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

theguardian.com

311–320 of 467 posts

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

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from Ireland and from talking to friends and family most people are pretty happy with it. We give them a pass on taxes and they employ thousands of high end engineers here. We then collect large income tax revenues from these workers and subsidise the rest of the country.

Perhaps all countries should adopt 0% corporate tax then, if it's so beneficial.

That would probably level the playing field between small companies and big companies, TBH.

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

#312
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…

>dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income

No thanks, you have no right to tell us (Switzerland) how much taxes we have to pay. First fix your own US-tax-system.

EDIT: I think he meant that:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/11/bidens-plan...

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

#313

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…

Tax based on value extracted from a country. For example, in the UK I would tax corporations based upon UK Sales - UK Costs. For this I would require Amazon to set up a UK subsidiary. Once they have set up a UK subsidiary then they will need to pay a corporation tax based on their total UK sales - UK costs. Sales are sales to the UK; any sales made to other countries, then no tax needed as those countries might (and…

It’s not really that simple to measure the ‘value’ extracted from a specific country. If we’re considering digital goods Amazon UK could just transfer the profits to Amazon Luxemburg by signing an IP licensing agreement etc. for the same amount they would be taxes on in the UK. So the UK entity would operate at a loss/zero profit. AFAIK many companies are already doing this.

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

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be impossible at all, you can of course cooperate with competitors to lower your taxes while competing for customers. Not that you necessarily need to band together with your competitors for this, there are plenty of companies out there.

What is the minimum viable income to take advantage of these tax loopholes? Would I need to form an LLC or C-Corp (does it matter)? As long as big corps are cheating, let's be transparent about the data and how everyone can act the same way. I'm all for taxing Microsoft et. al. the correct amount but in the meantime let's democratize this action. Maybe it will prompt legal change for everyone. I'd love to see a Playb…

I don't think it would be particularly costly to set up an Irish company, figure out a structure and set up a company group with internal invoicing etc. If you can spend a few 100 k on administration a year I'm guessing it would be worth it.

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

#315
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This argument comes up a lot but nobody is paying 50% income tax in the US. Even if you make a million dollars a year in W2 income, in California, which has the highest marginal tax rate, you'll pay roughly 40% effective, almost entirely to the federal government. Realistically you're going to make a lot less than that W2, which drives the effective rate down considerably, and as remote work becomes more of an expect…

> This argument comes up a lot but nobody is paying 50% income tax in the US.

Call it what you will, add up the local taxes and registration fees and and and people may as well be in Europe instead of the States...

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

#316
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>What can we do? It's a tough question. The tendency is to react superficially: Moralizing reactions, emotional reaction, first principles takes. The way tax actually works is via accounting "standards," tax law and corporation law... across multiple jurisdictions. A thousand-detail complex , where morals, emotions and first principles are literally meaningless. Actual meaning can only be derived with scenario plans…

>Another, more radical approach is rethinking the idea of public wealth. The currently ongoing collapse of monetarism is, perhaps, an opportunity. Tax public companies x% of their shares per year. 1. this disproportionately affects companies with higher capital requirements than lower ones. Think spacex compared to a SaaS. 2. this doesn't solve the underlying issue of moving to a jurisdiction with lower taxes. let's…

>> disproportionately affects companies with higher capital requirements

How/Why?

>> underlying issue of moving to a jurisdiction with lower taxes

Well... nothing simple solves this in full. However, "loophole" in this article works by attributing income from IP licensing (an internal transaction between Apple owned entities) to Ireland, which does not consider this a taxable transaction.

A "share tax" would apply to the same entity that shareholders own a stake in, it doesn't try to disentangle subsidiary structures. Companies might try to list on Bermuda's stock exchange. I wouldn't discount that possibility, but it won't happen overnight.

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

#317
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People are already incentivized to do that in the current system. How does removing corporate tax make that any different?

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

#318
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This argument comes up a lot but nobody is paying 50% income tax in the US. Even if you make a million dollars a year in W2 income, in California, which has the highest marginal tax rate, you'll pay roughly 40% effective, almost entirely to the federal government. Realistically you're going to make a lot less than that W2, which drives the effective rate down considerably, and as remote work becomes more of an expect…

BS... you're excluding Property Tax, Sales Tax, etc

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

#319
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It mostly depends if you intend to make significant pension contributions. Let's say your company has £100K to play with and you want it all. - You can pay yourself a £100K salary, of which take home pay will be about ~£67K - You can pay yourself a £8,840 salary tax free in order to qualify for the state pension but minimize national insurance, and pay 19% corporation tax on the remaining £91,160, which leaves £73,83…

Not only that but you get significant tax relief on your £40k pension contributions (about £8k I think) so takehome plus pension is about £95k from the £100k initially.

No, the £40K sacrifice (the max) would be from gross.

Tax 'relief' (it's a refund despite what anyone says) only applies if you pay from your post-tax income.

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

#320
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument comes up a lot but nobody is paying 50% income tax in the US. Even if you make a million dollars a year in W2 income, in California, which has the highest marginal tax rate, you'll pay roughly 40% effective, almost entirely to the federal government. Realistically you're going to make a lot less than that W2, which drives the effective rate down considerably, and as remote work becomes more of an expect…

BS... you're excluding Property Tax, Sales Tax, etc

Which are not income taxes.
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