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How Google Avoided Paying $60 Billion In Taxes
bonch writes "Google only pays a 2.4% tax rate using money-funneling techniques known as the 'Double Irish' and the 'Dutch Sandwich,' even though the US corporate income tax is 35%. By using Irish loopholes, money is transferred legally between subsidiaries and ends up in island sanctuaries that have no income tax, giving Google the lowest tax rate amongst its technology peers. Facebook is planning to use the same strategy."
It may be legally fine, but it's ethically wrong. Google has built its vast wealth largely on the backs of American infrastructure paid for by American tax dollars. Ethically, they should be paying their fair share for that infrastructure, not exploiting loopholes to avoid it.
I'm sure anti-tax zealots will disagree with me, but in my view exploiting these kinds of loopholes is just another example of how laughable Google's "don't be evil" slogan has become.
I don't think that's the problem at all. It's more like we don't punish success because it leads to less people becoming successful. And it's not that they think the 250k and up crowd can't afford to pay the taxes, it's that they shouldn't be singled out to pay for the demands of less successful people.
250k is an arbitrary number anyways. It's not even in the original bush tax cuts. All it seems to be doing is creating conflicts that shouldn't exist. According to the WSJ, the top tax payers are paying more with the cuts then they did in 1990. The interesting part is that with the enactments of the bush tax cuts outside of the first years it was in place, growth in income tax revenue increased at a pace as good as or better then in Clinton's term until the start of the recession and more taxes were collected then the costs of the tax cuts.
Diminishing the reward for success isn't the same as punishing success.
If you are taking/diminishing because of the success, it's punishing success.