Slashdot Mirror
Amazon, Google and Apple Won't Need To Pay Tax, Despite Goverment Threats
girlmad writes "Despite moves by government to get Google, Amazon and Apple to admit they make sales in the UK and US, and therefore should pay tax on these earnings, this article argues these are empty threats and that any taxes paid will get returned to the tech giants in government grants and subsidies. Tough luck to the small firms out there."
why class warfare is alive and well and why everyone hates the government so fucking much?
And for those of you who think this is partisan-minded, the "other" guys (hah! what a joke) would have done exactly the same.
sales tax wherever they sell stuff, and income tax in some other country
on BBC parliament. Some suited slimeball operating in full corporate bullshit mode, explaining to a panel of MP's why a UK company buying UK advertising from a UK sales team and paying the bill in sterling to a UK bank account somehow doesn't count as a sale in the UK, all the while his fat tax auidtor lackey smiled and nodded along.
I don't really have a problem with Google knowing more about me than my own mother when I am awash with the blissful fantasy that they are progressive company, run by and for engineers who's general dealings with government are along the lines are "the future is here, deal with it granddad." When I see them acting just like every other multinational, and needing to be reminded several times by the committee chair that their corporate moto is "don't be evil" I suddenly realize that we may have taken our eyes off the ball far too long when it comes to google, and the era of large scale exploitation and manipulation by multinational mega-corps has only just begun.
We need millions of taxpayers, especially small businesses to not only refuse to pay their taxes but dare the government to arrest them for tax evasion until we have a fair and easy to enforce tax code. When I say dare, I mean in the sense of forcing the government to literally go to war or back down and fix the system.
Oh wait, I forgot rule number whatever. "Whenever a rich and important company or person says they're for a tax that should cover them, SURPRISE it ends up covering everybody except them." (OOhh, I'll call it the Buffett Rule.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Megacorps hiring legions of lawyers, accountants and lobbyists to limit/eliminate their tax liabilities. And politicians sucking up to the money bags whilst feigning outrage for the little guy. I'm shocked....just shocked, I say.
Because the Fed intentional manipulates the market to maintain unemployment? Because the working portion of a person's life is bookended by nonworking portions? Because we don't want to take the people who can't work out behind the barn and shoot them? Aside from those reasons, a lot of government spending, the majority of it, goes to people who are working. The government employs quite a few people, most of whose jobs we'd all agree need to be done.
The people at Apple and Google worked hard to earn that money, why should it be stolen from them to pay for giveaways to non-workers
Because while taxation may be tantamount to theft and it may be inherently evil and it may be desirable to minimise it as much as possible, we haven't yet found a more effective way to fund government services, and at least some of the services governments provide are valuable, including to those people at Apple and Google.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Apple and Google enjoy the general public services just like the rest of us. This includes public roads, utilities, postal services. They exist and thrive in a society that is only possible through the strength of an organized nation-state such as the United States of America or Great Britain. This doesn't include any of the subsidies that I'm sure they manage to get or the fact that as a couple of the largest companies in existence, they have the ability to successfully lobby lawmakers.
While most could agree that tax revenue could probably be better spent these days, the fundamental concept of taxes is not stealing. Taxes are the price of civilization.
Ahh ha ha! Why do you guys make me read this shit? They know we're just going to tax the crap out of them to pay for hooker and cocaine parties for Washington lobbyists! Why LIE to them? !#%!WA
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Google, Apple and Amazon are not doing anything wrong. They are in business to make money for their stockholders of which many I bet are UK citizens. In some jurisdictions they are legally REQUIRED to operate their enterprises to the best legal advantage of their stockholders.
Those UK citizens pay taxes on the dividends and capital gains they realize from owning stock in these companies. Not only that but these companies provide extremely useful services to UK citizens thereby enriching their lives.
They ALSO employ many people who ALSO pay taxes on their wages, and by being employers relieve the state from having to pay for the upkeep of these people who would otherwise be on the dole.
