9 ms·

I'm not sure what your argument is. Is it (a) that tax avoidance is morally justified, (b) morally justified only in the business context or (c) not of concern,

by bauerd 9y ago

I'm not sure what your argument is. Is it (a) that tax avoidance is morally justified, (b) morally justified only in the business context or (c) not of concern, because the business and the moral are two separate contexts?

fastball 9y ago
I think tax avoidance is morally justified. EDIT: Better phrasing - I think tax avoidance is not a moral problem. Laws are a moral problem, and tax avoidance is not against the law. /EDIT The entity making the tax code (the government) and the entity that collects taxes (the government) are one in the same. If the government wants me, as an individual or business, to pay taxes at a certain rate X, they should write the tax code so that I need to pay taxes at X%. I don't think it's anyone's moral responsibility to pay a certain percentage in taxes. From a moral perspective, people have different ideas about what percentage they should pay. If I'm a small business owner, I might believe that my contribution of providing employment to 50 people is enough, without having any moral obligation to pay taxes on top of that. Or, I could be a hugely wealthy investment banker. I make $1mil a year. But I don't feel morally obligated to pay 30% in taxes because every year I give $300,000 dollars to charity instead. Or this one time I made a $500,000 endowment for the arts. Taxes and morals are too separate to be linked so easily.
- dontreact 9y ago
  If there was only a single government in the world that would be true but really there are many governments making and collecting taxes, and their tax codes interact in unexpected ways. At this point I truly believe that it's not possible for a single government to unilaterally avoid such "optimizations" without some help from large multinational corporations leading the charge to coordinate tax codes across countries. I think letters like this are pressuring Apple, which has already claimed to be more morally inclined, to try to help in that effort.
  - fastball 9y ago
    You're not thinking simply enough. Watch - I'm going to write a tax code: If you are a business and sell a product or service in my country, you need to pay X% in taxes on that sale. If you live in my country, you need to pay Y% in income tax. You get the idea. The issue isn't that making a loophole free tax code is super difficult. The issue is that every country thinks they can capture more mindshare/businesses/what have you if they have loopholes. The hard part isn't writing a tax code. The hard part is convincing all necessary parties in a democracy that it's good for them.
    - dontreact 9y ago
      Ok great now I'm going toe the lines of the definitions of "sell", "product", and "service" to the point where even though in spirit the sales are all happening in your country, technically they aren't so you can't tax me for them. So again your country is fine if it's the only one in the world, but there only needs to be a single country in the world which lets me get away with fewer taxes and then I can avoid paying yours. I agree that the hard part is coordination, but I stand by my belief that we will never see change on this issue unless a major multinational company decides to take it on for PR reasons. Which will only happen if there is pressure from the government, media and consumers.
- tankenmate 9y ago
  And I think that it is morally justified that I should be able to use roads, send my kids to school, and drink water that has been paid for by all those not smart enough or earn billions enough to avoid paying taxes. I think it is morally right that I shouldn't pay my fair share because I and my other well heeled chaps can lobby governments in some small country to pay 25 times less tax than others. I think it is morally right to do whatever I want as long as it is legal (in some country I can influence) regardless of how much it costs others. In short I think it is morally justified to be legally and unconscionably unfair to others. Sir, in short, your moral arguments are non sequitur.
  - fastball 9y ago
    My point is that this isn't about morality. Taxes are not a moral problem. Tax evasion is a moral problem because breaking the law is a moral problem. I don't think forcing people to pay any amount of money (taxes) is moral. Is it good for society? Yes. Is it moral? Who knows? How are you so easily making moral judgements when morality is so subjective? I find the idea of forcing my morality on anyone else repugnant, except in the case where all parties have agreed to the moral code (laws).
    - tankenmate 9y ago
      I'll quote the first sentence from your post, "I think tax avoidance is morally justified." But more broadly, laws are not always moral. If you equate laws with being moral (or equitable which is hopefully a subjunct matter), then personally I think your view of the world is far more black and white than reality. In my view morality (and part of which is equality) should lead to legality not the other way around.
