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

businessinsider.com.au

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

#311

Post by watt »

refurb wrote: post #298
bnjms wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument gets played frequently but it misses the a point. Buffet is not complaining that he has not been able to send enough money to the government he is complaining that the system has no way to take the money from people like him. It’s is meaningless to send more money as the complaint is about the system and how it deals with the overall group he is a part of. The consistent criticism is that Buffet has not…

I’m sorry what? Buffet shouldn’t have just cut the IRS a check for $2B because it’s “meaningless to just send the money”? So unless all the pieces are in place there is no value in paying the amount in taxes you publicly claim you should pay? That’s like saying alcohol should be illegal, but drinking all the time. “Well, there is no point in me not drinking, the point is to change the law”. That makes zero sense.

Buffer should've done same but opposite what Koch brothers do: fund powerful think-tanks, but left of center, to promote progressive tax and eliminating loopholes and limitation of business taxes and capital gains taxes, I guess also promoting estate taxes for a good measure.

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

#312

Post by csomar »

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 US gets to benefit from this. This money will be taxed in the US, at best; or repatriated as a deal at worst {https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-19/u-s-compa...}.

> 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 88% came from workers.

This is meaningless. You need to look at something called "fiscal pressure". If you remove employees taxes and increase corporate taxes, what you'll probably get is lower salaries. {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...}

tl;dr: Taxes are a political topic when they should be a scientific one.

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

#313

Post by KirillPanov »

applepple wrote: post #278
KirillPanov wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of bank makes business loans without encumbering any collateral?

Why not just create intangible collateral out of thin air? E.g. crypto? Then you just use some of the credit to pump up the value of the collateral to meet the bank's expectation.

That's called fraud. You would need to find an especially stupid bank.

You can certainly do that, but if you're wiling to commit crimes there are much easier ways to make money.

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

#314

Post by cj »

jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote: post #288
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 ...

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.

My interpretation of the grandparents comment is the $6B in revenue (probably from outside Ireland) would not be subject to the 20% tax, while they are subject to 1% tax. So by raising taxes to 20%, you lose all foreign companies like Uber paying 1%, which may very well add up to much more than purely revenue originating within Ireland.

I could be completely wrong, I’m not a tax lawyer

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

#315

Post by gruez »

klyrs wrote: post #185
gruez wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you going to tell the IRS when they ask you about the offshore wire transfers coming in? It's a "consulting fee"? You're going to be paying taxes on that at your marginal rate.

Sure, but if you pay yourself a very nice income and realize very many nice incomes in capital gains, then you're still coming out way ahead.

You do realize that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than regular income? Doing this only makes you pay more taxes.

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

#316

Post by tzs »

jb775 wrote: post #193
colechristensen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One: this seems to be about uber activities outside the US Two: the US is actively working on what it is calling a global minimum corporate tax Three: anonymous shell companies were made illegal in the US in January It seems your comment is rather uninformed. There is of course much to do but it is hard to look at what is happening and come to the conclusion that it is all nothing

> this seems to be about uber activities outside the US Wrong. This is Uber transferring money all around the world through shell companies so it's hard to figure out where it came from. Just like a crypto-mixer. This quote alone shows how they initially transferred a good chunk of money out of the US: Uber transferred its intellectual property through a $16 billion “loan” from one of its subsidiaries in Singapore th…

Ah, the old classic "the 16th Amendment was never really ratified" argument. A perennial loser when it is brought up in court.

It is such a weak argument that now I'm wondering if that site is as sloppy in their research on the other interesting articles I found there, like the ones about how there were more white slaves than black slaves in the US, or how the Rothschilds control the US, or chemtrails are real and drenching the population with mercury (to accomplish one or more of: make it hard to prove that mercury in vaccines is a source of harm, to reduce the population, or centralize power with the UN), or a bunch of stuff on the Pope, the Freemasons, and the Illuminati that was sufficiently incoherent that I couldn't quite tell what they were claiming.

Are you sure that the site is not meant as on over the top satire of conspiracy theories?

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

#317

Post by johannes1234321 »

jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote: post #288
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 ...

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.

Mind that currently they take 1% of all EU revenues of international corporations.

For a "fair" scheme they would tax on their share of revenue.

Irish GDP is about 2.5% of EU GDP. 20% of 2.5% is 0.5%

So with the current scheme they make double.

And yes, that calculation is wrong in many ways. On the one side the current GDP is increased due to the tax business (they are 1% of population) on the other hand there are still many company's not doing the Irish game. And yes, I ignored the Dutch for this calculation ...

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

#318

Post by hvis »

michaelmrose wrote: post #227
rattray wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not both? It's hard to be mad at someone once you realize you'd do the same thing if you were in their shoes. Loopholes like this should be illegal, but their existence ~obligates executives to take advantage of them (fiduciary duty). You'd just be bad at business if you didn't. As someone who wants to be good at business, I can't get mad at the players here – just the game.

I wouldn't do the same in their shoes and this statement >obligates executives to take advantage of them (fiduciary duty) Is a piece of wisdom that exists entirely on the internet unconnected with objective reality. You are obligated to in the general case to serve the shareholders interests but you are absolutely legally entirely able to take a broader and deeper view than this quarters profits and use your own judg…

There is also an argument that doing this gives a company certain competitive advantage.

E.g. if (completely made-up example) Lyft were practicing this kind of tax avoidance and Uber did not, the former would have potentially more budget left over to undercut the latter on prices and/or salaries.

So proper laws are still needed for an even playing field. Not that I condone Uber's practice anyway.

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

#319

Post by rapnie »

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 ...

> and for countries like Ireland or Netherlands it is better

Don't know about Ireland, but saw a TV highlight about 2yrs ago, that analysed benefits for the country and found there hardly aren't any. For regular citizens and the economy in general, at least. That a lot of the revenues flow to those upholding this lax tax system, while the huge money streams flow through NL to end up in even more lax tax havens.

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

#320

Post by throwaway2037 »

carlob wrote: post #304
throwaway2037 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I assume when you write "normal workers" that you mean non-executives and non-passive income earners. (Executives can get a lot of equity or dividends that accrue taxes at lower rates; passive income earners use asset depreciation to lessen tax burden.) The top 1% in the US is ~400K USD. Real question for OP (and others): What do you think is a reasonable effective income tax rate? (Please do not confuse effec…

> Real question for OP (and others): What do you think is a reasonable effective income tax rate? (Please do not confuse effective and nominal tax rates!) In my view: "All in" should be about 50-55%. When I say "all in" I mean absolutely everything -- federal, state, local, national pension, national health (if applicable), yada yada yada. That would mean top 1% still have net income (after taxes) of more than 200K U…

+9000 votes! I agree 110%. I didn't say it, but the 50-55% "all-in" should also include capital gains receiving no special treatment for high-income people.
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