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U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#201

Post by HWR_14 »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #123
HWR_14 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some fraud and abuse, of course. And the huge numbers involved mean that even a small percentage of fraud is a huge number. But there never seems to be any statistics that back up the assertion that government (in general) or the US government (in particular) produces outrageous amount of fraud or abuse.

But there never seems to be any statistics Ever heard of the Pentagon? Here's a good start: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/pentagon-audit-bud...

It's a little difficult to even understand what they're accusing the government of. The Army had a budget of $111 billion but spent $2.7 trillion and no one noticed? Really? That just doesn't pass the smell test. Most likely, they're misinterpreting something.

I will say that looking up the results of the more recent audits (2020), the summaries frequently talking about failing audits but also of uncovering zero evidence of fraud.

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#202

Post by visualradio »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #48

Pretty hype about this TBH. There is a long history of companies domiciling in say, Monaco, The Cayman Island, Panama etc to avoid taxes and regulations where they mainly operate. My understanding is that the current process in vogue for the mega cap companies is the "double irish dutch sandwich" https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-with-a-dut... No one, including tax lawyers, will tell you with a straig…

We don't actually need a global minimum tax to make the corporate income tax raise more revenue.

We just need to only record and recognize conveyance of deeds, titles, patents between domestic residents and domestically chartered corporations and eliminate deductions, depreciation, expensing for intangibles.

Federal income tax does not allow depreciation of land, IP and enclosures of ideas should be treated similar to land.

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#203

Post by zionic »

jhedwards wrote: post #198
zionic wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm surprised to hear this sentiment, but honestly I think there's a huge amount that the government does that is invisible to most citizens. It's invisible because it provides no true value to them. Right now you and I are paying for some NSA hacker to compromise American telecom networks, 13 carrier battle groups to put around the ocean doing nothing, literal armies of people in a hundred plus bases on literally e…

You missed the point of my comment. It's invisible because it _prevents_ bad things from happening, and it results in a boring world. Just one example: I have only had food poisoning maybe one or two times in my time living in the US. Food safety and restaurant safety is invisible. Or how about fishery management? Have you thought recently about how fisheries in the PNW are _not_ depleted and why that is? Of course y…

I believe the core problem with your position is you're not acknowledging the orders of magnitude in cost between protecting a fishery or enforcing food safety standards vs say... $10 Trillion to blow up and rebuild Iraq.

You've articulated a few highly non-controversial programs which is fine, but to then project that unto the government as a whole when programs like that are the exception not the norm is unfair.

"Unimaginable theft and loss of life carried out by our government and laundered by "reputable" sources like NYTimes? But what about some fisheries man?! We can't scale back the government!"

It just comes off as inauthentic.

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#204

Post by medvezhenok »

sumtechguy wrote: post #134
disabled wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> benefits to people who pay very little tax This is extremely misinformed. Social Security Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance are entitlement programs, and by far account for the vast majority of this budget (along with the Medicare that most of these individuals are entitled to have). You do not have a right to it, and you are obligated to participate in the insurance program by paying taxes. They are…

I personally like to use this site when this sort of thing comes up. It is not a perfect breakdown. But hits on what is going on on. https://www.usdebtclock.org/ Bottom line though is we are taking in about 3.5 and spending about 7. We are well past 'buy one less bomber'.

I would be careful to extrapolate a one-time injection like 2020 going forward, unless you expect a COVID shutdown & resulting stimulus to happen every year from now on. We're still running a deficit, sure, but it's not quite as it sounds.

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#205

Post by medvezhenok »

zionic wrote: post #176
mrguyorama wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US government is taking $10k in taxes from you, you're making over $80k a year.

>If the US government is taking $10k in taxes from you, you're making over $80k a year. This is an extreme lower bound looking only at FICA. In reality you have: -FICA -State income tax -Local taxes for your city -Social security and medicare tax -Sales tax at point of purchase -Property taxes (directly if you own a home, indirectly + margin if you rent) -Gas tax -Vehicle registration fees/taxes when purchasing -The…

America used to have lower taxes across the board for all of these things - look at the 1920s-1950s. You know what else was true in those times? Absolute rates of poverty way higher than today, death rates higher, life expectancy significantly lower, no environmental regulation (smoking everywhere, pollution etc), workplace accidents, no interstate highways, higher crime levels, the list goes on and on. Is there some percentage of tax money that is misappropriated/misused? Sure; but I think the percentage is [relatively] small - 10-20% at most.

Disintermediating the health care system with a public option could lead to the biggest savings in the system overall. The military budget stuff is somewhat disingenuous because it was necessary for the U.S. to maintain a capable military first because of the Soviet threat and later to back the USD as the global reserve currency and secure foreign oil - unless we could get the domestic shale up and running (USD as the reserve currency improves the purchasing power of every American and allows us to live "beyond our means" on an international level - while on the downside making our exports uncompetitive). But nevertheless, if our military went away, Americans would have to take a haircut to their standard of living.

