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

theguardian.com

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

#251

Post by pembrook »

m12k wrote: post #83
kowlo wrote: 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.

Yep, the current corporate tax laws basically punish single-nation companies, while giving multinationals a free pass. International tax laws desperately need an overhaul.

Better yet, dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income, both capital gains and salary.

The amount of human time and energy wasted on taxation is mind bogglingly stupid.

Politicians trying to influence the behavior of their minions by designing these convoluted "tax-based incentive" schemes is the whole problem in the first place.

Just tax all money that comes into anyones hands at say 30% and let the market decide what activity is most efficient for the world.

Then maybe the 500 million intelligent people working around the globe as tax authorities, tax attorneys, tax lobbyists, tax preparers, tax accountants, and tax consultants...could spend their time doing more useful things for humanity.

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

#252

Post by mxcrossr »

TimPC wrote: post #196

Most economists around the world support eliminating the corporate tax and raising capital gains to compensate. In addition to vastly reducing the amount of accounting needed it would make structures like this pointless. Perhaps governments should get on this as a priority. It seems like early movers would attract a lot of investment.

My pessimistic fear is that when countries can no longer compete in tax rates, they’ll compete on subsidies. You can go much lower than zero!

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

#253

Post by maccard »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #168
maccard wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I didn't know Washington state had no income tax! If you count 401k/marriage allowances, personal allowances etc, then there are very very few people anywhere paying 40% income tax. In Ireland, you're not paying 40% until you make 120k which is a very small amount of people.

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

#254

Post by kilroy123 »

seaourfreed wrote: post #226

Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 8…

Historically it was the opposite.

Overtime, all our policies changed to squeeze the regular citizens to protect and enrich the top 1%. It's wealth redistribution to the top.

Instead Americans would rather flight each other instead of banning together to reverse course.

It doesn't have to be this way.

I love how this website shows this in data:

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com

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

#255

Post by three14 »

um_ya wrote: post #148
callamdelaney wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it's great that it's great society. Sucks pretty hard for him though.

"Pay your fair share". I cringe every time I hear this from people. Rich people pay WAY more than what they get back from the gov.

Rich people don't usually get handouts from the government, but they get something more valuable - a social order, enforced by the government, that allows them to be rich. Suppose you were rich, but you lived in a place where rich people tended to get kidnapped and held for ransom - being rich wouldn't be quite as good of a deal. The social order disproportionately benefits the rich, so they should pay more to keep it going.

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

#256

Post by zelos »

ben_w wrote: post #215
Nextgrid wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

150k sounds very low when you take into account this tax rate and the property prices in London.

London property is considered abnormally expensive in the U.K., and £150k is only slightly less than the £157k which the Prime Minister earns. Median U.K. income is £29,400: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom

To be fair, though, the prime minister's salary is generally a drop from whatever job they would be doing instead (making no comment on whether that's right or wrong). Same with judges, I believe.

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

#257

Post by G4E »

cheph wrote: post #238
m12k wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the current corporate tax laws basically punish single-nation companies, while giving multinationals a free pass. International tax laws desperately need an overhaul.

Is Ireland not a democracy? Can't they vote to change their own tax laws if they have a problem with them?

Why would they do that ? The light tax they require from those entity still benefits them immensily, because those entity choose to pay them there instead of elsewhere. If Ireland introduced more taxes those big corps would move away, so they would actually receive less...

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

#258

Post by tebbers »

nly wrote: post #89
oarsinsync wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the UK and still using dividends as a significant method to self-compensate, you may benefit from speaking to a (better) accountant. (Your circumstances may vary, this is not financial advice, YOLO, etc)

It mostly depends if you intend to make significant pension contributions. Let's say your company has £100K to play with and you want it all. - You can pay yourself a £100K salary, of which take home pay will be about ~£67K - You can pay yourself a £8,840 salary tax free in order to qualify for the state pension but minimize national insurance, and pay 19% corporation tax on the remaining £91,160, which leaves £73,83…

Not only that but you get significant tax relief on your £40k pension contributions (about £8k I think) so takehome plus pension is about £95k from the £100k initially.

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

#259

Post by rmah »

malux85 wrote: post #2

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

You can stop believing the idiocy printed by rags masquerading as newspapers.

Microsoft did not even make £220B (apx $310B) revenue globally in the 2020 fiscal year, much less in one subsidiary. Their total global revenues were $143B and total global net income (aka profit) was $44.

If The Guardian can't fact check the basics, how can you trust anything else they write?

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

#260

Post by canadianfella »

TomGullen wrote: post #45
kowlo wrote: 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.

Datable?
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