Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#281

Post by agumonkey » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:18 AM UTC

EvilEy3 wrote: post #204

lmm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be held to account, but legitimately, legally. Their whole business model is based on crime. I don't understand why we don't see not only prosecution of their leaders, but RICO charges against their investors too.

Because they created the best service so far. Taxi was a shit show before Uber. Sort of like Jobs and smartphones.

Nah there's a world of difference between Uber and Apple. Uber blatantly admitted wanting to wipe the old market and get a monopoly. They clean used big pockets to flood cities with low prices and harm old businesses. When issues arose they pushed the burden onto drivers and users.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#282

Post by sschueller » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:18 AM UTC

I don't see how this would stop if the US somehow gets a global min tax rate. The power to do something is in the US hands and doesn't require any foreign countries to change anything.

These companies want to operate in the US. Just force them to pay what ever rate you find right irregardless what some islands tax rate might be.

Huawei is blocked from operating in the US. Not because of taxes but they would pay whatever if they could get access to the market.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#283

Post by pembrook » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:20 AM UTC

Roark66 wrote: post #239

Bookmarked. For the time when Dutch politicians start lecturing other countries in EU about "solidarity" again. The most interesting part of the article for me is not that Uber dodged $6bln of taxes, but in which countries it decided not to dodge. USA and China. USA, probably because that's where this money goes, but China?

Doing anything the Chinese government doesn’t like is not advised, given it will soon be the most valuable consumer market in the world, and Uber has a multi-billion dollar stake in Didi Chuxing.

You can play games with the European and American systems since their rules are slow to change and predictable.

You cannot play games with China. They will kill your business and access to their market on a whim, and will send your Chinese employees and their families to labor camps (I’m not exaggerating, this has happened a lot).

Hence why Apple is forced to look like a massive hypocrite whenever they talk about privacy, because they have no such protections for their users in China.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#284

Post by pnt12 » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:28 AM UTC

hmate9 wrote: post #271

Honestly it’s hard to blame companies for doing this. When all your competitors are doing it, you would be putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage by paying more taxes.

That's a very convenient excuse by CEOs and board members, I don't buy the propaganda. Let's be critical here: if a big company has no or little adversaries, do they start paying more taxes? Of course not, everyone enjoys profit. So if the behavior does not change according to their adversaries, it's reasonable to say that this is just an excuse exploitative attitudes.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#285

Post by sgift » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:28 AM UTC

secfirstmd wrote: post #273

johannes1234321 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the EU would have to act here. The EU should ensure that revenues made in the EU are taxed in the EU. However that would require all member states to agree and for countries like Ireland or Netherlands it is better to earn 1% of all EU profits of those companies than "proper" tax rates on only parts of the revenue, thus they won't agree ...

To be fair to Ireland it also would require other countries drop the hidden advantages to business that countries grant to gain unfair advantage. Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, France's support to state industries and use of its intelligence services to gain competitive business contracts, the US subsidising research through military inv…

> Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage,

I grant the first one, but how exactly does Germany control/manipulate the Euro?

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#286

Post by knuthsat » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:29 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #226

michaelmrose wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its an inherently good thing if the parties with most of the money aren't ABLE to also opt out of substantially more of the needed burden than the average person but we live in an imperfect world. When deciding if your tax minimization strategy is a good thing simply ask yourself what would happen if everyone found a way to pay virtually nothing. The obvious thing in that scenario is that society collapses. This is o…

> Clearly everyone should try to pay a reasonable share. That isn't clear to me, because using the government to collect revenue hasn't been demonstrated to be a benefit. This still presupposes that government revenue is inherently beneficial. I think if everyone found a way to pay virtually nothing, the government would collapse. That's not the same thing as society collapsing, society and the government are not cot…

Tax revenues trickle down to society very quickly. The amount of money trickling down is ridiculous that one might even call it corruption. As long as it is fairly distributed and there isn't a fixed amount of players getting most of the money, it's fine.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#287

Post by cjpearson » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:30 AM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #78

I've heard this suggested before: abolish all corporate tax and increase capital gains tax to equal income tax. This will level the playing field between large and small businesses, since the former has the means to dodge byzantine corporate tax laws. It will also give an incentive for companies to stay onshore. Any downsides?