Not only that but there are other taxes on value added transactions that result from the economic activities involved. Consumption based taxes are generally viewed to have the least negative impact on economic growth of any taxes.
Then of course there is the whole question of the macroeconomics of the situation. It is generally held that taxes on businesses are inefficient in terms of encouraging economic growth. Such policies are not productive overall to the economy. This is why business taxes in Europe are generally relatively low. It is conscious sound policy decision based on scientific analysis of the economic facts.
http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/themes/02_taxation.pdf
In other words this is a completely RUBBISH article in every way possible.
Just wanted to point out that as of right now the headline says "Goverment", an obvious typo that any dim-witted person should have caught.
The laziness and sloppiness of the content is typical slashdot.
So it would seem that taxes, like laws, are for little people. Whereas writing the specs for the laws and the taxes, well that's for the corporations (which are people!) and for the special 1% big people. Well, no one said life was going to be fair, did they? :>)
Small firms have it so rough and they deserve our pity, even though they have lobbyist groups like Confederation of British Industry who will make sure that small firms don't have to make up for the loss in tax revenue.
Fuck the people who lose out on services and have to pay higher taxes to make up for the lack of revenue, though. Those people clearly don't deserve pity because they aren't a business or corporation. Only businesses deserve our pity.
I've been following this whole shitfest in the UK quite closely for the past few months, and one amusing thing has consistently struck me - the government are trying to be the goody-goody party in all of this, claiming that the companies involved are being evil and ethically corrupt when it comes to "fair share" taxation, while at the very same time flat out refusing to acknowledge that those companies are not doing anything illegal under the current tax regime.
The government also has ruled out changing the tax law to prevent the current behaviours,because then they lose the trivially easy PR they get from "taking the companies to task" infront of Parliament and the media.
It's time to admit that the current tax law doesn't work once you are above PAYE (that's the government standard taxation for employees - normal people in the UK do not have to do any filings because it's all done by the HMRC for them and tax is taken out of their pay checks each month).
Setting up a company in the UK costs about $40. Doing annual returns for that company costs about $350. By working for that company for no wage, and taking out directors dividends, you save serious amounts of money through not having to pay income tax as the Corporate tax rates are significantly smaller than the income tax rates. This scheme is so heavily and widely used, even MPs in all parties got shamed earlier this year when they were named using it - but it's still completely legal.
No one should be expected to voluntarily pay more tax than they legally are required to, and no one should be shamed for not paying more tax than they are legally required to - if you want someone to pay more tax than they are legally required to, then legally require them to pay more tax! Don't beat around the bush, change the fucking law.
Good for Apple and Google. The government didn't earn the money they want to take. The people at Apple and Google worked hard to earn that money, why should it be stolen from them to pay for giveaways to non-workers?
For example, the government pays for police that will arrest people going to an Apple Store with guns and taking whatever they want.
Merger of government and corporate power. They are creating a tax that will hurt small and medium businesses, while their burden is cancelled out by grants and subsidies. This is a clear move to use the sword of government to cut down the competition. This is the DEFINITION of fascism.
Tim Cook seems to claim the opposite:
So is he a bare-faced liar, or is the article summary bollocks? Sources please.
Democracy and Capitalism do NOT mix.
They pay for those directly through property taxes, and indirectly through payroll taxes, proportional to what they use. Corporate income tax is not used for any of that. And they mostly use private shipping companies for their products.
Just because some taxes are reasonable and necessary doesn't mean that any/all of them are.
The people at Apple and Google worked hard to earn that money, why should it be stolen from them to pay for giveaways to non-workers?
I think it should be stolen from them because I'm what these days is called a fanatical pinko (formerly known as an Eisenhower Republican).
Actually, according to dictionary.com, the definition of fascism is: "a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism."
