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Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

taxwatchuk.org

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Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#81

Post by blub »

FDSGSG wrote: post #69
blub wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This business-friendly, or rather business-subservient attitude is puzzling to me. You do know that we have the right to complain about whatever we want in democracies, and this can be one of the paths that change is enacted through, I assume. So why exactly are you trying to censor those that complain, because it makes you feel uncomfortable? We will criticize tax evasion and even lawful-evil tax avoidance. You will…

I operate a small business with 3 employees, I'm certainly incentivised to fend for us. jnwatson worded my actual arguments better than I would.

You're not fending for a small business with 3 employees, which anyway, let's be serious can't afford any fancy tax shenanigans, you're fending for a big business with several thousand employees.

This company had a record revenue year and yet they decided to cut 800 jobs.

Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#82

Post by FDSGSG »

ALittleLight wrote: post #79
FDSGSG wrote: post #6

It's downright ridiculous to complain about companies taking perfectly legal steps to reduce their tax burden. As the oft-quoted US judge Learned Hand said: > Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is…

I don't agree. People with enough money and expertise follow complicated routines to minimize taxes. People without the money or expertise don't have the same advantage. I don't think arranging tax payments in such a way as to require accountants and lawyers to get the most efficient tax burden is a good system. I'm not saying Blizzard employees or owners should be jailed for doing this. I'm saying we should realize…

Could you share with us the correct amount of taxes Activision Blizzard should pay?

As long as this remains an impossible question to answer then they should probably pay the least amount possible.

I'm all for improving current tax regulations, but first we must agree that the problem is with the regulations.

Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#83

Post by Scoundreller »

ravitation wrote: post #70
FDSGSG wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, taxation at this level is extremely complex. $345 million could just be because of unclear phrasing.

It doesn't matter. Like I said, either way, it is indicative of doing something wrong.

I regularly write cheques for $345m because of unclear phrasing. Who doesn't???

Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#84

Post by gambiting »

Scoundreller wrote: post #51
FDSGSG wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to say before the courts decide. I've personally been through such disputes with tax authorities and prevailed.

Doesn't sound "perfectly legal" when tax authorities are running after you.

At a certain level of complexity even the tax authorities can't decide what is legal and what isn't and they will basically try legal action against you to see what the court decides. I've pursued an official statement from my country's tax authority about a tax issue I had pertaining paying taxes when you do business in several countries at once, and after months of hassling the tax office through a lawyer we finally got a letter saying that "we cannot see anything wrong with what you are trying to do, but this letter is not binding, it is neither a promise nor a guarantee that we will never take any legal action against you if we decide differently at any point in the future. This is all advice that we will be providing on the matter".

Guess what happened - a year later they decided it wasn't ok, and of course the letter they wrote was worth as much as toilet paper in the court. It took 5 more years and a very decent amount of money to fight against it and finally get them to admit they were wrong and there is no issue. But of course no one will give you 5 years of not being able to run your business back.

Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#85

Post by Scoundreller »

FDSGSG wrote: post #74
Scoundreller wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share the details?

Nothing exciting, the government felt that imaginary internet money should not be treated like other similar assets. Luckily the courts disagreed in the end. With tax laws being so complicated these disputes are everyday stuff for anyone engaged in any "unusual" activities.

Heh, the amount of people that think crypto is an asset class that would be taxed differently than any other asset class is astounding. Sounds like your tax jurisdiction was in that group (!).

Though there are a bunch of unanswered questions in a lot of jurisdictions: How do you treat a fork?

Is it income? A dividend? A stock split? A spinoff? Some of these require the originator to file paperwork, and no crypto chain could possibly do that.

And what initial value? $0? Day1 trading value?

Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#86

Post by scarejunba »

shaftoe wrote: post #71
scarejunba wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rational self-interest isn’t an unalloyed good (or even necessarily a good of any sort) so I don’t understand why you’re saying what you’re saying. Yes, sometimes for some people “fuck them for acting out of rational self-interest”. Rational self-interest for Intuit is lobbying to keep the tax code complex, but fuck them for it.

It's reasonable to assume all entities act out of rational self-interest. To be angry with someone when they simply defend their own interests is to either hate the person/entity or to be angry with nature itself. That was my only point.

It is because that assumption is reasonable that it doesn’t work as a defence. My objective is also to act in rational self-interest. And so it is no surprise that I will use mechanisms other than law to bring pressure to bear.

For instance, someone is legally permitted to call me an asshole. They may choose to do so completely in self-interest. I am then permitted to ask my friends to shun him and they may. I may use this implicit threat to ensure no one calls me names. I am not required to change the law to prevent being called an asshole in order to reconfigure the incentives.

In the same way, I may determine it to be in my self-interest to have a large company pay my government extra taxes, even in an ex post facto manner (though the constitution bans laws, it does not ban agreements that clearly are mechanisms to bypass that prohibition). I may then bring other weapons to bear to get things to happen. The most common such technique is by directing public opinion in a certain manner.

If someone were to tell me that the company dumping, entirely legally, in the waterway is just acting in self-interest, that’s irrelevant. I still don’t want the waterway dumped in so I’ll tell everyone anyway and we’ll kick up a fuss and make life hard for them, even though they are acting legally and rationally in their interest.

Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#87

Post by FDSGSG »

blub wrote: post #81
FDSGSG wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I operate a small business with 3 employees, I'm certainly incentivised to fend for us. jnwatson worded my actual arguments better than I would.

You're not fending for a small business with 3 employees, which anyway, let's be serious can't afford any fancy tax shenanigans, you're fending for a big business with several thousand employees. This company had a record revenue year and yet they decided to cut 800 jobs.

> which anyway, let's be serious can't afford any fancy tax shenanigans

Dunno, I feel that as a small business it is much easier for us to minimize our tax burden than it would be for a larger business.

Much easier for 4 friends working together to relocate than it is for a big business with thousands of employees. We've got far more tools at our disposal.

Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#88

Post by deogeo »

Operyl wrote: post #55
deogeo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the laws need to be changed, but that does not absolve the companies - it's called 'lawful evil'. Did you also not blame cigarette companies for advertising and selling what they knew was poison, or oil companies for keeping their knowledge about climate change secret?

I think you took a major step up from something that isn't actively killing anyone to something that is.

Just wanted to illustrate that it's not as simple as "legal = blameless".

For a less extreme example, what about Keurig's coffee DRM? Or the DRM on printer cartridges? Or Microsoft pushing the patented FAT32 (and now exFAT) filesystem? Or Disney lobbying for extended copyright? Google promoting AMP pages? Online stores using pressure tactics like "Hurry, only N left in stock!", and other dark patterns?

Re: Activision Blizzard has moved billions of dollars of profit into tax havens

#89

Post by jayd16 »

FDSGSG wrote: post #45
jayd16 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've already linked the concept of excess to legality, definitionally. This is why you lack the ability to understand what a moral amount could be.

That's fair. Do you know what a moral amount would be? I don't know, but I also doubt that anyone else really knows.

I assure you I don't know the exact number but I can imagine that non-zero moral amount exists.
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