Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 467 posts

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

#451

Post by medvezhenok »

um_ya wrote: post #148
callamdelaney wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it's great that it's great society. Sucks pretty hard for him though.

"Pay your fair share". I cringe every time I hear this from people. Rich people pay WAY more than what they get back from the gov.

We should also separate the concept of fairness from the reality of wealth in today's society. If a robot is doing the work which makes workers irrelevant, is that the fault of the workers? Should the productivity of the robot be taxed? (I believe it should - otherwise we are in a capitalist dystopia)

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

#452

Post by malux85 »

DFHippie wrote: post #109
malux85 wrote: post #2

I have to pay 40% of my income as income tax. I have HAD ENOUGH. This is infuriating. What can we do?

Are you sure you pay 40%? Googling around a bit to find the US income tax rates (assuming you are in the US) I found this: https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx This is really just the first thing I looked at, but it seems to provide the desired information. The highest bracket, for income above roughly 550k, is 37%. So considering only federal income tax it is impossible to pay 40% of your income…

I’m not on the US

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

#453

Post by magicalhippo »

rorykoehler wrote: post #428
magicalhippo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay an effective income tax of 45% (14.1% "arbeidsgiveravgift"[1] and 36% income tax after deductions). And when I buy stuff I then have to pay 25% VAT (12% on groceries). So the effective tax is 59% except for groceries. [1]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/rates/employers-national-insu...

Do you get payments from the Statoil?

Not directly, no. Gov't uses parts of the oil tax money to fund budget deficits, but they've limited themselves to how much.

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...

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

#454

Post by callamdelaney »

medvezhenok wrote: post #450
um_ya wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pay your fair share". I cringe every time I hear this from people. Rich people pay WAY more than what they get back from the gov.

Rich people can extract value - i.e. park $1B into S&P500, and reap $40M in returns every year. How much work did they do to do the above? Zero (if they inherited 1B). How much are they taxed on it? 20 percent of $40M = $8M. Where as someone who worked 40 hours a week for the whole year and made $200K gets taxed... exact same 20% effective (federal), and another ~15% (employer+employee) in FICA. Part of the value of…

You’re making up numbers. Nobody just gets a billy. Someone had to work very, very hard for that. That’s what libbies forget. Money isn’t given, it’s earned.

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

#455

Post by skinnymuch »

frockington1 wrote: post #404
duped wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The proposed capital gains changes would ensure that most Americans will be targeted. If the cost basis doesn't recent on death many Americans will immediately get hit with taxes. With the top rate being upped to 43%, its gg for anyone who planned on leaving their loved ones money

Most Americans aren’t leaving their loved ones solid money after they are gone. Being on HN, it is possible you live in a bubble with far higher avg income and savings than the rest of the country.

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

#456

Post by um_ya »

medvezhenok wrote: post #451
um_ya wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pay your fair share". I cringe every time I hear this from people. Rich people pay WAY more than what they get back from the gov.

We should also separate the concept of fairness from the reality of wealth in today's society. If a robot is doing the work which makes workers irrelevant, is that the fault of the workers? Should the productivity of the robot be taxed? (I believe it should - otherwise we are in a capitalist dystopia)

> I believe it should - otherwise we are in a capitalist dystopia

Should we tax the automobile for displacing the horse stableman.

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

#457

Post by rorykoehler »

magicalhippo wrote: post #453
rorykoehler wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you get payments from the Statoil?

Not directly, no. Gov't uses parts of the oil tax money to fund budget deficits, but they've limited themselves to how much. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...

I was under the impression you also got a dividend/basic income of a few thousand a year like in Alaska?

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

#458

Post by lloda »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #149
lukasm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope this tax scheme would only apply to certain corporations e.g. Revenue 0-20mln EUR, you keep the existing tax scheme Revenue 20-100mln - you can choose the tax scheme Revenue 100mln+ - you have to tax revenue Thresholds are up for debate. Also, companies already pay around 0-5% of their revenue in income tax. Gigantic companies pay close to 0.

> Revenue 100mln+ - you have to tax revenue So banks and oil companies, which are naturally lots of revenue with a tiny amount of profit, would disappear, or become very small?

You'd tax global profit based on the local revenue fraction. So if the corporation has global profits of 1M and the revenue is 90% in country A and 10% in country B, then country A taxes 0.9M of profit and country B taxes 0.1M of profit and neither has to care where the corporation is located 'for tax purposes'.

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

#459

Post by magicalhippo »

rorykoehler wrote: post #457
magicalhippo wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not directly, no. Gov't uses parts of the oil tax money to fund budget deficits, but they've limited themselves to how much. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...

I was under the impression you also got a dividend/basic income of a few thousand a year like in Alaska?

No, nothing like that.

Though you can get support if you're temporarily without a job[1], sick[2] or declared permanently unable to work[3].

These programs are of course partially funded by the oil tax money, by virtue of being part of the government spending.

[1]: https://www.nav.no/no/person/arbeid/dagpenger-ved-arbeidslos...

[2]: https://www.nav.no/no/person/arbeid/sykmeldt-arbeidsavklarin...

[3]: https://www.nav.no/no/Person/Pensjon/Uforetrygd

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

#460

Post by cycomanic »

injb wrote: post #120
cycomanic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this creates the incentive that corporations try to minimise their employees, or try to shift employment to low tax/low cost countries. Now that very well be desirable for corporations and people who derive income primarily from capital, but it is not desirable for society. The whole idea behind corporate tax is that they should be taxes on the profits they make, where they make them.

>>Well this creates the incentive that corporations try to minimise their employees, or try to shift employment to low tax/low cost countries. Now that very well be desirable for corporations and people who derive income primarily from capital, but it is not desirable for society You mean not desirable for society in high tax/high cost countries I presume? What about society in low tax/low cost countries? It seems to…

Well except that Ireland receives significant subsidies from the EU. So essentially this is a case of having the high tax/cost countries pay for your infrastructure so you can be a low cost country.
Post reply on HN