The article doesn't say, but it appears that when it says "tax" it is referring to *income* tax. For some reason, a lot of people forget that corporations, unlike people, pay income tax on NET rather than gross. In other words, the corporation pays all of its expenses, then pays income tax on what is left over. Those expenses include your salary, your benefits, new capital projects, and so on. Meanwhile, the real tax burden of the organization is much higher when you add in all the other taxes they are paying: sales tax, property tax, tariffs, and so on. The story that these corporations aren't paying very much in "taxes" is a gross distortion. They just aren't paying very much in income taxes, which is by design.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
This article is about google and amazon in the UK. In an attempt at link baiting, there is a single line about apple in the US in the article so they would write Apple in the headline for clicks.
And slashdot fell for it - and so did I.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2326897/Google-tax-avoidance-row-Internet-giant-accused-scandalous-tax-avoidance-scheme-whistleblower.html
The people at Apple and Google worked hard to earn that money, why should it be stolen from them to pay for giveaways to non-workers
Because while taxation may be tantamount to theft and it may be inherently evil and it may be desirable to minimise it as much as possible, we haven't yet found a more effective way to fund government services ...
Yes we have, long ago. We did it ourselves; often poorly or with spotty coverage, I agree, but certainly not at the price gov't charges for it. I'm not even speaking of the monetary price here either. Unfortunately, our parents and grandparents got lazy and drank the big gov't Koolaid, and we've been enslaved to it ever since, going in deeper with each succeeding generation.
Perhaps our great grand-kids will fix it.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
You've got the wrong burr up your butt.
The money we give to large corporations though 'incentives', policies, military support, unneeded contracts and a host of other subsidies makes all of those 'welfare queens' that you're so worried about less important than a rounding error.
Let the little stuff slide. Deal with important things first.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The summary places the subject partly within the context of the recent sales tax debate in the US. The article doesn't talk about this, nor does it make any mention of grants and subsidies from the US. Even if it did, this would be missing the point. The taxes would not simply be "empty threats", whatever that means here. Even if the companies receive benefits from the government, they have cause to fear paying sales tax because of the way it would change consumer behavior.
And that is different than our current system, how exactly?
But of course, I was talking about a specific ACTION, rather than making a statement about the entire system. But you would rather host a pedantry exhibition while America burns.
The way it actually works is: You make money in France. You pay France 25% of your profits (I'm just pulling numbers out of my *ss. Bear with me.) But the US tax rate is 35%. You get a credit for that 25% paid but you still owe 10% to the US govt.
Why? The USA didn't have anything to do with your profits earned in France. So you move your corporation to a low tax jurisdiction. You pay France 25% of your French profits. You pay the USA 35% of your US profits (but only those earned in the USA). And all the looters in the US scream about you stealing 'their' taxes.
Have gnu, will travel.
The government's sole purpose of this action is to put into place more mechanisms to extract new taxes. The standard way all elected governments of the world get away with sticking it to the people with more unfair laws is to play the long game and start really small.
The gov knows that once the basic mechanism is in place, it is irreversible, consequently they initally make it sound harmless and agree to anything to get it in place (even initially giving up any benefit, such as that all the collected taxes all get returned to the big companies) because the gov know they can gradually tweak the new mechanism's parameters later when the spotlight isn't on them. This is government tactics 101, people.
This is just false. Giveaways to non-workers are a lot more than half the budget:
http://www.concordcoalition.org/publications/2011/0906/op-ed-government-‘-people’-gets-more-expensive
For some reason, a lot of people forget that corporations, unlike people, pay income tax on NET rather than gross
But corporations are people. Why can't I pay income taxes on my net rather than gross?
Have gnu, will travel.
You miss the point about citizenship. Its not a privilege, its a burden. As a citizen, the government can require certain things of you. As a non citizen, they cannot.
Have gnu, will travel.
... eliminate all corporate taxes? Will that draw international corporations to come here. It probably would ... until ... they realize that we are taxing the people so hard that the cost of employing them here is too high. So they would just set up headquarters here, and hire the actual production people (workers) wherever they are the cheapest. So what do we gain? I say just drive them out.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If we're going to debate this, we need to be careful to distinguish between the scope of government and the efficiency of government.