      - fastball 9y ago
        I don't think laws are moral. I think that, in a functioning democracy, laws are dictated by whatever views are currently held to be moral by the largest portion of participants in the democracy. Laws are what the largest proportion of people in a pure democracy have agreed is moral. If you think laws are consistently being put into place that don't reflect the morality of the populace, then you have an issue with your democracy, and that needs to be sorted out first. I personally do not believe in objective morality. I'm not religious and without believing in a prime mover I think that's a very hard claim to make.
adventured 9y ago
A) that paying the taxes required of you by the tax code is a proper, moral action. Does paying more taxes than required by law make you a more moral person or entity? That's a fine debate.
wjnc 9y ago
The second one: Taxes are not moral for a corporation, they are a cost and a compliance concern. A world where even tax seeking corporations do not hold tax offices to the letter of the law and the deals they make is a lot more messy than one where corporations follow a clear line: min(Tax | Law abiding). Governments should fix this. I would call this the Peter Drucker way of looking at this. Morality (let's call it CSR) is a corporate concern. All for that. UN-goals etc. I would mainly point to suppliers, environment, customers as options for corporations to act morally within their functioning as a business. Morality-via-tax argument is second order at best. Who knows if the taxes are justly spend?
- dontreact 9y ago
  I no longer believe that it's possible for a single government to fix this. There is too much money in the game, the tax codes of multiple countries interact in too many complex ways, and I've already lived through multiple such tax loophole games being shut down by governments (most recently the double irish) only for new ones to crop up. I believe we will _never_ see change on this issue unless at least 1 large multinational steps up to the plate to help in spotting/closing loopholes. We need to, as citizens (or maybe as employees if applicable), try to pressure the ever fewer and ever larger corporations to assist in this.
  - Maarten88 9y ago
    What if governments of large countries such as Germany (or the whole EU) would base the corporation tax simply on the total profit, divided by the revenue share of the country? For large public multinational corporations it is very easy to approximate how much they should pay in any country, when you just wouldn't accept the transfer pricing tricks that they use to move the profits around.
    - dontreact 9y ago
      I think one reason this is tricky because it's not easy to define where an online sale is happening.
dbatten 9y ago
I think the argument is stronger than that. It's not that tax avoidance is morally justified, it's that corporations have a fiduciary responsibility as stewards of their shareholders' investment to maximize the return on that investment (within the bounds of what the law allows). That includes reducing costs and, yes, that includes reducing tax burden. Tax avoidance within the bounds of the law is not just morally justified - it's morally required. (For the record, I think tax avoidance is a major problem, especially because large corporations end up being the only ones who can afford the accountants, lawyers, and international subsidiaries to facilitate it. Small business ends up getting shafted. But the way to solve it isn't to whine about Apple doing what Apple is supposed to do. The fix is to reform the tax code.)
- soVeryTired 9y ago
  You can't equate a fiduciary duty with a moral obligation. It is legal for a firm to outsource manufacturing to a sweatshop in a country with lax child labour laws, but I don't think many people would argue that it's moral to do so. The law is not the arbiter of morality. But I do agree that the solution is to fix the tax code. And to implement better international tax treaties.
hashmal 9y ago
The argument is that the focus is on the companies when the problem lies within rule-making. We cannot expect entities to obey rules that aren't there, whether these entities are individuals or companies. The distinction has to be made between what is lawful and what is moral. The law is a system that we all have to comply to (which may or may not be perceived as moral), morals are subjective and built on experience, environment, etc. Laws are often made with current/major moral views in mind. Tax evasion is clearly perceived as not moral, but it's lawful. We cannot expect companies (or individuals) to obey moral rules, since it's kinda unsolvable (morals being subjective). On the other hand, we can expect them to obey law. Again, focusing on companies in this case is pointless and unproductive, no matter how shocking it is. Governments like to criticize tax evasion, but they are the only ones who could do something about it. We have to go after them.

