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Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

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Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#251
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tell your 0.1 friends to focus on all those points you made They know it already, most of my friends are classical liberals/conservatives. > they will be the scapegoat for the mob You are probably in the top 10% (as most people here on HN), so a lot of people here might become the same scapegoat. > Things are getting bad enough to where "cutting ones nose to spite the face" I'm not sure things are getting bad. Poor…

> I'm not sure things are getting bad. Poorest people now are more rich than poorest people 30 years ago. > Like in the US now average electrician makes 70K a year. That's a lot of money. And anyone can be electrician. I would not consider electricians as an example of poor people. And no, not anyone can be an electrician. It takes training and licensing, and many people can't jump those hurdles. (Not to mention the…

> I would not consider electricians as an example of poor people

Exactly.

> not anyone can be an electrician

Who can't?

> It takes training and licensing

So?

By the way, just googled, entry level electrician apprentice with zero experience (you are required to do that for some time to get your license) gets about $30K. That's not a lot, but that you can do with almost zero training, and it in several years it is significantly more.

> and many people can't jump those hurdles.

Maybe they can be paintworkers then. 38K of income is not as lavish as the life of electrician, but that's should be good enough who cannot get an electrician license.

> Not to mention the fact that if everyone became an electrician, very few of them would get any work

Truck driver, nurse, carpenter, crane operator, plumber, car mechanic, firefighter and so on. There's a lot of thing you can do with little or no investment.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#252
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought part of the plan is that non-complying countries get sanctions/tarrifs applied so your plan wouldn't be viable?

It's not my plan, nor am I advocating for it. I just think it's a potential in the logical progression of events. To your point though, what if a few or even all Fortune n companies formed countries (or one country together). Who would the sanctions really hurt/benefit? I doubt it would hurt the corporate nation states as much as the others.

I doubt all fortune 500 companies would just accept losing access to the markets of 130 countries, so I'm guessing you're talking about tariffs rather than sanctions (which imply a total ban). In that case it would depend on how punitive the tariffs are. If they're not punitive enough then you're right, companies might just deal with the tariffs in which case the corporate tax gets turned into a tax (assuming mot of the countries are in on it. If it's punitive enough (ie. it's better to pay the local corporate tax than to pay the tariffs) then you'd expect competitors to break ranks to gain a competitive advantage.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/income-share-of-bottom-50-...

Why is that a problem? Looks like the issue is not that "I want to get rid of poverty" but rather "I want to get rid of rich people".

...I'm providing a counter point to your claim that income hasn't gone down.

Why is that a problem?

well it's a problem because I am in that group.

it's clearly not a problem for you or your friends, hence why I believe that cutting the nose to spite the face is the only way to make you and your friends care. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of time saying everything is perfectly fine, when me and a bunch of people keep telling you THAT WE ARE NOT OKAY.

Do you get it now?

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about not paying taxes 10 out of 15 years[1]? Honestly I get it, and I can argue both sides of this debate. However, for the regular working person who pays taxes year in and year out to hear that people who live in stratospheric luxury aren't paying taxes: it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and by duck I mean rigged system. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/27/politics/trump-income-taxes-…

Trump is a notoriously bad business man who loses money. If you're living if savings which is what happens when you lose money, then there is no tax bill. I'm not discounting fraud, but there is active disinformation on this - propublica mixing wealth totals and income tax just one of many intentional misleading arguments.

Again, I understand the argument you're making, but it still on its face looks like a rigged system. Trump isn't living in poverty and his generational tax fraud scheme was pretty well documented a few years ago[1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/d...

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#255
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nations can still compete. Stability, rule of law, infrastructure investment, etc. Everything except letting companies use the country as a pirate's cave

>Nations can still compete. Stability, rule of law, infrastructure investment, etc. don't forget tax incentives. Sure, every country has to charge 15% tax, but if you domicile your country here we'll give you tax credits!

That would be obvious loophole, I guess these agreements explicitly prohibit it.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#256
post #64

Does anyone know at what point the tax is paid? I ask because publicly traded companies avoid it by doing share buy backs. So Apple technically makes no profit. 1% or 15% or 100% of technically nothing is nothing... >The deal also reportedly includes a framework to eliminate digital services taxes, which targeted the biggest American tech companies. Quid Pro quo Clarice!

The classic offshore approach is that Apple USA doesn't make any profit because they find a way to make the accounting work such that Apple Ireland actually made the profit. It only becomes income or dividends when it gets transferred back to the USA. An example might be to assign the patent ownership for the new M1 chips to the Ireland subsidiary. Sell them for $1. Then charge the USA based firm $1 billion in licens…

Then it's spent in ireland and it's why ireland has a tech industry.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Income went down. I'm having a hard time finding where in the chart that happened across the last 30 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_wages#/media/File:United_...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/income-share-of-bottom-50-...

Do you understand the difference between “income” and “income share”?

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#258
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a globalized economy we need lower taxes. Zero would be an even better number. Isn’t that point precisely addressed by the Biden administrations of setting a global minimum tax rate? If every country, or at least every country without signify the trade barriers (who cares what happens in North Korea) has the same tax rate than there’s no incentive for companies to move their profits - or the entire company - abr…

I don't really see the point to all of this. There will always be loopholes that allow multi-national companies to avoid tax to some extent. Wouldn't it be simpler to just set corporate tax rates to zero, and instead raise taxes on income and -- especially -- capital gains? And the US already has a personal tax system where it doesn't matter where you earn income: if you're a US citizen, you have to consider US incom…

> There will always be loopholes that allow multi-national companies to avoid tax to some extent.

There will always be loopholes, but these loopholes will be harder to exploit, so while the solution is not perfect, it is (probably) better than what we have now.

> Wouldn't it be simpler to just set corporate tax rates to zero

I said probably, because there's an argument that it is good that large corporations pay zero taxes: it allows them to grow faster and sell goods worldwide, while the US still profits profits from high skilled workers income/shareholders income and generally faster economy growth.

> instead raise taxes on income and -- especially -- capital gains

Or maybe not raise taxes at all, but cut government spendings instead.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a problem? Looks like the issue is not that "I want to get rid of poverty" but rather "I want to get rid of rich people".

...I'm providing a counter point to your claim that income hasn't gone down. Why is that a problem? well it's a problem because I am in that group. it's clearly not a problem for you or your friends, hence why I believe that cutting the nose to spite the face is the only way to make you and your friends care. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of time saying everything is perfectly fine, when me and a bunch of people ke…

> I'm providing a counter point to your claim that income hasn't gone down.

It went up even inflation adjusted.

Share of income went down, but not the income. A median worker can buy more stuff than they could 30 years ago.

> THAT WE ARE NOT OKAY.

I heard that, but I still don't understand why you are not OK. You are richer than you would be 30 years ago.

Re: Global minimum corporate tax: 130 nations to support U.S. proposal

#260

The idea that politicians and bureaucracies can defer to external international conventions to be the bad-cop for wildly unpopular policy decisions - and then claim to be powerless to stop them - is anathema to democratic principles like national representation, consent of the governed, and other concepts of human rights. This proposal seems like a global group of government affiliated people colluding to fleece each…

Raising corporate taxes is generally popular, not "wildly unpopular." For example, in a recent poll 65% of Americans support raising corporate taxes [1]. This number has been fairly steady over time. It's even higher when you ask about closing loopholes that allow international tax havens, as this 15% minimum tax agreement is trying to do--70-85% support [2]. The only terrible shame here is you laundering your opinio…

Corporate taxes in the US should be 0%. It's all double tax to begin with.
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