Personally, I'd be the first to agree that many western governments have far too broad a scope today and the public sector has become unsustainably large. That's a real economic problem, and sooner or later someone's going to have to deal with it.
But on the efficiency question, the evidence is not nearly so clear. It's easy to find spectacular examples of government inefficiency and horrendous waste, but it's also easy to find spectacular success stories where nationalised, government-run infrastructure dramatically outperforms private, commercial provision of the equivalent services in other places. And some functions really have to be reserved to some form of government at a basic level, unless you want to start outsourcing things like making laws and starting wars to private industry.
For this discussion, the key point to me is that as long as there is any area that government is responsible for operating, there needs to be some way to pay for it. It would be fascinating to see what would happen if we had some radically different mechanism for doing that instead of what we have today, but until we've discovered a way to try something else without undermining the basic fabric of our societies, taxation is the least worst option we've found so far. The amount of taxation that is justified is a quantitative question and relates to both the efficiency and the scope of government, and the division of that tax burden among taxpayers is again something to be debated, but the principle that people/businesses should make a contribution in return for valuable government services (whatever those might be) is a reasonable one.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
...claiming that the companies involved are being evil and ethically corrupt when it comes to "fair share" taxation, while at the very same time flat out refusing to acknowledge that those companies are not doing anything illegal under the current tax regime.
Completely true and the government certainly shoulders some of the blame but they are also stuck in a very hard place. They could certainly change the tax law but the problem is how? They are up against multi-national corporations who will do anything they can to avoid paying tax and have armies of lawyers and a global reach to do just that. It is hard to see how any tax law can actually stop these companies and billionaires without being so strict, severe or complex that it will hurt smaller companies.
I agree nobody should be expected to pay more tax voluntarily than the law allows but, at the same time, calling an individual or a house a company simply to avoid income tax or stamp duty is going completely against the spirit of the law. Yes government can pass laws to block each new loop hole but you'll end up with tax laws that fill a library and the cost of filing your taxes will soar. This, ultimately, is the problem with laws: there is always some way to circumvent them if you try hard enough. Fixing the law is not the issue here we need to fix the attitude of the companies and billionaires who have benefitted greatly from society and now need to contribute to it at at least the same rate as the rest of us.
For example, the government pays for police that will arrest people going to an Apple Store with guns and taking whatever they want.
I think Apple can afford to hire their own security, don't you?
On the other hand, if the gov't does it, they can break into private citizens' establishments to steal back iBaubles that some Apple flunkie left in a bar.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Does anyone who seriously uses the cliche that "taxes are theft" deserve to be treated as anything other than a troll? I'm all for open debate with anyone serious, including those who would all but abandon (in the US) the federal government. However, even anarchists may admit that some taxes are necessary. "Taxes are theft" is just a childish rant and should be treated as such.
But you would rather host a pedantry exhibition while America burns.
Yep. That's exactly what I want...
In the US, Apple pays for police protection through their real estate taxes (and other local and state taxes), not corporate income tax. They also have their own private security. I suspect Cupertino, Mountain View, and Palo Alto would come out ahead even if they didn't get any direct revenue from Apple and Google.
In the UK, since money just disappears into a big bucket, it's of course much easier to play political bait-and-switch with taxes.
The amount of taxes paid isn't relevant, its the percentage. I think the average american pays around 28%, what did apple pay?
Just wanted to point out too that a 0% unemployment rate is very bad for economies. It leaves no room for growth. The sweet spot is between 3-4% with about 2% of people actively seeking work.
They should pay billions in taxes to avoid hiring a few security guards?
I am buying apps like no other as part of my business. In normal business you work with buying and selling and VAT is no problem. Apple however does not send bills with VAT, Apple states they are not done negotiating with the government. I had to read this two or three times.. what on eath do you have to negotiate on VAT. It is really clear: all business have to pay. Now the Added in Value Added Taxes i have to pay is higher than it should be, there goes part of my profits, thank you Apple!
