7 ms·

From the perspective of taxpayers, having nations compete for the lowest taxes and most friendly regulatory environment is beneficial. If there were a global te

From the perspective of taxpayers, having nations compete for the lowest taxes and most friendly regulatory environment is beneficial. If there were a global territorial monopoly on the production of security and rule of law, you would likely find yourself with a lower quality of life.

adamnemecek 9y ago
The problem is that I (and possibly you idk) can't decide to start paying taxes in Cayman islands while still residing in the US. Why should a hedge fund be allowed to do that? Why should a hedge fund that takes advantage of the US social structure (funded by taxes) be allowed to not pay taxes in the US?
- hendzen 9y ago
  The employees of the fund, who reside in the US presumably, will be taxed on the income they earn from the fund. Why should they be taxed twice? Google & Apple, etc play the same jurisdictional tricks, as do pretty much all multinational firms.
  - adamnemecek 9y ago
    > The employees of the fund, who reside in the US presumably, will be taxed on the income they earn from the fund. Why should they be taxed twice? Why should it be the employees getting taxed and not the corporation? I might get taxed more than twice. Federal income tax, state income tax, sales tax, capital income tax, why should a corporation get a pass? I also don't think that it's getting taxed twice as they are different taxes. > Google & Apple, etc play the same jurisdictional tricks, as do pretty much all multinational firms. Why are you assuming that I condone that?
    - ddeck 9y ago
      >Why should it be the employees getting taxed and not the corporation? I think you are confusing the fund with the mangement company. An asset manager is a company that manages assets for investors and charges fees. They have employees and offices and profits and pay taxes. Fidelity's parent for example is a US based LLC. An asset manger like this runs many funds on behalf of investors. For each investment fund, they setup a fund to legally ring fence the assets for that particular fund, which they manage on behalf of the fund's investors. This protects the investors and maintains separations of the assets. If the management company went bankrupt, the funds themselves are unaffected (aside from needing a new manager). The fund itself has no employees, it's just a method of legally separating out those assets. I would also point out that this particular case has nothing to do with the US. The manager in question is not a US citizen or resident and I would be extremely surprised if the management company was being setup there.
      - adamnemecek 9y ago
        I'm not confusing it. You didn't answer the main question, why is it establishes in Cayman Islands? To avoid taxes. That's the end of it.
        icebraining 9y ago
        Avoiding taxes is not unethical in itself, or do you also denounce people who claim any tax deductions? The question is: why is the US entitled to these taxes, such that avoiding them becomes unethical?
        adamnemecek 9y ago
        > Avoiding taxes is not unethical in itself, or do you also denounce people who claim any tax deductions? False equivalence. You can deduce anything that's used to generate the profit. This makes sense. > The question is: why is the US entitled to these taxes, such that avoiding them becomes unethical? The answer to this question is the same as the answer to the question "why is the US entitled to taxes".
        charlesdm 9y ago
        You can generally also deduct charity payments to your own "land conservation" charity, which can then go ahead and buy 50 acres of land around your recently built mansion. Pretty sure you wouldn't consider that one one that makes sense. Plenty of deductions exist for a reason, and generating profits isn't always one of them.
        breatheoften 9y ago
        There are other reasons to do so (unethical but who is to say it's not part of the thinking ...). Foreign assets are also significantly harder to apply many kinds of financial regulations to from other countries. If this fund is a Ponzi scheme for example, then the foreign transaction boundaries can prevent (or severely complicate) federal jurisdictions from clawing back profits (for the early investors who might have net profit). Normally - any investor with profitable returns from a Ponzi scheme will have their gains clawed back to pay restitution for the losses of investors who got scammed.
- ddeck 9y ago
  The fund doesn't benefit from the US social structure. The fund is just a legal fence around a bunch of assets. The investors in the fund are obliged to pay taxes on their income/gains in their relevant taxation jurisdiction, which will be the US for US investors and elsewhere for non-US investors.
  - adamnemecek 9y ago
    It's benefiting from the US structure indirectly. Investors into the fund are definitely benefiting from the US social structure and hence the fund is also benefiting. I can also imagine that the fund has some US legal protection (don't quote me on that). > The investors in the fund are obliged to pay taxes on their income/gains in their relevant taxation jurisdiction, which will be the US for US investors and elsewhere for non-US investors. So why is the fund getting a pass?
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Investors into the fund are definitely benefiting from the US social structure and hence the fund is also benefiting. Fine. When will you start paying taxes to Greece and Italy for essentially inventing the core civilizational structure the West is based on?
      - adamnemecek 9y ago
        > paying taxes to Greece and Italy Haha, the EU is paying them more than enough already.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - cgmg 9y ago