Probably the biggest downside is that the government would lose a major policy tool. If there are no corporate taxes then there's no way to incentivize companies via tax breaks.

It would also become more important to enforce taxation on corporate benefits. If a company provides a car, jet, mansion etc for an executive's personal use, then they need to put a monetary value on that usage and tax it as income. It's not that it's impossible to do that, but it's an additional hurdle for enforcement. Not only do you have to confirm that the company provided the employee X benefit, but you also have to confirm that they valued it appropriately.

Finally, it's just not good politics. It's really hard to sell a plan like this to voters. Even if it doesn't raise the taxes of the average voter, it sounds like you're moving the burden of taxation from rich companies onto the average citizen.

I think there's a lot of economists who love the idea because it really does simplify things. Besides the framing, there's not really a big difference between subsidies or tax breaks. But that third point is probably what kills it.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#288

Post by jk7tarYZAQNpTQa » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:31 AM UTC

johannes1234321 wrote: post #249

seaourfreed wrote: post #93

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…

Actually the EU would have to act here. The EU should ensure that revenues made in the EU are taxed in the EU. However that would require all member states to agree and for countries like Ireland or Netherlands it is better to earn 1% of all EU profits of those companies than "proper" tax rates on only parts of the revenue, thus they won't agree ...

Some math is needed here, but intuition tells me 20% of X companies is more than 1% of X + Y companies, Y being those who decide to evade taxes by being incorporated in Ireland.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#289

Post by one2three4 » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:31 AM UTC

secfirstmd wrote: post #273

johannes1234321 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the EU would have to act here. The EU should ensure that revenues made in the EU are taxed in the EU. However that would require all member states to agree and for countries like Ireland or Netherlands it is better to earn 1% of all EU profits of those companies than "proper" tax rates on only parts of the revenue, thus they won't agree ...

To be fair to Ireland it also would require other countries drop the hidden advantages to business that countries grant to gain unfair advantage. Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, France's support to state industries and use of its intelligence services to gain competitive business contracts, the US subsidising research through military inv…

Ireland, is far from a rocky poor outcrop. A look at the cost of living indexes will convince anyone. And what is frequently missed on it is that this -surreal COL- is yet another form of indirect taxation on the salaries of people. So, it's a bit more sinister than letting the companies tax evade. Ireland is moving the tax burden down to its workers, out to the rest of EU and off the big companies and the landlords lobby.

Also "others are not playing well either" is not a convincing argument. Ireland is on par with Cayman islands and similar tax havens on a whole another level - unlike any of the countries that you're pointing at.

Re: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B in revenue

#290

Post by secfirstmd » Thu, May 13, 2021, 10:32 AM UTC

sgift wrote: post #285

secfirstmd wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to Ireland it also would require other countries drop the hidden advantages to business that countries grant to gain unfair advantage. Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, France's support to state industries and use of its intelligence services to gain competitive business contracts, the US subsidising research through military inv…

> Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, I grant the first one, but how exactly does Germany control/manipulate the Euro?

Easily.

When the Euro started the German economy was in a terrible stagnation.

The Euro needed to be higher for countries like Ireland that economically were doing very well at the time. By keeping it low to make German exports more competitive it meant countries like Ireland overheated, instead of having a natural breaking mechanism though higher interest rates. Irish interest rates were way too low at the time. (Of course that doesn't remove our responsibility for not taking the loans or for regulating things better)

Tons of money in Germany that was making little return then flooded into countries running hot. When this stupid money should have been written off as bad loans the Germans strong armed Ireland and elsewhere to pay it all back in full. Many of these debts should have been properly haircut.

It's the same thing with the Euro post 2008. Germany's tight control of its policy means it gets the strongest say on what actions the ECB takes and generally how the wider EU approaches finances etc.