If taxes only paid for government services like police and courts, taxes would be very low. But well over half of government budgets are for giveaways to non-workers.
The entire country *could* take Amazon, Google, and Apple by the nuts and make them *beg* to pay taxes, but we just don't have that kind of resolve as a citizenry. I think things are moving in the right direction with new mobile apps like Buycott, but seriously....can't people give up their sense of convenience for just a little bit so that we can work to correct some *major* problems with the current political/social structure?
...to the real cyberpunk world. Megacorporations don't rule the world, they let that dirty work be handled by governments. Instead, the have found a way to corrupt our politics in such a way that we are actually subsidising megacorporations and small companies and taxpayers are footing the bill.
I just hope that the time when history looks upon this period and asks whether we were all insane isn't too far off.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
There's only one thing worse than an idiot with bad ideologies, and that's a smart person with bad ideologies. Good luck trying to argue with them on any sort of constructive level. Good luck to us all, really. As these morally corrupt intellectuals are dragging us collectively further down the statist hole.
Your observation isn't relevant either; if you increase corporate taxes, you just accomplish two things: they'll have to raise prices, so you end up paying for those taxes, and they'll come up with ways of moving out of the country.
Ultimately, no matter "who" you tax, real people end up paying the price. And with corporations, the people ending up paying the price are the people buying their products (and potentially their employees).
They pay for those directly through property taxes, and indirectly through payroll taxes, proportional to what they use.
The point is that they don't. They find ways to avoid it, so we have to pay for it instead.
I used to play D&D with this guy who had pretty much memorized the rule book. The DM would say "lose 3 HP" and he would find some obscure interaction of multiple rules none of us had even considered that meant he only lost 1. Google is that guy, and the DM just needs to tell them to pay the hell up in the spirit of the rules.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
What happens when Apple undergoes a huge bond issue simply to avoid repatriating cash? http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/839e662a-b3dd-11e2-ace9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2TlsjpzoU I'm no longer a US taxpayer so i no longer care, but it seems unfair that US taxpayers are giving them a $100MM a year break. They have enough cash to pay their taxes and don't really need any assistance. I'm unsure how my comment "isn't relevant", is it untrue that percentage taxes paid is an easier means to compare then total taxes paid? By the way, just because you increase corporate taxes doesnt necessarily mean there will be an increase in prices. There could also be a small reduction in profit margins. Again looking at apple with its huge margins...
All this talk of sales, and talk that government could "enforce tax as a percentage of earnings on all companies".
Corporation tax is paid on PROFITS, not sales / earnings. And as for the large amounts made by some of these sales - e.g. Google's supposed £3.2 billion sales. Well, this year they agreed a £1 billion property deal for new headquarters in London - that might impact on profits somewhat...
HMRC has done some questionable things with relation to some companies, and yes, we need to ensure that all companies are paying tax fairly, and playing by the same rules. But there is a shocking amount of "me too" reporting over this issue, that glosses over the facts, presents information in a way that confuses rather than illuminates the issue, and often just gets the sums plain wrong.
You're right that companies always find ways to avoid paying taxes, as do many individual tax payers. The higher you raise taxes, the more non-compliance you get and the more unfair the system gets for people who actually pay there taxes... mostly middle class employees.
Look, I really don't like Apple as a company and I think their profit margins are outrageous. But you can't fix problems with (legal or illegal) tax evasion by raising taxes even more; that will just lead to more tax evasion and screw law abiding citizens even more. If you want companies to comply more and evade less, the only way to do it is to lower taxes, not increase them.
This kind of thinking is precisely what is needed to solve these tax problems. Why does the government tax a percentage of profit? Instead, think of it as payments for a service. You have a factory full of computers? Well we the government are protecting that factory with our military, so you should pay a tax based on the value of that factory. You are hiring workers? Well we the government educated them at our schools, so you should pay a per worker tax. Utilizing our public road system means customers can come to your store and buy things? Maybe we'll have some sort of utility sales tax. Also, imagine if those taxes could only be spent on precisely those programs. How quick would we be to go to war if corporations new their military protection taxes were going up?
