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If a company doesn't use these tax-avoidance means, it becomes uncompetitive and gets eaten by those, that do. Moreover, there is a wealth of tax optimizing con
by bitL 9y ago
If a company doesn't use these tax-avoidance means, it becomes uncompetitive and gets eaten by those, that do. Moreover, there is a wealth of tax optimizing consultants with great knowledge of holes one gets access to once their revenue reaches $x00,000,000, often sanctioned by governing bodies. So if one makes it to the club, the easy way to stay there is to adopt the same disgusting practices like everybody else and shoot the ladder behind themselves. The rest of the world can live in favelas, nobody at the top really cares. I doubt we can't figure out a proper system to track every single transaction and make sure it's taxed properly, but there is no will or there are always some convoluted backdoors proper consulting companies install through lobbying and make available to "donors".
- detcader 9y agoThat's why we need good journalism... power will always corrupt, making the "Fourth Estate" a necessary implicit branch of a democratic government-and-society
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago>If a company doesn't use these tax-avoidance means, it becomes uncompetitive and gets eaten by those, that do. I don't understand why that would be the case.
- TomMarius 9y agoWell, why do they do it? To save costs. If they have lower costs than you doing the same thing, it will eventually cost you your business.
- fauigerzigerk 9y agoTaxes don't affect competitiveness much. They only affect profitability, because any money they use to compete and any money they never earn because they compete by lowering prices isn't taxed anyway. They only pay taxes on profits. Taxes are not a business expense. There is perhaps an indirect link to competitiveness in that a company can retain profits and use them down the road to take over other companies, which may strengthen their position in the market. Another such indirect link is that profitability affects the company's ability to raise capital. But what I believe is that it's not so much the company itself that cannot afford to pay higher taxes, it's the management team. If a CEO doesn't optimize taxes for the benefit of owners/investors, that CEO could be replaced by someone who does.