Outrage At Microsoft Offshoring Tax In the UK, Google Caught Avoiding US Taxes

Master Of Ninja writes "After the ongoing row about companies not paying a fair share of tax in the United Kingdom, and with companies such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google being in the headlines, focus has now turned to Microsoft. Whilst the tax arrangements are strictly legal, there has been outrage on how companies are avoiding paying their fair share of tax generated in the country." And over here in the U.S., dstates sent in news of Google getting caught doing something similar: "Bloomberg reports that Google is using Bermuda shell companies to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes worldwide. By routing payments and recording profits in zero-tax havens, multinational companies have been avoiding double digit corporate taxes in the U.S. and Europe. Congressional hearings were held in July on the destructive consequences of off-shoring profits. Why aren't the U.S. and Europe exerting more diplomatic pressure on these tax havens that are effectively stealing from the U.S. and European treasuries by allowing profits that did not result from activities in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands to be recorded as occurring there?"

Comments

Re:compete instead of complain

[BlueStrat]

So... lower corporate tax rates to the point where it's not worth the bother of jumping through these hoops.

But...but...that could lead to US economic and industrial growth with more and better-paying jobs and result in far fewer people dependent on government!

That would decimate the Liberal/Progressive-Democrat power- and voter-base that is dependent on maintaining the Marxist class-warfare memes! They say they are for reducing poverty, but wherever and whenever they've had the opportunities and control to do so, somehow, the poor end up still poor and joined by more poor (see: Detroit).

They can't actually go and solve the problems...they would lose their voter-base.

Strat

Re:What's good for the goose...

[d3ac0n]

but when you have global merchants, local tax rules simply will not work as intended.

(Emphasis mine)

And here is the rub; What is the intended purpose of taxation?

if the intended purpose is simply to fund the operations of a small to moderate sized government then all of your listed "problems" go away as both the corporate and personal tax codes will necessarily be simple affairs that companies will have no problem complying with and paying.

If, however, the intended purpose is to enforce some constantly changing and nebulous concept of "Fairness" (IE: "Paying your fair share") which nobody can agree on (show me a population of a billion people and I will show you a billion different opinions of "fair".) Then you will have what we have now. A ridiculously complex and burdensome tax code full of twists, turns, loopholes and tricks, which corporations will use to their advantage to pay almost no or no tax at all, leaving the burden of supporting the government (which is now a behemoth as big as the tax code, because it takes BIG government to support BIG tax code) on the middle class and the poor.

This is the great irony (and tragedy) of Socialism. The very thing it purports to want to do away with, corruption and corporate control of government and our lives, is the very thing it creates. This is because the mechanism it uses to try and combat "Corporatism", Government regulation, is both Corporatism's genesis and strength.

Simply put; Socialists and leftists of all stripes, the world does not work the way you think it does. The more control you try to exert, the less control you have, and the only thing you destroy is the lives of the people you claim to want to save. So please stop trying to run the world, and let us all alone. Thanks.