While you have a valid point, here we're talking about (numbers etc pulled from my ass) Google France making a Billion after the usual expenses but then they pay Google Cayman Islands a Billion for the use of the Google name bringing Google Frances profits down to zero so they don't pay any tax. Meanwhile as there is no tax in the Cayman Islands, Google Cayman Islands makes huge profits.
It's more complicated and there are more steps but basically it is a game of creating fake expenses to avoid having a profit in countries that charge tax on profit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Unfortunately, the US military isn't just used for protecting our nation, it is used for foreign adventures.
Customers are paying for roads through their payroll tax and gas tax, corporations are paying for it through real estate taxes and sales tax.
The problem is that taxes are justified by people like you as payment for specific services, but then misappropriated for completely different services, like bailouts, fixing the economy, invading Iraq, or whatever.
To you, workers and citizens seem to be mere pawns to be moved around between government and corporations; that view is fascist. The idea that the nation is primarily composed of citizens who can make their own decisions and pay for what they want and need simply doesn't seem to enter your totalitarian mind.
which is, most countries tax profits made within their borders. That is, if Google made money in France, then they must pay taxes in France. So, demanding that these companies pay taxes twice, on the same overseas profits, is not reasonable. Which, IIRC, was the point of why the tax exception was written that way.
Two complications: Just assume that France had the same law: "You pay taxes on your income, but you can deduct the amount of tax you paid elsewhere (for example in the USA)". It couldn't work. If a company had to pay $1,000,000 in France according to French tax law, and $1,100,000 in the USA according to US law, then we get two equations "payment in France = $1,000,000 minus payment in the USA" and "payment in USA = 1,100,000 minuse payment in France" which have no solution.
The other complication: When profits are artificially moved from one country to another country where the tax rate is higher. For example, Starbucks UK makes zero profit because they purchase their coffee beans at excessive prices from a Starbucks subsidiary somewhere on the continent where the tax rate is lower.
"And some functions really have to be reserved to some form of government at a basic level, unless you want to start outsourcing things like making laws and starting wars to private industry."
Instead of assuming such functions would have to be 'outsourced' why not consider eliminating them? Certainly starting wars is a function we could do without.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
From TFA
Did she take into account the savings Amazon made to private citizens? Did she take into account reductions in global emissions due to shared delivery trucks?
Do not assume the only thing going on is all government-oriented. Certain factions want you to think that way, but don't. Walmart saves the US consumers over $200 billion per year.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
that's one way of looking at it.
another, more accurate way is that if the government doesn't prevent them evading taxes, they are subsidising the price of their products.
i.e. your iphone/whatever is artificially cheap because it's subsidised by tax-payers. part of the cost of you having that item is shifted to people who get no benefit from you owning your gizmo.
how odd... you say that as if it's a bad thing.
why is it that people who are all in favour of user-pays ideology when it comes to essential services provided by governments, get so upset about users paying the full, unsubsidised cost of the products they buy (including subsidies for tax evaded, and externalised expenses[1])
and why do they get so upset about the relatively minor effect that tax has on the retail price, yet are perfectly happy with all the middle-men in the distribution chain taking their markup at every step along the way (typically 30-40% at each stage, sometimes hundreds of percent for some products)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
Claiming that corporate taxes pay for "externalities" associated with these products is a bald faced lie. Most of the actual externalities are paid for by taxes on gas, land, payroll, sales, and other sources, Most of the federal budget is used for people enriching themselves in various ways: from bank bailouts to military contractors and public sector union handouts. Just look a the budget.
What makes you think it's a "minor effect"? Every dollar you raise in corporate taxes is paid for by either customers or investors, i.e., real people. And "investors" aren't some nebulous Dr. Evil-style people, they are your and my retirement accounts.
