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Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

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Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#271

Post by cpursley »

fartingflamingo wrote: post #269
pbourke wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands has the highest English proficiency in the world [0] (among non-native speaking countries) so I imagine it would be a compelling choice. [0] https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/

If language fluency would be the most important criterium - which it isn't-, the Dutch speaking 60% of Belgium are an even more logical choice. They're buried in that ranking below the less stellar English in the French speaking part of Belgium. Flemish people might be an even more logical choice for the EU. Similar English, Dutch and basic German fluency, plus with most uni educated people there, pretty decent Frenc…

Are Latvians still learning Russian these days as well? In Georgia I noticed a big difference between the older (Russian) and younger (English) in their second language skills.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#272

Post by rPlayer6554 »

eru wrote: post #164
dandotway wrote: post #152

With Hollywood Accounting[1], you make taxable profits transform into untaxable expenses that you pay to yourself for services you rendered to yourself, and Ireland has been a common destination for this sort of money to flow. Hollywood accounting can take several forms. In one form, a subsidiary is formed to perform a given activity and the parent entity will extract money out of the film's revenue in the form of ch…

The US can change their tax system, if they want to. Eg they could tax land value. It's very hard to move land out of the country or hide it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax Or they could tax sales / consumption instead of trying to tax company profits. Company profits are just a bit too nebulous to tax properly. Eg you can reduce your profits just fine by shifting your capital structure from being finan…

> Eg they could tax land value. It's very hard to move land out of the country or hide it.

Remote work would be their solution.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#273

Post by fcanela »

busymom0 wrote: post #16

I have never understood the whole "tax the rich" idea and I am not rich, don't own a house or car or stocks or anything expensive. When and how will the taxes help you and me? The money just ends up going to a black hole for the government to spent inefficiently. And if you are in the US, the money gets spent on funding the military industrial complex for bombing more countries, regime changes, intelligence agencies,…

I am really surprised by the HN community. I wasn't expecting people to downvote an user who politely expressed his point of view just because theirs is the opposite.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#274

Post by microtonal »

ithkuil wrote: post #230
nixass wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the US company in Europe would have far more (big majority) of non-US employees. Those employees have far better understanding of Dutch English than Irish English in every day and in corporate life

There are some workers that would relocate with the whole family. This means the significant other has to find a job and fit it, kids have to go to school. While many countries have a very decent proficiency in English, you're whole family must fully invest in learning the local language. And that in addition to using English in the office of at least one of the adults (since many big companies use English officially…

There are some workers that would relocate with the whole family. This means the significant other has to find a job and fit it, kids have to go to school.

Like e.g. Berlin, the large Dutch cities are very much internationally-oriented and usually it's not problem to get a job and integrate if you don't speak Dutch. Sometimes the issue is quite the opposite -- my wife wanted to learn Dutch, but people would just switch to English or German and she would have to ask them explicitly to speak Dutch.

This means the significant other has to find a job and fit it, kids have to go to school.

Kids pick up other languages in no time. A lot of friends/colleagues moved between countries (academia) and the kids would usually pick up a language in 2-3 months. I have lived in Australia for six months when I was four. When we returned, I spoke English with an aussie accent (though that's gone now ;)).

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#275

Post by marvel_boy »

pbourke wrote: post #103
jxcole wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? This comment is not about Berlin or Paris, it is mentioning then as examples of non English speaking cities. Is the author supposed to mention every city in Europe?

The Netherlands has the highest English proficiency in the world [0] (among non-native speaking countries) so I imagine it would be a compelling choice. [0] https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/

India in the 50th place? My company has Indian workers and they speak English very well.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#276

Post by marto1 »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #81
busymom0 wrote: post #16

I have never understood the whole "tax the rich" idea and I am not rich, don't own a house or car or stocks or anything expensive. When and how will the taxes help you and me? The money just ends up going to a black hole for the government to spent inefficiently. And if you are in the US, the money gets spent on funding the military industrial complex for bombing more countries, regime changes, intelligence agencies,…

Even if tax money would all go into a black hole - you would still get a slightly more equal society just by having smaller wealth gaps.

You say it like it's a worse option. I'd argue it is actually better to burn money since then government won't have so much money which will make it an unimportant target for big corp contractors. And it is currently and there is vast amounts of corruption going on because of it.

Just think about the kind of profits corps that are on the CIA's short list get.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#277

Post by fcanela »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #45
busymom0 wrote: post #16

I have never understood the whole "tax the rich" idea and I am not rich, don't own a house or car or stocks or anything expensive. When and how will the taxes help you and me? The money just ends up going to a black hole for the government to spent inefficiently. And if you are in the US, the money gets spent on funding the military industrial complex for bombing more countries, regime changes, intelligence agencies,…

Here's a short list of things tax money funds: Roads Schools Healthcare (in civilized countries) Making sure companies selling medicine aren't killing people Making sure companies don't dump toxic waste into rivers and lakes Note that comparing Walmart vs the government is especially funny since most of Warlmart's expansion comes from the fact that it under-pays it's workers so much that the federal government has to…

Than can be done with less taxes than the average europeans one. It is also debatable which of the estates attributed roles can't be done better by private companies.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#278

Post by ido »

radiator wrote: post #257
consp wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will have to mention that this varies all over, especially the bit older generation (not exclusively though) also has some weird quirks language wise. So while they might speak and understand the English language quite well the are some parts missing. As an example I like to mention the phrasing of Bolkenstein (a Dutch National/EU politician) of economic handouts to people as "Golden showers". So while proficiency…

I for one don't see the problem in this particular case. To say that giving everyone money is like a golden shower, is an apt simile in my opinion.

In the off chance this is not a joke: in colloquial English this means they are pissing on you (golden being the color of urine).

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#279

Post by ido »

123pie123 wrote: post #232
curation wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in the Netherlands (Eindhoven - not even Amsterdam) I can confirm that the English spoken there was superior to the English I was raised in in rural Ontario where my teachers said "warshing" instead of washing. The Dutch have an incredibly faculty for language and I admire it.

I'm from the UK and whilst working with a handful of dutch, I was blown away not only by their extremely good english but also their ability to understand and the subitle aspects of english - eg comedy/ sarcasium/ passive aggresstion etc..

Dutch is probably the closest language to English that isn’t a dialect of English.

Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement

#280

Post by cpursley »

seoaeu wrote: post #132
lettergram wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah because governments use those funds so effectively. It’s why when I look around the U.S. at the trillions we spent over the last two decades and I see... well looks pretty much the same as the 90s honestly

By what metric? The crime rate is down and the stock market is up. Not to mention that given the scale of the country, just continuing the same level of government services costs trillions

The murder rate has skyrocketed in the past two years in the US. As have other crimes.
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