So it's not as simple as you make it sound.

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#206

Post by qdog »

rsj_hn wrote: post #164
0xB31B1B wrote: post #48

Pretty hype about this TBH. There is a long history of companies domiciling in say, Monaco, The Cayman Island, Panama etc to avoid taxes and regulations where they mainly operate. My understanding is that the current process in vogue for the mega cap companies is the "double irish dutch sandwich" https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-with-a-dut... No one, including tax lawyers, will tell you with a straig…

It’s strange that you recognize new stable equilibriums emerging as unanticipated consequences of global capital liberalization but you advocate for trying to maintain a new unstable equilibrium instead of thinking about viable strategies that may work. As a piece of advice, if your solution requires 100% compliance by random nations in order for you to tax your own citizens/corporations, then your solution is square…

This is a specific issue of US based companies hiding 'offshore' revenues that likely do not qualify as truly offshore. Also holding profits in foreign countries in an effort to outlast IRS rules to be able to 'repatriate' funds at a lower tax rate, or even somehow show a loss in the US.

The perfect is the enemy of the good enough, we cannot craft a perfect tax solution, but we can make it better.

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#207

Post by mardifoufs »

s_dev wrote: post #109
0xB31B1B wrote: post #48

Pretty hype about this TBH. There is a long history of companies domiciling in say, Monaco, The Cayman Island, Panama etc to avoid taxes and regulations where they mainly operate. My understanding is that the current process in vogue for the mega cap companies is the "double irish dutch sandwich" https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-with-a-dut... No one, including tax lawyers, will tell you with a straig…

>My understanding is that the current process in vogue for the mega cap companies is the "double irish dutch sandwich" You're understanding is outdated this mechanism is finished as of 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement However this article is a little biased -- it's main contributor is a user called "Britishfinance" -- who appears to be a London based corporate shill to take the heat off th…

That's literally a reddit conspiracy theory propped up on r/Ireland. Everything seems to indicate the editor you mentioned is very well informed & doesn't have any COI a part from vague allegations.

Like what do people think, some guy working in the City spent tons of time making extremely well sourced and well constructed articles just to... Divert some sort of "heat" from the entire London financial sector... On Wikipedia? Imo that's absurd, and it's very similar to the type of accusations people (pointing at the original reddit post that popularized the city shill theory) make whenever they find an article that bruises their nationalist ego.

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#208

Post by medvezhenok »

zionic wrote: post #102
dmautz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although there is mismanagement, fraud, and abuse sometimes the alternative, not having that service, is worse. There is a balance usually.

> not having that service, is worse. Is it really? We could eliminate entire sectors of the federal government and your average person would have no clue. Why do we need 18 intelligence agencies? Why do we need 13 carrier battle groups? What, exactly, do our 100+ overseas bases do for the average tax payer? None of it makes sense in a supposedly representative government where those who slave away and pay for it get…

Defense spending has been going down as a percentage of GDP; the strength of the U.S. military is also the primary thing backing the US dollar, so I would be very careful stating "what does that do for me". There are forces at play which are not too visible at the individual level, but you are definitely affected by them just like everyone else.

https://cdn.cfr.org/sites/default/files/image/2020/12/010_na...

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#209

Post by mardifoufs »

pie420 wrote: post #128
anm89 wrote: post #113

The fact that everyone views it as normal for the US to endorse global tax laws is pretty frightening

The fact that certain countries can endorse global rules dictating what constitutes a war crime is pretty frightening too. Who are you, Lovecraft? Does the mere concept of global politics scare you?

I think that's a pretty absurd argument. Like some sort of weird variation of fallacious slippery slope. So because someone is for international treaties on war crime he must be for global taxation rates? Would it be ridiculous to not just support a full on global government then since we already have bodies governing war crimes? That lazy line of thinking can be used for pretty much everything

Re: U.S. Backs 15% Global Minimum Tax to Curb Profit Shifting Overseas

#210

Post by qdog »

visualradio wrote: post #202
0xB31B1B wrote: post #48

Pretty hype about this TBH. There is a long history of companies domiciling in say, Monaco, The Cayman Island, Panama etc to avoid taxes and regulations where they mainly operate. My understanding is that the current process in vogue for the mega cap companies is the "double irish dutch sandwich" https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-with-a-dut... No one, including tax lawyers, will tell you with a straig…

We don't actually need a global minimum tax to make the corporate income tax raise more revenue. We just need to only record and recognize conveyance of deeds, titles, patents between domestic residents and domestically chartered corporations and eliminate deductions, depreciation, expensing for intangibles. Federal income tax does not allow depreciation of land, IP and enclosures of ideas should be treated similar t…

When Apple Argentina sells phones to Apple USA, and Apple Argentina makes profits, while Apple USA always shows a loss, how does this work? Apple Global (which owns both other companies)of course, shows a profit and their stock still goes up.
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