I don't know about you, but I aggressively try to minimize those costs. And companies cut out those middlemen whenever they can. That's why B2B and internet shopping are so hot.
I'm not "getting upset", I'm explaining to you why raising taxes just won't work. You have companies moving their profits overseas because they don't want to pay US or UK taxes. Your solution? Raise taxes further. How is that going to encourage those companies to bring their profits back to the US? If you run a store and your product doesn't sell, how is raising prices going to bring people back?
I run a small IT company in the UK. What infuriates me is that my start-up is subject to onerous rates of taxation whereas a large foreign competitor is able to avoid a considerable portion of its tax bill. One of the key functions of government is that it needs to be there to ensure that the rules that ensure that capitalism can function are in place and are not being circumvented by any of the participants in the market. Failure to apply these rules across the board means that the market becomes distorted and the system fails to behave in a healthy fashion. This is what happens in developing countries and it is what makes them poor. The UK is getting poorer for many reasons but a key reason is our rising tide of corruption - which this is an example of. Recent articles by professor Niall Ferguson discuss the failure of Western institutions being core to our waning power... this is a clear example of that. The Law must apply to all in equal measure.
I say tie grant money (if there should be any is another debate) to taxes. In order to keep the grant money you have to have taxable income in the country. Essentially make them non-refundable tax credits. Also make them only able to be applied to a certain percentage of the total taxes due so that companies have to claim/repatriation large amounts in order to get their write-offs.
Another option: taxes owed are a function of where you do business. If you are registered in the US but claim that your income is from overseas prove it. I say something like 70% is weighted based on where real dollars in the bank account originate (do what you want with US companies getting money from your country but US dollars going to US companies are going to get taxed period) not where you attribute them (doing shinanigans like claiming Cokes recipe is owned by a company in the Bahamas and the US revenue is paying huge royalties doesn't cut it). The other 30% would be where your employees are. That gives a bit of wiggle room for companies that legitimately do hire a lot of their staff overseas to actually assign a portion of their business to where it is actually being operated. Businesses are essentially operations and sales and both should be taken into account when calculating taxes not some shady circular ownership plan that allows them to claim to operate out of a lawyers office even with 10's of thousands of employees in country and negligable customers in the their "operating" country.
I think Apple can afford to hire their own security, don't you?
Extremely myopic.
Government pays for the police, that not only will arrest people going to an Apple Store with guns and taking whatever they want, but also prevent other people from running their own police. This made it possible for Apple (or many successful companies) to come into existence in the first place, otherwise the energies that are now directed towards making nice goods and services would get consumed by everyone fighting among each other.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Well, it might be if i had indeed said that or anything like that. I didn't, and still don't.
Try responding to what i actually wrote, and not to your half-arsed strawman.
no, they're not. you clearly have no fucking idea what you're talking about. externalised costs are NOT borne by the company (or individual) who benefits from them. that's the entire fucking point, they're costs borne by third-parties, by the entire community, by someone else - ANYONE ELSE.
the classic example is that of dumping toxic waste in a river - there's no cost to the polluting factory (in fact, they save the expense of disposing of their waste properly). the cost is borne by everyone else who lives by or uses that river, swims in it, drinks it, washes in it, eats fish from it, especially those downstream.
read the wikipedia link in my last post, especially the section on negative externalities.
funny, middle-men being eliminated doesn't seem to have reduced retail prices much, or at all.
if reducing costs in the distribution chain don't magically reduce prices, why do you expect me or anyone else to believe that requiring parasite corporations to pay their fair share of taxes would somehow magically increase them?
