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G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

bbc.co.uk

921–930 of 931 posts

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#921

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

HN rules: apply the most gracious interpretation to my comment.

> you'd see the vast mmajority of tax revenue is spent on welfare

That is the point from the prior comment I am supporting. I am emphasizing that this is true because of the inevitability of bureaucracy inside of the very notion of "government".

Government was never capable of efficient utilization of taxes for maximizing benefits to society. It can never promise that due to basic incentive structures and the mathematics of game-theory. Of course, politicians can lie about it (and many do all the time).

It can only promise an attempt and some degree of benefits provided.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#922

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, as has been pointed out to you - multiple times - reaching a deal is not equivalent to a contract. The fact that your experience tells you that "deal equals contract" is strange. In my experience I have had plenty of "deals" not materialise for one reason or another. To extrapolate that the BBC is printing bullshit is basically to say that if you have not experienced something, then it is worthless. The BBC is no…

No, as has been pointed out to you - multiple times - reaching a deal is not equivalent to a deal being legal. > The BBC is not lying No, just the status quo BBC propaganda. Let's review some quotes. > the arrival of the Biden administration in the US, created a moment of opportunity. > A minimum corporation tax rate of 15% is rather low > European finance ministers succeeded in including the phrase "at least 15%", w…

Classic HN, two downvotes and no one is capable of providing a counter-argument. The unintelligent flourish far too easily here. They should have more demanded of them. There are no clear incentives to not just throw a punch and run away like a coward on this site.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#923

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, we don't - there is no legal/treaty reason why a government could not offer a negative corporate income tax rate (at least in the lowest N-1 tax brackets), and we may actually see that if corporate abuse of political processes is allowed to continue far enough.

You are saying that we could theoretically lower the minimum. As it stands, the minimum is 0%.

No, I'm saying that "this value is not allowed to go below X" is different from "the lowest current value happens to be X" and we have the latter, not the former.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#924
post #810

Irish are gonna be pissed. Also and not ironically, what a huge win for the workers over capital.

Let me tell you how this plays out, from an Irish perspective. 1. G7 countries can't do anything, trade treaties are sealed, Irish taxation rates are their sovereign right. Vetos baked into things because of the first rejection of the Nice treaty. 2. Even in the event of international pressure forming, (And the US can of course strong arm an arm or two), I don't think the international state understand or wish to see…

> Vetos baked into things because of the first rejection of the Nice treaty

$5 imaginary internet dollars says the EU find a way around this.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#925
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re going down this route, many will argue that all forms of income tax are equally “wrong”. Henry George - a 19th century political economist - proposed exactly this, and suggested the only thing that should be taxed should be land: impossible to hide from a tax inspector, potentially a waste to the public commons if useful land that could be exploited isn’t and you can even protect land you wish to keep prist…

This system sounds like would be gamed just like how property taxes are now: bogus assessments. At least income and sales have a clear, non-subjective value in dollars.

Gaming of tax systems by large capital players is a big challenge. I have wondered whether bogus assessments could be mitigated through some kind of open market price discovery with unlevered, unencumbered cash with full party disclosure.

Make residential, owner-occupied homes and special categories (like public transit-related or infrastructure-related improvements like healthcare/power/water/waste/telecomms/etc. property) exempt. All other property post their assessments at tax jurisdiction's office. Anyone, at any time, can post to that office cash that is 10% more than the assessment upon the property. If the owner does not challenge the cash assessment, they must accept the cash offer within 180 days or are evicted. The catch is, that cash must be absolutely unlevered and unencumbered, the property is carried on everyone's books as a cash asset of the prospective new owner, and the property cannot be pledged as collateral, for the next 21 years (with an upward adjustment for deep-pocketed backers of offers) or until the property is sold, whichever comes first. The offering party must provide full disclosure and auditability of the source of the cash and the "Source Of Truth" controlling interest, no shell games. The legal jurisdiction enforces this transactional structure by refusing all cases entangling the property.

The owner can respond to the price discovery cash offer by paying the tax jurisdiction the "back taxes" implied by the cash offer, back to the last time the property transacted on the open market. No penalty. If the owner can deliver proof that the offering party hid their ties to deeper (ultimate beneficial controlling interest) funding sources, then the entire offer is forfeit to the owner.

This creates an incentive to discover badly out-of-alignment prices, but the intention is to gate out anyone playing financialization games or asymmetrically deep pockets parking cash badly distorting a small player-dominated market's historic valuations.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be strict about it, the Senate never votes to ratify a treaty. It votes to give its "advice and consent to the ratification". The actual ratification is done by the Executive not by the Senate. But the Senate's advice and consent is popularly called "ratification" even though it isn't. And the Senate's consent is not required to ratify a treaty. Ultimately the Executive decides whether to classify something as a "…

The Senate's consent is required to ratify certain treaties. It all depends on what the treaty's terms require the government to do. If the terms can be fulfilled by executive power, the executive can sign and ratify on its own (executive agreement). If the terms need the force of congressional legislation to implement, it can be ratified on a regular legislative vote of both houses of congress (executive-legislative…

> The ones that require a Senate supermajority are the ones that "legislate" in areas outside of Congress's normal jurisdiction. e.g. the US Congress probably can't pass a law prohibiting states from using the death penalty, but with a 2/3 Senate vote it could sign a treaty banning it.

