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New Global Plan Would Crack Down On Corporate Tax Avoidance

HughPickens.com writes: Reuters reports that plans for a major rewriting of international tax rules have been unveiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that could eliminate structures that have allowed companies like Google and Amazon to shave billions of dollars off their tax bills. For more than 50 years, the OECD's work on international taxation has been focused on ensuring companies are not taxed twice on the same profits (and thereby hampering trade and limit global growth). But companies have been using such treaties to ensure profits are not taxed anywhere. A Reuters investigation last year found that three quarters of the 50 biggest U.S. technology companies channeled revenues from European sales into low tax jurisdictions like Ireland and Switzerland, rather than reporting them nationally.

For example, search giant Google takes advantage of tax treaties to channel more than $8 billion in untaxed profits out of Europe and Asia each year and into a subsidiary that is tax resident in Bermuda, which has no income tax. "We are putting an end to double non-taxation," says OECD head of tax Pascal Saint-Amans.For the recommendations to actually become binding, countries will have to encode them in their domestic laws or amend their bilateral tax treaties. Even if they do pass, these changes are likely 5-10 years away from going into effect.
Speaking of international corporate business: U.K. mainframe company Micro Focus announced it will buy Attachmate, which includes Novell and SUSE.

6 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Most taxes are legalized theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Please tell the truth.

    Link 2015 proposed
    Military is 16%, SS is 33% (double military by itself), Medicare is 27% also more than military.

    Link 2014 actual
    SS is $866 Billion, military is $627 Billion, Medicare is $531 Billion.

    Also note SS is mandatory 100%, while military is discretionary 100%.

  2. relevant article by tacokill · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'll just leave this right here. Seems relevant before we get more stupid than we already are.

  3. Re:Most taxes are legalized theft by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2, Informative

    The debt is mostly from wars that were not paid for.

    It also ignores the 50 percent of military budget that is in the "black budget", as well as the NSA and the other four three letter agencies we don't tell you about.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  4. Re:double non-taxation by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is an easier way to sum up the "Double Irish".

    Ireland taxes companies based on where they are managed, but the US taxes companies based on where they realize profits and loses (as do most countries). A US company will set up an Irish subsidiary but manage it from the US, or anywhere else outside of Ireland, then transfer it's intellectual property to the subsidiary, who licenses use of said IP back to the parent company. The parent company realizes no profits in the US after paying licensing fees to the Irish subsidiary, so the US collects no taxes. The subsidiary is managed from a foreign company, so Ireland collects no taxes. That's it in a nutshell.

    There are further complications where a second Irish subsidiary will be formed plus a Bermuda based shell company, but those are just for dotting the i's and crossing the t's. A further trick can be used with a Dutch company, aka. a "Dutch Sandwich", to minimize taxes even more.

  5. Re:Most taxes are legalized theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The VA is filed under healthcare, but it's properly part of the military budget. Officer pensions are included under pensions, but they are properly part of the military budget. We wouldn't have to pay for the VA if we didn't have injured soldiers, and we wouldn't be paying officers pensions if we had a smaller military. Much of the national debt is military expenses from wars we didn't properly fund (we're still paying off the first gulf war and Reagan era cold war expenses, as well as the more recent stuff) and a huge portion of our tax bill goes towards paying interest on the national debt. Smaller military, fewer wars, less debt.

    When you separate out the portions of healthcare, pensions, debt, etc at are attributed to military, then yes, our military is one of the biggest portions of our budget.

  6. Re:Most taxes are legalized theft by magarity · · Score: 4, Informative

    Payroll taxes do not hide anything. I think most people realize they pay FICA taxes. It usually is listed on the check

    You've proven my point; there is a whole set of payroll taxes your employer pays that is NOT listed on your check stub. There's *your* FICA deduction plus a matching FICA amount paid by your employer, which you do not see on your stub. Then there's *your* SS deduction, and again a matching amount paid by your employer which is not listed. Your employer also pays an unemployment tax which is not listed on your stub.
    The point is, all of these payments are, from your employer's point of view, how much it costs to get you to work. You're effectively paying all this extra tax because the money comes from you going to work. But you don't even know about it.