trade unions. Result of these policies was that many companies left Sweden to protect itself (of course). IKEA, Tetra Pak a…

Any ideas where I could find more details on H&Ms move? They appear to be listed in the Swedish stock exchange and headquartered in Stockholm so I’m curious how they ended up moving back.

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

#204

Post by jessaustin »

abakker wrote: post #151
jessaustin wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One doubts those narrators would approve of the little people doing what it would actually take to rein in big business. In any case, it seems impossible to be both uninformed and complicit. (If you were just being really subtle and meant "uniformed", then yes one would agree that uniformed people, little or big, are more likely to be complicit.)

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

#205

Post by saosebastiao »

gaius wrote: post #154
saosebastiao wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You seem to forget who got those legislators elected. Of course they intended it.

The real problem is that the corporate tax shouldn't exist. It's too easy to fuck with and manipulate a profit tax by being creative with what counts as revenue and what counts as expense. And tax incidence studies have repeatedly shown that the burden of corporate taxes fall disproportionately on labor, not capital. The better idea would be to eliminate the corporate tax entirely, taking the world's entire corporate tax avoidance scheme with it, and instead tax personal income, dividends, and capital gains at higher rates. It would actually be more progressive and far less avoidable, and mountains less complex.

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

#206

Post by buttcoinslol »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #99
_jal wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Injecting legal definitions into an informal conversation is a cheap debater's trick, annoying, and and hijacks the conversation.

It's not semantic, or a legal definition. It's a very explicit and important difference – 'evasion' is illegally avoiding taxation, and 'avoidance' is legally avoiding taxation. Messing these two different concepts up helps nobody and just muddles the two issues further. Avoidance is a problem that must be tackled on a global scale; but first, we have to be honest about what it is.

When you have enough money to influence the people who make the tax rules, what is it then? Avoidance or evasion?

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

#207

Post by fetbaffe »

akuji1993 wrote: post #191
fetbaffe wrote: post #188

One have to remember why this was setup in the way it is, to protect the company forever. In Sweden during the 70-ties 80-ties the Social democrats was pushing a radical socialist agenda ('löntagarfonder') to take over companies by taxing profits and then buying shares with it, all controlled by trade unions. Result of these policies was that many companies left Sweden to protect itself (of course). IKEA, Tetra Pak a…

This sounds so obviously stupid I wonder why nobody stopped and said "You know, we might just make all these companies leave with stuff as ridiculous as this."

Socialism always is.

That generation of social democrats was more of socialists than democrats and that was where it all went wrong, making their own party ideology to state ideology.

Taking over private property in that way is nothing more than theft and a breach of fundamental principals in Swedish society and especially against the consensus agenda (see Saltsjöbadsavtalet).

Social democrats kicked out the communist from the party in 1917 and by that becoming a democratic party and in 1921 heading their first government, but by this communism where basically back in fashion again.

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

#208

Post by always_good »

justin66 wrote: post #85
marmaduke wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an attribution for the quote?

Seriously, this takes 3 seconds to google.

Welcome to the new era, where people have smartphones in their pocket yet are less resourceful than ever.

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

#209

Post by fetbaffe »

bearcobra wrote: post #203
fetbaffe wrote: post #188

One have to remember why this was setup in the way it is, to protect the company forever. In Sweden during the 70-ties 80-ties the Social democrats was pushing a radical socialist agenda ('löntagarfonder') to take over companies by taxing profits and then buying shares with it, all controlled by trade unions. Result of these policies was that many companies left Sweden to protect itself (of course). IKEA, Tetra Pak a…

Any ideas where I could find more details on H&Ms move? They appear to be listed in the Swedish stock exchange and headquartered in Stockholm so I’m curious how they ended up moving back.

H&M and Tetra Pak moved back to Sweden in the 90-ties after promises from the then current social democratic leader Ingvar Carlsson that they would never be introduced again.

Source, Swedish

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_oktober-demonstrationerna#Ba...

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

#210

Post by vec »

akuji1993 wrote: post #191
fetbaffe wrote: post #188

One have to remember why this was setup in the way it is, to protect the company forever. In Sweden during the 70-ties 80-ties the Social democrats was pushing a radical socialist agenda ('löntagarfonder') to take over companies by taxing profits and then buying shares with it, all controlled by trade unions. Result of these policies was that many companies left Sweden to protect itself (of course). IKEA, Tetra Pak a…

This sounds so obviously stupid I wonder why nobody stopped and said "You know, we might just make all these companies leave with stuff as ridiculous as this."

A someone who is broadly sympathetic to the idea of labor ownership of the means of production, could I trouble you to explain what's so obvious about the stupidity of this plan?

Taxes on corporate profits are generally seen as reasonable in the abstract, and they're common all over the world. I could see setting an unusually high tax rate being problematic, but that doesn't appear to be what happened.

And it doesn't appear that the state was seizing anything. They were buying up shares off the public market. This doesn't seem more objectionable than any other hostile takeover. If a business owner wants to maintain control of their company then it's trivially easy for them to do so. All they have to do is not explicitly sell it, which is what an IPO is after all.

And I'm having trouble seeing where the creeping socialism concerns come in. The end goal, according to the wikipedia page, was that the companies would be owned and operated by their own labor unions, which isn't an uncommon or inherently controversial corporate governance model. The state appears to have merely been facilitating the transfer.

With perfect hindsight we can of course see that it didn't work out, but I doubt I would have been able to predict that in advance with any confidence. Would this have been fine if the state used a different taxing model? Would it have been okay if the labor unions managed to do it of their own initiative? Is it that broadening ownership of a corporation is inherently objectionable for some reason?

What am I missing?

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