Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then we'd have companies like Amazon that refuse to pay a dividend indefinitely.
Tax capital gains as income.
Or tax wealth.
Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
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Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#52Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then we'd have companies like Amazon that refuse to pay a dividend indefinitely.
You don't have to invest in Amazon if it doesn't meet your expectations.
Taxes on profits would be deferred indefinitely. This increases everyone else's share of the tax burden regardless of whether they've invested in the company.
Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#54How can countries avoid the spiral of death with taxing? I hate how google, facebook etc. makes hundreds of millions in my country, but barely pay taxes. While local companies do.
Why do you think paying taxes is a virtue ? Why does US government need 40% of our hard earned money ? May be American politicians should stop the war on drugs, wars in far off countries and medicare and reduce tax levels to 20%. Facebook, Google, Apple and push the frontiers of human knowledge at rapid rate if they can spend that money themselves. In case of government it will be used to by some junk airforce planes…
Paying taxes isn't a virtue, it's fair trade for services and security, which all of these companies benefit from within the U.S., and without which they would likely have never come to be.
Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't #1 result in a race to the bottom? Why wouldn't a foreign country use tax policy to lower their corp rates towards zero in order to attract foreign tax revenue? After all, some tax is better than no tax.
You'd end up with a country like Singapore, where the taxes are lower, but more wisely spent.
Singapore would be overrun by poorer neighbors in a week if not for the blue-water navies that other nations "waste" their money on
Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies want to pay no taxes, but they want protection from the legal system infrastructure etc. that allows a company to be successful.
There is so much inefficieny in gov't spending that your statement is meaningless. The biggest line items in the gov't budgets have nothing to do with the legal system or infrastructure.
Government, by definition, can be more efficient than any private entity because it never needs to produce a profit. Businesses need to be able to skim a little off for the owners. Government can provide services at cost, no mark up.
If you're unhappy with the implementation of a specific program, like Medicare (which is, of course, more efficient than private health insurance in the US), let's talk about that.
My pick is the military--very wasteful. We could fold 90% of that budget into university and health care and live in heaven on earth.
Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#57How can countries avoid the spiral of death with taxing? I hate how google, facebook etc. makes hundreds of millions in my country, but barely pay taxes. While local companies do.
Why do you think paying taxes is a virtue ? Why does US government need 40% of our hard earned money ? May be American politicians should stop the war on drugs, wars in far off countries and medicare and reduce tax levels to 20%. Facebook, Google, Apple and push the frontiers of human knowledge at rapid rate if they can spend that money themselves. In case of government it will be used to by some junk airforce planes…
Your taxes would be a lot lower if the biggest corporations were paying their fair share.
Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't #1 result in a race to the bottom? Why wouldn't a foreign country use tax policy to lower their corp rates towards zero in order to attract foreign tax revenue? After all, some tax is better than no tax.
You'd end up with a country like Singapore, where the taxes are lower, but more wisely spent.
In Singapore it only works because of so little expenses.
If Germany would, tomorrow, decide to not provide any services outside of the cities, we could save a lot more taxes, too – and reduce them even further.
But there’s some running costs countries have, which you can’t go below.
If you want public schools and universities for free that can rival US private elite unis, if you want first-class public transit everywhere, if you want a social net, you end up with high taxes around 25% corporate and 30% private.
There’s not much of a way around that, except for going deeper and deeper into debt.
Yet if you want a country with a minor tax surplus, and good services, you need high tax rates.
Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#59My view is that corporate income tax is just a very bad idea. It will always introduce a lot of judgement problems and you will always need to assess every single transaction. Is it "fair price" or is it done to funnel money somewhere? Those questions are impossible to answer objectively and we shouldn't really care. Tax owners of the corporation. Tax people for living in a nice place (land tax, real estate tax, all…
>(companies with access to top lawyers pay less, small companies pay more).
That is a problem of the law being easier to circumvent if you've got resources to do so. From abusing how complicated the tax code is, to actively lobbying to pass laws that make it easy for you to do so. Simplifying the tax code, removing loopholes is one step, but that would require a total rewrite of it, which is a long process.
Corporate income tax is necessary in our society. Corporations use government built infrastructure, whether it is roads, copper cables, etc. They use government services and plethora of government funded things. It is absolutely normal they contribute back to society. Sadly, in an increasingly globalized world, it is much easier for a company to hide its profits in a fiscal paradise.
Re: Facebook Tax Bill Over Ireland Move Could Cost $5B
#60My view is that corporate income tax is just a very bad idea. It will always introduce a lot of judgement problems and you will always need to assess every single transaction. Is it "fair price" or is it done to funnel money somewhere? Those questions are impossible to answer objectively and we shouldn't really care. Tax owners of the corporation. Tax people for living in a nice place (land tax, real estate tax, all…
>(companies with access to top lawyers pay less, small companies pay more)
I think this is one reason why the system doesn't get reformed in general. The tax system's complexity gives a competitive advantage to large corporations who then lobby the government to gain further advantages.