      "It's benefiting from the US structure indirectly. Investors into the fund are definitely benefiting from the US social structure and hence the fund is also benefiting." So, have you been paying your taxes to Germany, Canada, the UK, and the rest of the world?
- cgmg 9y ago
  >Why should a hedge fund that takes advantage of the US social structure (funded by taxes) be allowed to not pay taxes in the US? You seem to have a very US-centered view of the world. To those of us who don't live in the US, it comes across as bizarre. "Takes advantage of the US social structure" is so vague as to be practically meaningless, and could be extended to almost any developed economy. Not all of us owe Uncle Sam, you know.
  - adamnemecek 9y ago
    I'm not American. It's not so much about the US as about the country where they do business which I assumed was the US.
    - petre 9y ago
      Where does Google do business for instance?
      - adamnemecek 9y ago
        everywhere they make money
- charlesdm 9y ago
  The fund could be funded by wealthy families in, say, Monaco and Saudi Arabia. The investors shouldn't have to pay US taxes just because the fund manager is US based. It makes sense they pay local taxes (even if they are nil) on their gains. The fund manager, however, probably should pay US tax (on any of his profits).
pedrocr 9y ago
>From the perspective of taxpayers, having nations compete for the lowest taxes and most friendly regulatory environment is beneficial. If the gains in lower taxes are done by playing states off each other (see Google in Ireland) or the regulatory gains are done by allowing dirtier production of the same goods elsewhere (usual China vs the West discussion) then for the vast majority of tax payers it is a loss. The taxes and regulations that apply to them individually don't change while their states have less tax revenue to provide services and the environment they live in is worse off. >If there were a global territorial monopoly on the production of security and rule of law, you would likely find yourself with a lower quality of life. I'd bet the opposite would be true. All those lawyers and accountants that Google employs to shift their tax burden between countries could be reallocated to doing something productive. The pressure to lower taxes is already high enough within a single state that the loss in pressure from lack of competition between states would probably be irrelevant.
- duidjejr 9y ago
  Oh for sure, all those lawyers would probably instead be lobbyists meeting with officials from the one world government for beneficial policies -- a clearly uncorruptible and very noble situation which would be highly sensitive to my one vote as a global citizen.
- inotallwdhere 9y ago
  Oh for sure, all those lawyers would probably instead be lobbyists meeting with officials from the one world government for beneficial policies -- a clearly uncorruptible and very noble situation which would be highly sensitive to my one vote as a global citizen.
- strbcksqq 9y ago
  Oh for sure, all those lawyers would probably instead be lobbyists meeting with officials from the one world government for beneficial policies -- a clearly uncorruptible and very noble situation which would be highly sensitive to my one vote as a global citizen. Awesome I am Automatic made dead
opportune 9y ago
Heavily disagree. Having nations compete for the lowest taxes allows only the wealthiest (because middle class people, or just generally those receiving a wage, cannot just choose to make their money in a tax haven) to evade taxes while enjoying all the social institutions and political settings from the original country they come from. I'm not advocating capital controls, but it doesn't make sense for us to allow people that by all means actually live and work in the US to set up a business elsewhere to avoid taxes. Because if tax havens were not allowed to exist, they would still set up in the US/UK/whatever, but would actually pay fair amounts of taxes.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Avoid, not evade. Big difference. And generally those structures only allow you to defer tax, not avoid all tax. Yes, having $10m sitting in a bank account of some corporate structure is obviously better than not having any money at all, but it's still money that has restrictions attached to it -- can't just go and spend it all. Generally, if you want to bring that back, you will at least have to pay some sort of capital gains or dividend tax on that. Second, pure tax havens (such as Jersey and the Cayman Islands) are one thing. But pretty much every developed nation has special tax incentives that exist in their tax code to attract investment. And it is obvious why they do it. If we use Luxembourg as an example, which is generally a favourable holding and fund location, what can they offer? They are a small country with no natural resources. Smaller nations need to live off of intellectual capacity, meaning: outsmarting others. There are various approaches (Singapore, Channel Islands, Luxembourg) to that, but ultimately, if you want to attract investment and tax revenue, offering an attracting tax system seems like a great way to do it. I don't see the world introducing a globalised 20% corporate tax rate any time soon, for example.
- hueving 9y ago
  Read the comment up thread about how these are structured. The country that the investor is based in still taxes the money coming out of the fund. The fund operations still pay US taxes on all of the management fees that come from the fund. Putting the fund in the islands just avoids having to deal with all of the work of getting exemptions for the money going to the foreign investors. I suggest that you spend some time actually researching why these things are done before commenting based on a preconceived notion learned from popular media.

