61–70 of 195 posts
Someone needs to start a company that offers transfer pricing as a service. Sign up and get a physical address, subsidiary corporations, bank accounts and even employees & board members in Ireland. Much of this can be shared infrastructure of course. If tax avoidance is going to be legal for the big guys, why not make it accessible to everyone?
> A French court ruled in July French court ruled that Google, now part of Alphabet Inc, was not liable to pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in back taxes because it had no “permanent establishment” in France and ran its operations there from Ireland. How strange. I didn't know Google were an Irish company. I see them when I connect to the internet from all over the world. It looks like Airbnb also have their EMEA…
That's illegal for a person to do, but legal for these big companies. Don't blame the companies for exploiting loopholes. Blame the law. Fix the law.
The companies may be acting legally, but the question is whether they are acting morally.
We generally expect that of people. Corporations are people, right?
> A French court ruled in July French court ruled that Google, now part of Alphabet Inc, was not liable to pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in back taxes because it had no “permanent establishment” in France and ran its operations there from Ireland. How strange. I didn't know Google were an Irish company. I see them when I connect to the internet from all over the world. It looks like Airbnb also have their EMEA…
I find the whole system lame. I feel web giants of today are not making the web better, just different, more structured and massive. Instead of taxing them to grab a share of their earnings (whether it makes sense or not), I'd be happier if more people would write longer and denser web page as it was until the late 90s. Give incentives for people to produce.
Even in US there is only one Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, etc. It seems like these global monopolies are a new phenomenon that requires to rethink past economic ideas.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's illegal for a person to do, but legal for these big companies. Don't blame the companies for exploiting loopholes. Blame the law. Fix the law.
>>Don't blame the companies for exploiting loopholes. Blame the law. The companies may be acting legally, but the question is whether they are acting morally. We generally expect that of people. Corporations are people, right?
There are plenty of rich assholes out there who would screw people over on a deal (for example, one well known New York real estate developer..)
This is not about taxing revenues instead of profits. This is about taxing EU-wide profits in EU countries proportional to the revenues generated in that country. At the moment, many big tech companies use bookkeeping tricks to make it look like all their profit is generated in, for example, Ireland, while the revenue is generated in other EU counties. Unfortunately, Ireland has special tax rates for these companies…
> A French court ruled in July French court ruled that Google, now part of Alphabet Inc, was not liable to pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in back taxes because it had no “permanent establishment” in France and ran its operations there from Ireland. How strange. I didn't know Google were an Irish company. I see them when I connect to the internet from all over the world. It looks like Airbnb also have their EMEA…
There is nothing wrong with establishing an off-shore company and paying taxes there (or not paying).
Don't confuse company/yourself. Even if you do the off-shore scheme, you'll need to pay taxes for the income you repatriate. It is a good idea, however, if you want to save/invest money without it getting sodomized by yearly taxes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The federal corporate tax can be up to 35%, which is the highest in the world outside of some literally banana republics. Delaware has a corporate tax rate of 8.7%, California has 8.84. So yes no one is incorporating in Delaware becuase of taxes, WA, TX, NV and a few others have zero corporate tax.
WA has business & occupation tax which functions like a corporate income tax but it is levied on revenue rather than profit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's illegal for a person to do, but legal for these big companies. Don't blame the companies for exploiting loopholes. Blame the law. Fix the law.
The problem with a person doing this style of tax avoidance is that the barrier to entrance is much higher than the gain. Assuming general principals of US tax law, if you're already working as an independent contractor, you could legally set up a local company and an overseas company, have the local company bill the client, pay you a reasonable amount, and pay the overseas company the remainder for the use of its na…
A smaller scale example would be living life as a perpetual traveller°: an internet based entrepreneur who makes $200k a year and bases him/herself in a jurisdiction that does not tax income. Or who travels around between countries to avoid tax.
Instead of paying 40% tax on $200k (= $80k gone, poof) you put that in your pocket and use that to pay for travel expenses. "Going into tax exile" essentially ends up paying for itself, and then some. That is why companies (and individuals) participate in tax avoidance.
°: exception; this doesn't apply to Americans. You get to pay US taxes wherever you reside, above a certain income threshold.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's illegal for a person to do, but legal for these big companies. Don't blame the companies for exploiting loopholes. Blame the law. Fix the law.
The problem with a person doing this style of tax avoidance is that the barrier to entrance is much higher than the gain. Assuming general principals of US tax law, if you're already working as an independent contractor, you could legally set up a local company and an overseas company, have the local company bill the client, pay you a reasonable amount, and pay the overseas company the remainder for the use of its na…
For example, a Starbucks LLC in "NewTown","Small-EU-Country" is fine billing an "off-shore" company for the use of Starbucks name.
The same is not fine if you are opening a local coffee shop.