IMO it would be a fucking great thing if the price of an item bore any kind of direct relationship to the cost of producing it. but it rarely does. the price is far more often exactly what they think they can get away with (aka "what the market will bear" in self-congratulating marketing wanker biz-speek)
actually, you are. you're just another moron apologist for corporate thieves. you see them as canny businessmen minimising their unjust tax burden. i see them as parasitic leeches engorging themselves on the toil and blood of others.
i guess your attitude is only to be expected - you're an american, after all, and raised to admire con-men and thieves and to regard "caveat emptor" not as a warning against vermin but as a slogan of sound business practice.
more importantly, i never said that taxes must be raised (although i do happen to also think that they should be raised, at least to the levels before the rich and the corporates were given massive tax cuts - that's a separate issue from the point i was making here).
No, that isn't my solution.
My solution is that the scum-sucking corporate parasites should pay their fair share of taxes and not be allowed to get away with exploiting loopholes to evade tax.
Lying and fiddling the books to claim that money was made in a low-or-zero-tax jurisdiction when it was actually made in a normal taxing jurisdiction is not legal, it's not just "paying no more than they legally have to" as moronic parrot apologists like you bleat on and on about. it's a fucking tax evasion scam, and the companies and individuals who perpetrate it are criminal scum.
criminal scum no better than those who looted the financial system with their bogus loans and bullshit derivatives that caused the GFC and then demanded a bailout of trillions.
you want to know why your country's economy is so fucked - it's because you idiot americans let the thieves on wall street get away with multi-trillion dollar larceny while thieves from haliburton loot the treasury and corporate puppets reduce the already-bargain basement tax rate for the rich. worse, you no
Govt doesn't need our taxes. Govt can print currency.
Govt is imposing taxes to CONTROL/MANIPULATE the citizens.
https://goo.gl/ep9Qz
Casteism
How did Google USA smuggle the trademark out of the USA and into the Cayman islands? If I put more then $10,000 in cash or property into my luggage and try exiting the country without declaring it, I can be fined and/or imprisoned.
Based on a billion dollar annual payment from France alone, that trademark must be worth some multiple of a billion dollars. I think Customs and the IRS would really like to know who slipped it through our border.
Have gnu, will travel.
Most people think we have way too much civilization. Nation building half way around the world, subsidizing 100 billion dollar corporations, no one ask me if I wanted that. We can't vote in honest politicians, the major parties only run two candidates, and the corporations have bought of them.
As I said "numbers etc pulled from my ass" that included the name example to cover various IP that they do pay for. The numbers were also pulled out of my ass.
The point is that they find things to pay for to reduce their profits to zero so they pay close to no tax in France (actually the article is about the UK but I was following your example)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
That's why they are not repatriating the profits they earn outside the US. Corporate tax rates are too high -- the government would likely collect more revenue from lower rates, as firms would be less likely to shelter earnings from the taxman.
their fair share is the corporate tax rate of 30% of net that they agreed to when they chose to do business in this country.
i thought you anarcho-capitalist retards held agreements to be both binding and sacred - or is it OK to break agreements you voluntarily entered into if you disagree with the other party's politics? or because you can get away with it?
or is it simply because "bizness gud, gubmint bad"?
LOL.
I was reading this article and heading the "You may also like to read" section "First fully 3D Printed Gun..."
I dunno mates, but out here we are getting a very weird image of you USians as gun-crazed anti-tax jihadists.
Just joking.
-- 29A the number of the Beast
the recent hearings in DC are just for public spectacle. elected officials have no intention of bearing down on apple & google & microsoft -- they're just pulling a "look over there" maneuver, in order to distract the population from other matters -- like how 5 years after Obama was elected, we're still paying $79 billion to fund the war effort in Afghanistan. They're all a bunch of lowlife criminals, our "representatives", completely self-serving and generally immune to the effects of the laws which affect the rest of the 99%.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I think Apple can afford to hire their own security, don't you?
Extremely myopic.
No, it's not. It's a feature, but you glossed over this bit:
On the other hand, if the gov't does it, they can break into private citizens' establishments to steal back iBaubles ...
Private security secures private establishments. Gov't supported security (police) have the force of criminal law behind them and so can act far more broadly, including being co-opted by Apple to steal back its property, paid for by taxpayers.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit