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Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

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Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#771

Post by simonh »

newlyretired wrote: post #713
eggpy wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. Here's just one example: fine-grained taxes are used to help influence behavior, improving public health. Mexico increased taxes on sugar [0], with the result being a fall in consumption. Raising this tax has caused a verifiable reduction in consumption, which has a direct impact on public health[1]. That's just one example, many more exist for all sorts of reasons. It's why cigarettes and alcohol ar…

Many people believe this is an overstep on the government's part. These people believe it's not the government's job to be paternalistic and nudge people into the "right direction". This is based on the complete abhorrence of "scope creep" mixed with near total surveillance and control over the use of force. Those with that much power should not be able to enforce social mores, even if they reflect the will of the pe…

However in a democracy those people are merely one constituency among the electorate, the rest of whom like to have things like police forces, emergency response services, shared infrastructure such as road networks, enforced assurances of the quality of consumer goods and services and many other things that a well funded government can provide. Unfortunately that funding has to come from somewhere and making choices about where the funds come from requires making judgements on such things.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#772

Post by simonh »

qznc wrote: post #601
ben_w wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’ll work great if every nation simultaneously agrees to it, but is potentially catastrophic if they don’t: all the tax-dodgers move to your country for tax purposes while continuing to make and sell everything else exactly as before. And if every nation agreed to have identical tax laws, we wouldn’t have a problem with lawful multinational tax minimisation in the first place, because there would be no advantage t…

Sounds good. It forces all countries to unify VAT. It begs the question why it does not happen already?

To an extent it already has in the EU in which every country is required to impose a VAT compliant with EU rules, although they have some leeway on the rates and goods covered.

On the other hand, there are countries out there that do very well out of having tax codes that wouldn't work for big industrialized countries, or countries part of a big unified trading bloc. They have strong incentives to keep their tax codes the way they are.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#773

Post by golergka »

orwin wrote: post #222
golergka wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is either personal choice over your own property, (which is charity), or irrelevant - your feelings over taxes don't matter, you don't get to choose whether to pay the taxes or not. Socialism is forcing your choice on other people's property through the only organization that has monopoly on violence in today's society - government.

But i could choose to pay less taxes, and i don't. Honestly i'm pretty happy with socialism right now, i lived in the bottom 20% for 23 years and still got to go to the hospital to get surgery at 3 y/o, my little brother did not die from his appendicite and my mother breast cancer was detected before it spread too much. I never suffered from malnutrition and access to free education allowed me to get into the top 20%…

Let me get this straight - while you "agree" to pay higher taxes, you actually get more from the government that you put in? It seems that your position first and foremost is aligned with your rational self-interest rather than abstract moral values.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#774

Post by Scea91 »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #721
libertyEQ wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your comment asserts that corporate tax has zero impact on corporate profit. I didn't intend to "assert" that, and I think it's fair to ask you to elaborate, as I believe there are assumptions embedded in your interpretation of what I wrote. edit: Grammar. edit1: Do you think Apple incorporates the cost of the tax burden into the price of an iPhone? I think it really comes down to whether you think Apple would reduc…

Imagine a world where there is no corporate tax. Apple does a price analysis and decides the profix maximizing sales point of a phone is $1,000. They price the phone at $1,000. Then, a 10% corporate income tax rate is put in place. Does Apple raise the price of the phone to $1,100? Is that now the profit maximizing decision? According to your claim "Ultimately, only people pay taxes," the answer is yes - Apple would…

> We already know that $1,100 is not the profit maximizing price point for a phone.

$1,000 is a profit maximizing price point with 0 % taxes. With 10 % taxes it would be different.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#775

Post by valuearb »

dontreact wrote: post #698
valuearb wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn’t skip the US tax code, they pay huge amounts of US taxes. They don’t repatriate foreign earnings because it would cost shareholders over a 50% tax rate.

It is not believable to me that such a high fraction of Apple's profits are happening in Ireland. Clearly something is being distorted or manipulated to avoid either the U.S. or some other country's tax code. If this was all so above board and not a loophole or gray area, why do they want to be so secretive about it? "“For those of you who are not aware Apple are extremely sensitive concerning publicity,” wrote Camer…

Virtually none of Apples profits are made in Ireland and Apple doesn’t claim they are. Ireland is where they’ve invested the profits, after paying taxes on them to the countries they were earned in.

The controversy is only on how much tax they should pay on the interest on their profits. Ireland gave them a sweet deal because it cost them nothing to let Apple deposit $100B+ in Irish banks.