adamnemecek 9y ago

The problem is that I (and possibly you idk) can't decide to start paying taxes in Cayman islands while still residing in the US. Why should a hedge fund be allowed to do that? Why should a hedge fund that takes advantage of the US social structure (funded by taxes) be allowed to not pay taxes in the US?

hendzen 9y ago
The employees of the fund, who reside in the US presumably, will be taxed on the income they earn from the fund. Why should they be taxed twice? Google & Apple, etc play the same jurisdictional tricks, as do pretty much all multinational firms.
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  > The employees of the fund, who reside in the US presumably, will be taxed on the income they earn from the fund. Why should they be taxed twice? Why should it be the employees getting taxed and not the corporation? I might get taxed more than twice. Federal income tax, state income tax, sales tax, capital income tax, why should a corporation get a pass? I also don't think that it's getting taxed twice as they are different taxes. > Google & Apple, etc play the same jurisdictional tricks, as do pretty much all multinational firms. Why are you assuming that I condone that?
  - ddeck 9y ago
    >Why should it be the employees getting taxed and not the corporation? I think you are confusing the fund with the mangement company. An asset manager is a company that manages assets for investors and charges fees. They have employees and offices and profits and pay taxes. Fidelity's parent for example is a US based LLC. An asset manger like this runs many funds on behalf of investors. For each investment fund, they setup a fund to legally ring fence the assets for that particular fund, which they manage on behalf of the fund's investors. This protects the investors and maintains separations of the assets. If the management company went bankrupt, the funds themselves are unaffected (aside from needing a new manager). The fund itself has no employees, it's just a method of legally separating out those assets. I would also point out that this particular case has nothing to do with the US. The manager in question is not a US citizen or resident and I would be extremely surprised if the management company was being setup there.
    - adamnemecek 9y ago
      I'm not confusing it. You didn't answer the main question, why is it establishes in Cayman Islands? To avoid taxes. That's the end of it.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        Avoiding taxes is not unethical in itself, or do you also denounce people who claim any tax deductions? The question is: why is the US entitled to these taxes, such that avoiding them becomes unethical?
        adamnemecek 9y ago
        > Avoiding taxes is not unethical in itself, or do you also denounce people who claim any tax deductions? False equivalence. You can deduce anything that's used to generate the profit. This makes sense. > The question is: why is the US entitled to these taxes, such that avoiding them becomes unethical? The answer to this question is the same as the answer to the question "why is the US entitled to taxes".
        charlesdm 9y ago
        You can generally also deduct charity payments to your own "land conservation" charity, which can then go ahead and buy 50 acres of land around your recently built mansion. Pretty sure you wouldn't consider that one one that makes sense. Plenty of deductions exist for a reason, and generating profits isn't always one of them.
      - breatheoften 9y ago
        There are other reasons to do so (unethical but who is to say it's not part of the thinking ...). Foreign assets are also significantly harder to apply many kinds of financial regulations to from other countries. If this fund is a Ponzi scheme for example, then the foreign transaction boundaries can prevent (or severely complicate) federal jurisdictions from clawing back profits (for the early investors who might have net profit). Normally - any investor with profitable returns from a Ponzi scheme will have their gains clawed back to pay restitution for the losses of investors who got scammed.
ddeck 9y ago
The fund doesn't benefit from the US social structure. The fund is just a legal fence around a bunch of assets. The investors in the fund are obliged to pay taxes on their income/gains in their relevant taxation jurisdiction, which will be the US for US investors and elsewhere for non-US investors.
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  It's benefiting from the US structure indirectly. Investors into the fund are definitely benefiting from the US social structure and hence the fund is also benefiting. I can also imagine that the fund has some US legal protection (don't quote me on that). > The investors in the fund are obliged to pay taxes on their income/gains in their relevant taxation jurisdiction, which will be the US for US investors and elsewhere for non-US investors. So why is the fund getting a pass?
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Investors into the fund are definitely benefiting from the US social structure and hence the fund is also benefiting. Fine. When will you start paying taxes to Greece and Italy for essentially inventing the core civilizational structure the West is based on?
    - adamnemecek 9y ago
      > paying taxes to Greece and Italy Haha, the EU is paying them more than enough already.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - cgmg 9y ago
    "It's benefiting from the US structure indirectly. Investors into the fund are definitely benefiting from the US social structure and hence the fund is also benefiting." So, have you been paying your taxes to Germany, Canada, the UK, and the rest of the world?
cgmg 9y ago
>Why should a hedge fund that takes advantage of the US social structure (funded by taxes) be allowed to not pay taxes in the US? You seem to have a very US-centered view of the world. To those of us who don't live in the US, it comes across as bizarre. "Takes advantage of the US social structure" is so vague as to be practically meaningless, and could be extended to almost any developed economy. Not all of us owe Uncle Sam, you know.
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  I'm not American. It's not so much about the US as about the country where they do business which I assumed was the US.
  - petre 9y ago
    Where does Google do business for instance?
    - adamnemecek 9y ago
      everywhere they make money
charlesdm 9y ago
The fund could be funded by wealthy families in, say, Monaco and Saudi Arabia. The investors shouldn't have to pay US taxes just because the fund manager is US based. It makes sense they pay local taxes (even if they are nil) on their gains. The fund manager, however, probably should pay US tax (on any of his profits).

pedrocr 9y ago

>From the perspective of taxpayers, having nations compete for the lowest taxes and most friendly regulatory environment is beneficial. If the gains in lower taxes are done by playing states off each other (see Google in Ireland) or the regulatory gains are done by allowing dirtier production of the same goods elsewhere (usual China vs the West discussion) then for the vast majority of tax payers it is a loss. The taxes and regulations that apply to them individually don't change while their states have less tax revenue to provide services and the environment they live in is worse off. >If there were a global territorial monopoly on the production of security and rule of law, you would likely find yourself with a lower quality of life. I'd bet the opposite would be true. All those lawyers and accountants that Google employs to shift their tax burden between countries could be reallocated to doing something productive. The pressure to lower taxes is already high enough within a single state that the loss in pressure from lack of competition between states would probably be irrelevant.

duidjejr 9y ago
Oh for sure, all those lawyers would probably instead be lobbyists meeting with officials from the one world government for beneficial policies -- a clearly uncorruptible and very noble situation which would be highly sensitive to my one vote as a global citizen.
inotallwdhere 9y ago
Oh for sure, all those lawyers would probably instead be lobbyists meeting with officials from the one world government for beneficial policies -- a clearly uncorruptible and very noble situation which would be highly sensitive to my one vote as a global citizen.
strbcksqq 9y ago
Oh for sure, all those lawyers would probably instead be lobbyists meeting with officials from the one world government for beneficial policies -- a clearly uncorruptible and very noble situation which would be highly sensitive to my one vote as a global citizen. Awesome I am Automatic made dead

opportune 9y ago

Heavily disagree. Having nations compete for the lowest taxes allows only the wealthiest (because middle class people, or just generally those receiving a wage, cannot just choose to make their money in a tax haven) to evade taxes while enjoying all the social institutions and political settings from the original country they come from. I'm not advocating capital controls, but it doesn't make sense for us to allow people that by all means actually live and work in the US to set up a business elsewhere to avoid taxes. Because if tax havens were not allowed to exist, they would still set up in the US/UK/whatever, but would actually pay fair amounts of taxes.

charlesdm 9y ago
Avoid, not evade. Big difference. And generally those structures only allow you to defer tax, not avoid all tax. Yes, having $10m sitting in a bank account of some corporate structure is obviously better than not having any money at all, but it's still money that has restrictions attached to it -- can't just go and spend it all. Generally, if you want to bring that back, you will at least have to pay some sort of capital gains or dividend tax on that. Second, pure tax havens (such as Jersey and the Cayman Islands) are one thing. But pretty much every developed nation has special tax incentives that exist in their tax code to attract investment. And it is obvious why they do it. If we use Luxembourg as an example, which is generally a favourable holding and fund location, what can they offer? They are a small country with no natural resources. Smaller nations need to live off of intellectual capacity, meaning: outsmarting others. There are various approaches (Singapore, Channel Islands, Luxembourg) to that, but ultimately, if you want to attract investment and tax revenue, offering an attracting tax system seems like a great way to do it. I don't see the world introducing a globalised 20% corporate tax rate any time soon, for example.
hueving 9y ago
Read the comment up thread about how these are structured. The country that the investor is based in still taxes the money coming out of the fund. The fund operations still pay US taxes on all of the management fees that come from the fund. Putting the fund in the islands just avoids having to deal with all of the work of getting exemptions for the money going to the foreign investors. I suggest that you spend some time actually researching why these things are done before commenting based on a preconceived notion learned from popular media.