It isn't clear that is actually true. Yes, the 1920 case of Missouri v. Holland appears to say that treaties ratified by the Senate can bind the states in ways that Acts of Congress cannot, but a number of legal scholars think there is a decent chance that SCOTUS would overturn that precedent if the issue came before it – see for example https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1123464

Suppose that, somehow, Democrats manage to gain control of both the Presidency and a two-thirds majority in the Senate. They then use that majority to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and then argue that the ratification outlawed the death penalty nationwide. A retentionist state goes to SCOTUS to challenge the treaty. If we assume the current conservative SCOTUS, I think a majority would likely overturn Missouri v. Holland and rule that the treaty is unenforceable as beyond the federal government's power. However, I doubt they'd rule that the legislative act of the Senate giving advice and consent, or the executive act of depositing instruments of ratification, was unconstitutional, merely that the treaty was not legally enforceable against the states. It is worth noting such a decision would not invalidate the ratification of the protocol under international law, and the US would still have an international legal obligation to obey it (unless and until they denounced it), even though the federal government would be legally powerless (under US constitutional law) to fulfil that obligation. (See also Medellin v. Texas.)

> The Senate's consent is required to ratify certain treaties.

In legal systems which adopt the dualist approach to international law, the international act of submitting the instruments of ratification of a treaty, and the domestic legislative acts necessary to enforce it, are two different things. Although the second act normally precedes the first, there is no requirement for such an ordering under international law. And I think it is very likely that SCOTUS would consider the executive act of submitting the instruments of ratification for a treaty to be beyond its power to judicially review; SCOTUS will confine its role to deciding what the legal consequences of that act are under domestic law. It may in some cases rule the executive act legally ineffective in creating domestic legal obligations, but in doing so it is not passing judgement on the constitutionality of the executive act itself. Suppose some President decided to ratify a treaty first, and hope to get legislation implementing it through Congress second. A risky move, in that if the legislation cannot be passed, the US could be left with international legal obligations which are impossible under domestic law to fulfil. But I don't see any evidence such a risky act would be either unconstitutional under domestic law or invalid under international law.

> (Another advantage of going "up" a level is that repealing or withdrawing from a treaty is more difficult the higher you go, generally requiring a similar authority to withdraw as was used to ratify.)

The President has unilateral discretion to withdraw from any treaty, irrespective of whether it is a treaty to which the Senate gave advice and consent, a congressional-executive agreement, or a sole executive agreement. So which type is used makes no difference to the President's power to withdraw. That was the effective holding of SCOTUS in the 1979 case of Goldwater v. Carter.

Now, the President does not have unilateral discretion to repeal a congressional-executive agreement insofar as it forms part of domestic US law, and the same may be true of a treaty to which the Senate gives advice and consent. But the President's inability to repeal the domestic legal effects of the treaty doesn't make any difference to the international legal effects of withdrawal – once the withdrawal is completed, it is no longer binding on the US under international law, even if some of its provisions continue to be binding under domestic US law.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic freedom reduces poverty. https://rd.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230114319_3 > Compared to those that were less free, countries with higher economic freedom ratings during 1980–2005 had lower rates of both extreme and moderate poverty in 2005. More importantly, countries with higher levels of economic freedom in 1980 and larger increases in economic freedom during the 1980s and 1990s achieved larger pove…

The Heritage Foundation is an American conservative think tank[1]. I think I'll take what they have to say with a pinch of salt. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation Anyway we aren't really talking about removing peoples economic freedoms, you can have a strong economy whilst retaining workers rights, social support and environmental controls. It's the poorest parts of the world that don't have a…

Are you referring to the Index of Economic Freedom in the second paper?

1. The data is freely available and you can check the methodology yourself: https://www.heritage.org/index/pdf/2016/book/methodology.pdf

2. "We check the robustness of our results using alternative freedom indices."

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#928
post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you how this plays out, from an Irish perspective. 1. G7 countries can't do anything, trade treaties are sealed, Irish taxation rates are their sovereign right. Vetos baked into things because of the first rejection of the Nice treaty. 2. Even in the event of international pressure forming, (And the US can of course strong arm an arm or two), I don't think the international state understand or wish to see…

> Vetos baked into things because of the first rejection of the Nice treaty $5 imaginary internet dollars says the EU find a way around this.

And if they do, it will be a shattering of taxation sovereignty and a fundamental dividing line on what makes the EU a group of cooperating states instead of a unified single country. Hungary and Greece alone would leave the EU over that.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#929

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are actually many steps. In this case: 1. The finance ministers reach an agreement. This is what has happened. 2. A treaty is written and signed, normally by the head of state, but sometimes by the head of government (for the US in both cases the President). At this point the treaty in not yet legally binding, although according to international law the signatory country has an obligation "to refrain, in good f…

> 3. The parliament (for the US the Senate) ratifies the treaty, making it binding. Under international law, ratification happens when a state’s international representatives (head of state, ministers, ambassadors) formally lodge instruments of ratification with the depositary. (See Article 2(1)(b), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.) When the US Senate "ratifies" a treaty, that is not ratification under inter…

Yes, I gave a quick overview of the main steps, with minor inaccuracies to keep it simple.

Ratification itself is not required unless the treaty itself requires it. Countries do form agreements with “signed” but not “ratified” treaties. Sometimes even “exchanges of notes” can be binding.

Re: G7: Rich nations back deal to tax multinationals

#930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying that we could theoretically lower the minimum. As it stands, the minimum is 0%.

No, I'm saying that "this value is not allowed to go below X" is different from "the lowest current value happens to be X" and we have the latter, not the former.

We’re programmers here. Min([1,2,3]) is 1 and not -2147483648.
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