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There's a shocking level of economic illiteracy in the above comment ^^^ A) Corporations that don't like paying UK corporation taxes (like Google and Facebook)
by crdoconnor 10y ago
There's a shocking level of economic illiteracy in the above comment ^^^
A) Corporations that don't like paying UK corporation taxes (like Google and Facebook) already try to evade by declaring their income in Ireland. Except that doesn't work when it's plainly false as demonstrated when HMRC recognized this. If HMRC chose it could rake in even more via fines from Google (weird that they didn't).
B) Big shareholders and large corporations suffer the most from high corporate taxes since they earn the most in dividends.
C) The tax incidence of corporate taxes falls on big shareholders. At a time when corporate profits and inequality are at all time highs the space to squeeze shareholders has never actually been greater.
This is just cynical opportunism by Osborne. He sees a way to reward his friends and he's taking it.
- imtringued 10y agoPoint A and B contradict each other. If e.g. Starbucks avoids taxes then they are clearly not suffering from high taxes. The local coffee shop next door does suffer from unfair competition.
- crdoconnor 10y agoUnless Starbucks were tax evading and then stopped because they were being threatened by HMRC. Which is what happened: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23019514 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23019514 Turns out threatening large corporations actually works pretty fucking well. We could do a lot more of that.
- Tomrn 10y agoOn Point (A) "weird that they [hmrc] didn't [go after google for more fines]" Google had managed to negotiate some kind of 'tax-deal' with HMRC which came to light in 2016 and was widely critisized. It all seemed a bit shady and I wouldn't be suprised if HMRC were discouraged behind closed doors from going after google too agressively.