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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

#281

Post by ceejayoz »

Grustaf wrote: post #216
rorykoehler wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one pays that much in a progressive tax system. Every time this discussion comes up people spout off these numbers but if you calculate out how much you actually pay it's probably in the 20-30% of total salary range. That's still high but it's just dishonest and makes people look like idiots when they throw around 40% etc. If you are truly paying 40% of your income in tax you are earning millions and are benefitin…

Or you live in Europe. The _average_ Danish taxpayer pays 45% in income tax. This is not counting payroll taxes that the company pays on top of that, or of course 25% on everything you buy. So the overall effective tax rate is more like 75% than 50%. There used to be a slogan in Sweden, "half left", meaning people wanted to keep at least half of their gross pay. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/201…

As an American citizen who paid $30k for healthcare last year and looking at college for two kids in less than a decade, I'd take the Danish deal laid out in that article pretty happily.

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

#283

Post by axlee »

pembrook wrote: post #251
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.

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 in…

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

Fraudsters skirted that by keeping their corporation's assets on the books and expensing everything, never actually receiving/spending anything themselves.

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

#284

Post by stinos »

kilroy123 wrote: post #254
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

I knew it has been different, didn't know that website though. Anyway this should be repeated more often, also in response to the 'but if we tax them they'll go elsewhere, there is no other way'. Because people simply do not know this.

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

#285

Post by echopom »

ornornor wrote: post #229
new_here wrote: post #182

Take a moment to comprehend those numbers: FY18/19 - under $10bn profit FY19/20 - $314.7bn profit (3/4 of Ireland's GDP) and paid no tax on it. > The subsidiary, which collects licence fees for use of copyrighted Microsoft software around the world, recorded an annual profit of $314.7bn in the year to the end of June 2020, according to accounts filed at the Irish Companies Registration Office. Its profits jumped from…

And seen in another thread: Microsoft is lobbying the US govt to spend 250 million to make more software engineers by introducing computer courses in schools so that there are more SE on the market in the future so that they can hire for cheaper. Meanwhile, individuals are paying 20–50% income tax. What a wonderful world.

> is lobbying the US govt to spend 250 million to make more software engineers

It cost money to "train" engineers , better use taxpayer money to train those damn "human ressource" rather than those 300Billions of Profit.

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

#286

Post by hawk_ »

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?

It's not the citizens of a pirate nation that are unhappy with piracy. It's the rest of us.

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

#287

Post by tekkk »

EMM_386 wrote: post #164

What is the solution to this? I've wracked my brain and can't come up with anything. Companies will just continue to flee to whatever country is now offering 0%. Christmas Island has a new 0% corporate tax policy? Let's go buy a mailbox there and move our "headquarters". The old-school thinking is that low corporate tax policies encourage business, creating jobs in the process and boosting that country's economy. In…

Well of course it can be done, we have been to the Moon and all. It's just the squirming politicians and oblivious general populace that won't do anything (except vote for the same people year after year) that allow them to get a free pass.

Basically you could just penalize and persecute companies that funnel their profits to small tax-haven countries with little or no employees but excessive profits and hence, are considered avoiding taxes. The general gist of it is that since there is no penalty they lose nothing currently except small reputational damage. It's definitely a solvable problem but one needs a consensus to enforce it across the borders.

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

#288

Post by duped »

frockington1 wrote: post #147
tootahe45 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget your cap gains and consumption taxes

And death tax. And property tax for good measure

We don't have a death tax in the US. We have an estate tax that is exempt up to $11 million and can be spread out 15 years for businesses.

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

#289

Post by axlee »

G4E wrote: post #257
cheph wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The definition of a parasitic economy. Other countries are well in their rights to pressure Ireland as hard as they can to end this theft.

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

#290

Post by dalbasal »

TimPC wrote: post #248
dalbasal wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely easy to speculate about this stuff academically. Economists tend to delight in theory-adjacent discussions. These have very little bearing on the real world. TRW, in this case, is a cascading infinity of corporate law, tax law, accounting practices, jurisdictions, lobbyists, parliaments and special interests. None of these exist in economist's models, unless they're modeling public choice theory or som…

Taxing wealth is a terrible idea because it requires government to get balance sheets from the masses. If you miscalibrate earnings minus inflation it’s also punitive. Lastly for many families most of their wealth is their home which isn’t exactly liquid even if it grows in value. Wealth taxes would force many to sell their houses.

The masses don't have wealth, especially if you exclude personal dwellings. In any case, you need "balance sheets" to have CGT, which in theory we do.
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