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G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

bbc.co.uk

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Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#891

Post by barneygale »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #619
wolverine876 wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the US, finance ministers don't have the power to agree to treaties The U.S. Secretary of the Treasury speaks for the President; it's a fundamental dynamic of organizations. Otherwise, effectively Yellen wouldn't be Treasury Secretary - Yellen would be powerless and meaningless - and would resign or be fired. Only Trump seemed to ignore this and undermine the people under him. Also, I expect that the Treasury Se…

Here's what it says in the Constitution: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises" Crystal clear.

The Queen of England has the power to declare war, but we shouldn't expect her to use it unilaterally.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#892

Post by lr1970 »

If country A undercuts taxes below a set minimum of 15%, country B is within its rights not to recognize taxes payed in A for the purpose of avoiding double taxation. As a result, country B can demand tax payments on profits generated in B regardless of what taxes were payed in A. Unfortunately, in the real world governments are beholden to the commercial interests and rarely use the mechanisms available to them. Given enough willpower offshore tax havens can be eliminated in a split-second.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#893

Post by jokethrowaway »

ipaddr wrote: post #264
todd8 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations pass the tax expenses on to consumers as higher prices of produced goods, lower wages to employees, and lower returns to owners that supply capital. These taxes are all paid by us but they are largely invisible and justified to the voters as making corporations “pay their fair share”.

These taxes are paid by various stakeholders and entities around the business. The public gets the tax income and uses it for services to allow the business to operate. Do you feel the cost/value of having the ability to a call a number and have a well trained team put out a fire in minutes that could ruin your business is 0 or free? What about rules/services that allows your business to have an advantage over anothe…

Getting more money in the hands of governments is not going to do to us any good, they will just increase spending.

It will end up being: increase in price -> increase in government spending. Everyone will pay the increased prices, governments will pocket a % to keep their employees busy or employ their friends for public work, some of it will be redistributed to a portion of the population.

I believe taxes shouldn't be paid by anyone and governments should disappear.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#894

Post by wolverine876 »

StandardFuture wrote: post #883
wolverine876 wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you provide something to backup your statement? As further examples of my point, beyond the laws, legal precedents, customs, and institutions mentioned above: None of the executive branch departments (State, Justice, Defense, Treasury, etc.) are mentioned in the Constitution. No federal court besides the Supreme Court is mentioned. Even specific laws are only loosely defined; for freedom of speech, no provision…

Exactly Zero of anything you have just said negates the point that was made. Let's reiterate: > Here's what it says in the Constitution: > "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises" > Crystal clear. Anything that is not explicitly defined in the Constitution is certainly left up to the interpretation and decisions (within their constitutional authorizations) of the three bra…

> Exactly Zero

Based on experience in Internet forums, I believe we either need to be in a 'curious state' or the conversation isn't worthwhile - in fact, it's a negative - and I think when someone says 'Exactly Zero' of my comment has value, they aren't curious.

dang describes a 'curious state' very well:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#895

Post by mnouquet »

StandardFuture wrote: post #882
mnouquet wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'd see the vast mmajority of tax revenue is spent on welfare By "welfare", I guess you meant the sponsoring of useless administrative job meant to ensure easy mechanical turk work to appease the masses. The money actually going for care is pretty minimal.

> The money actually going for care is pretty minimal. That is literally the point. Welfare = Welfare bureaucracy + Welfare Benefits This is true of everything the government does. Government = bureaucracy + benefits, with a larger percentage going to support the bureaucracy than in any other organization or context. And even if you increase money for benefits, the same (or sometimes larger percentage) goes to suppor…

That's a lie. The idea of Government was sold to the general population as "we'll make your lives better", not "we'll become that humongous monster you'll serve".

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#896

Post by mnouquet »

jokoon wrote: post #861
mnouquet wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I already said that the pandemic would force the entire world to lean to the left in terms of politics. It's inevitable. Do you mean totalitarian, correct ?

Are you trolling? Left as in liberal in the US, socialist in europe.

The US left has nothing to do with the historical classic liberalism. And no, I'm not trolling, let me know of any socialist system with hasn't turned totalitarian ?

Europe right now has all the characteristic of a totalitarian society, but only beneficiate from a relative prosperity so everybody is riding along. Give it 10 years of crisis and deflation and you'll see a lot more uprisings (yellow vests & alike) and associated "security" measure.