And all corporate decisions have basic levels of privacy attached. No accountant, tax or otherwise, should talk about their clients tax and business decisions.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#776

Post by valuearb »

ehllo wrote: post #699
valuearb wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple needs to keep it's international after tax profits out of the US or it will be forced to pay another 40%+ in taxes on them. So it puts them in Ireland, because Ireland gave it a great tax rate, less than 1%. What should the tax rate be on the interest from billions in savings? Apple isn't' forcing Ireland to build roads or spend any government moneys to allow it to make Irish bank deposits. it's a completely le…

The only purpose of Aggressive tax planning is the reduction of tax liabilities. To make a long story short - it is about exploiting and overstrain one system or more systems by outplaying one against the other. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/55877... How agressive tax planning works: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/56344... https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/ta…

Apples tax planning is no more “aggressive” than a person not taking money out of a retirement account. The US allows taxes to be deferred (not avoided, deferred) on foreign earnings until they are brought back in the US. That’s all Apple is doing, parking their after tax foreign profits in the cheapest location possible until the US fixes its awful tax code.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#777

Post by pfranz »

ttoinou wrote: post #755
pfranz wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I know what side you put faith in. "Free market" is just an illusionary goal--there's no such thing in practice. Every aspect of reality creates some bias to one party or another. Governments try to encourage competitive entreprises, innovative ideas and good mechanisms of check and balances by eliminating monopolies, reducing dynasties/incumbencies and other barriers of entry, in addition to other things lik…

Every aspect of reality creates some bias to one party or another ? And every government action steals resources from someone and prevents them to do it on their own. Have youbever seen govt reducing barriers of entry ? I need examples Only govt can create monopolies, unless you're talking about mafias.

I wholly admit the government can do those things (that was the point in my original reply).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_market

The only example there that could be remotely tied to the government is cable companies (I think the last-mile expense barrier to entry is the main contributor to those monopolies). All of them prevent a "free market" and the idea is that governments break those things up or regulate them. Breaking up a monopoly reduces barrier to entry. After the breakup of at&t, long distance rates dropped due to the new competition.

A few things most governments do to reduce the barrier of entry when starting or running a business: maintain a legal system to facilitate agreements between parties, educate a workforce so there's a pool of citizens with basic skills you can hire or sell things to, maintain open access roadways for transport of workforce and goods, maintain a trusted currency for the exchange of goods and services. All of those would be huge hurdles if I wanted to open a lemonade stand.

> unless you're talking about mafias.

So they're the only fly in the ointment if governments didn't exist? What is the solution to mafias if the government just steals resources?

I'm earnestly curious, if governments only oppress a market, where your best or ideal example? Is there any free market that doesn't have a government? How come when governments fail (or countries without strong governments) a strong free market doesn't develop to overtake the EU or US?

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#778

Post by ehllo »

valuearb wrote: post #776
ehllo wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only purpose of Aggressive tax planning is the reduction of tax liabilities. To make a long story short - it is about exploiting and overstrain one system or more systems by outplaying one against the other. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/55877... How agressive tax planning works: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/56344... https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/ta…

Apples tax planning is no more “aggressive” than a person not taking money out of a retirement account. The US allows taxes to be deferred (not avoided, deferred) on foreign earnings until they are brought back in the US. That’s all Apple is doing, parking their after tax foreign profits in the cheapest location possible until the US fixes its awful tax code.

Sorry, but we are talking about evading tax in europe and that apple and many other big corps are doing this with aggressive tax planning is an undeniable and occupied fact.

No offense, but you just try to "wash out" the discussion in the "whole tread" with the same generalized arguments over and over again - by simply deny the fact.

Talking any further make no sense.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#779

Post by eru »

dontreact wrote: post #327
eru wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are taxes that are harder to skip than others. (At the risk of sounding like a broken record, land value taxation is basically impossible to avoid if you are using land.)

Would that really be effective? A lot of very large companies may just own very little land.

You'd pay for land by value, not amount.

So Google owning an block in Manhattan to put their office on would probably garner a higher bill than a farmer with a bunch of fields.

But yes, you can side-step the tax by using less land and eg more capital. (But that's fine, somebody else will use that land you are not using, and pay the tax for it. And if everyone is doing that substitution, it'll make land more expensive in the end.)

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#780

Post by ChuckMcM »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #742
ChuckMcM wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think tax avoidance as a service could be a thing. If I could get someone to hire me as an 'individual supplier of engineering services' and they could pay my holding company in the Cayman islands directly. Places like Apple already hire janitorial services so that they don't have to hire janitors directly, they could hire my engineering service. Pay the agreed upon rate and leave tax/medical/retirement to my servi…

So I foreshadowed this already but Americans can't have passive holding companies and expect to avoid US tax. (Holding company implies passive property ownership.) 1960s era Congress already created CFC, PFIC, FBSCI, FBHCI laws which ensures that compliant Americans can't have passive offshore companies to defer taxes indefinitely. You looked like you were on to an original idea but your grandparents already thought…

I didn't say it would be easy :-) Which is good in that it creates a nice moat around others entering the space. The question I would throw out to a tax lawyer that was operating at the level of Appleby would be this, "What set of relationships, companies, and structure would be necessary for a US person to shield all of their US tax exposure while living in the US?" Then I would ask my MBA friend, can we create such a structure so that the marginal cost of adding an additional US person to the structure would be significantly less than 3 - 10% of their shielded tax.

The theory being that the company would be funded on that margin and by knowing the cost to set it up and the rate of return from the marginal cost, you could put together a plan to build it and grow it.

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