The US is on the edge, and arguably has been in a state of sporadic civil war for over a year now.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#897

Post by cal5k »

rsj_hn wrote: post #597
floren wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between 1951 and 1963, the highest marginal tax rate in the US exceeded 90% [0]. This is a period of time generally regarded as one of booming economic growth in the US, an exceptionally good time to be in the middle class, and a time span looked upon fondly by your stereotypical American conservative. Edit: Why do people put up with it? Because of the progressive tax system. If my choices are a) earn $517k b) earn $…

During the same period, only a handful of families paid that rate. There was an enormous amount of tax avoidance[0], with the real rate actually paid by top incomes under 50%[0]. When the official rate was lowered by JFK, tax receipts surged. This is the "real" laffer curve. Now it's not clear where the Laffer point is, but it's certainly to the left of 90%. [0] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nocera-tax-avoid…

Economics devoid of morality is a poor governing principle, in my view. Even if 90% tax rates could be economically justified as not impacting growth (obviously not true), it is morally reprehensible because it is tantamount to indentured servitude.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#898

Post by cal5k »

marcosdumay wrote: post #570
cal5k wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top marginal income tax rates in many countries now exceed 50%, not even considering payroll tax, property tax, sales tax, etc. The question is: how can anyone seriously support tax rates that high? After a certain level, more than half your time is spent working for the government - failure to pay means fines and possible jail time. This is serfdom. Higher corporate tax rates should not be applauded by anyone. Highe…

> Top marginal income tax rates in many countries now exceed 50% You mean, for people right? I have never heard about any place that taxes anywhere near 50% of a corporation revenue, but yeah, it's not rare to find places that tax more than 50% of a worker's income (all taxes in, if you are talking exclusively about income tax, I never heard about it either). Why do corporations need lower taxes than individuals?

Shareholders and employees are people. Corporate income taxes represent a form of double-taxation because shareholders are taxed on realized gains (in capital gains or dividends), and employees are taxed on income.

Moreover, capital gains taxes are lower than income taxes because they roughly account for inflation - capital gains are typically incurred on long-term appreciation on assets, and if you're holding something for, say, 10 years at 2% annual inflation you're talking about 21% inflation. So if you have a 21% capital gains rate and a 21% rate of inflation, your effective "tax" rate is really more like 42%.

This is one reason why higher corporate tax rates are generally considered to be a poor economic choice - additionally, corporations can relocate, restructure, and do all number of things to minimize taxable income, and are strongly motivated to do so as rates increase. So you don't even ultimately collect much in additional taxes this way.

Oh, and higher corporate tax rates also raise the price of the goods and services they produce, which is reflected in substantial cost-of-living increases for low and middle-income individuals. That's why it's good politics but bad economics to target corporate taxes in this way.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#899

Post by walshemj »

gambiting wrote: post #872
walshemj wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't bother to set up an HMRC approved scheme? Where these US companies? employee share holders in the USA really get screwed

I'm not sure what you mean? At the point of acquisition if you are given shares worth say £10k, it's the same as being given £10k cash, or £10k gift of some sort - you pay income tax based on the value of what you were given. It's different if you were given options - then the difference between your purchase price and sale price is taxed as capital gains with separate rules. And no, it's a British company .

Insane then, why did they not set up a proper scheme https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes.

Bit of a red flag that the company is so badly run.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#900

Post by throwaway34241 »

bumby wrote: post #878
throwaway34241 wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if Yang's math checks out, but I think his proposal was $1000/mo and a 10% VAT. So the breakeven point would be $120k spending on taxable items/yr for an individual, or $240k spending/yr for a couple, with people below that coming out ahead and above coming out behind. Where you draw the line for "middle class" is somewhat arbitrary - I think you could be middle class and still earn over $120k, especiall…

> Where you draw the line for "middle class" is somewhat arbitrary It’s a convention so, yes, it’s arbitrary (and people tend to change that definition to fit their points, and of course it’s relative to COL) but the most widely used definition is the middle quintiles. I believe this puts the upper bound around $120k for a household (not individual) in the US. And you’re right, most people do consider themselves midd…

I only meant to say the majority of the middle class would fall under $120k no matter how you (reasonably) draw it (so with respect to that specific VAT/UBI proposal, most of the middle class would see a gain).

For how higher incomes could end up middle class I wasn't thinking of a different threshold, but ways of defining social class that are more qualitative than quantitative.

For example you could define middle class as people who live a modest lifestyle financed by selling their labor to a company, and upper class as people who can live off wealth. So someone from a wealthy family living off a trust fund and going to an elite graduate school might count as upper class despite being low or middle income, and an engineer making $120k in the bay area might still count as middle class that way.

Defining it like that would probably produce a small upper class relative to the size of the middle class, but in historical societies where social class was a bigger issue what's considered upper class is usually a pretty small percent of the population, so it wouldn't seem too crazy to me to define it like that.

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