by bauerd 9y ago

fastball 9y ago

I think tax avoidance is morally justified. EDIT: Better phrasing - I think tax avoidance is not a moral problem. Laws are a moral problem, and tax avoidance is not against the law. /EDIT The entity making the tax code (the government) and the entity that collects taxes (the government) are one in the same. If the government wants me, as an individual or business, to pay taxes at a certain rate X, they should write the tax code so that I need to pay taxes at X%. I don't think it's anyone's moral responsibility to pay a certain percentage in taxes. From a moral perspective, people have different ideas about what percentage they should pay. If I'm a small business owner, I might believe that my contribution of providing employment to 50 people is enough, without having any moral obligation to pay taxes on top of that. Or, I could be a hugely wealthy investment banker. I make $1mil a year. But I don't feel morally obligated to pay 30% in taxes because every year I give $300,000 dollars to charity instead. Or this one time I made a $500,000 endowment for the arts. Taxes and morals are too separate to be linked so easily.

dontreact 9y ago
If there was only a single government in the world that would be true but really there are many governments making and collecting taxes, and their tax codes interact in unexpected ways. At this point I truly believe that it's not possible for a single government to unilaterally avoid such "optimizations" without some help from large multinational corporations leading the charge to coordinate tax codes across countries. I think letters like this are pressuring Apple, which has already claimed to be more morally inclined, to try to help in that effort.
- fastball 9y ago
  You're not thinking simply enough. Watch - I'm going to write a tax code: If you are a business and sell a product or service in my country, you need to pay X% in taxes on that sale. If you live in my country, you need to pay Y% in income tax. You get the idea. The issue isn't that making a loophole free tax code is super difficult. The issue is that every country thinks they can capture more mindshare/businesses/what have you if they have loopholes. The hard part isn't writing a tax code. The hard part is convincing all necessary parties in a democracy that it's good for them.
  - dontreact 9y ago
    Ok great now I'm going toe the lines of the definitions of "sell", "product", and "service" to the point where even though in spirit the sales are all happening in your country, technically they aren't so you can't tax me for them. So again your country is fine if it's the only one in the world, but there only needs to be a single country in the world which lets me get away with fewer taxes and then I can avoid paying yours. I agree that the hard part is coordination, but I stand by my belief that we will never see change on this issue unless a major multinational company decides to take it on for PR reasons. Which will only happen if there is pressure from the government, media and consumers.
tankenmate 9y ago
And I think that it is morally justified that I should be able to use roads, send my kids to school, and drink water that has been paid for by all those not smart enough or earn billions enough to avoid paying taxes. I think it is morally right that I shouldn't pay my fair share because I and my other well heeled chaps can lobby governments in some small country to pay 25 times less tax than others. I think it is morally right to do whatever I want as long as it is legal (in some country I can influence) regardless of how much it costs others. In short I think it is morally justified to be legally and unconscionably unfair to others. Sir, in short, your moral arguments are non sequitur.
- fastball 9y ago
  My point is that this isn't about morality. Taxes are not a moral problem. Tax evasion is a moral problem because breaking the law is a moral problem. I don't think forcing people to pay any amount of money (taxes) is moral. Is it good for society? Yes. Is it moral? Who knows? How are you so easily making moral judgements when morality is so subjective? I find the idea of forcing my morality on anyone else repugnant, except in the case where all parties have agreed to the moral code (laws).
  - tankenmate 9y ago
    I'll quote the first sentence from your post, "I think tax avoidance is morally justified." But more broadly, laws are not always moral. If you equate laws with being moral (or equitable which is hopefully a subjunct matter), then personally I think your view of the world is far more black and white than reality. In my view morality (and part of which is equality) should lead to legality not the other way around.
    - fastball 9y ago
      I don't think laws are moral. I think that, in a functioning democracy, laws are dictated by whatever views are currently held to be moral by the largest portion of participants in the democracy. Laws are what the largest proportion of people in a pure democracy have agreed is moral. If you think laws are consistently being put into place that don't reflect the morality of the populace, then you have an issue with your democracy, and that needs to be sorted out first. I personally do not believe in objective morality. I'm not religious and without believing in a prime mover I think that's a very hard claim to make.

adventured 9y ago

A) that paying the taxes required of you by the tax code is a proper, moral action. Does paying more taxes than required by law make you a more moral person or entity? That's a fine debate.

wjnc 9y ago

The second one: Taxes are not moral for a corporation, they are a cost and a compliance concern. A world where even tax seeking corporations do not hold tax offices to the letter of the law and the deals they make is a lot more messy than one where corporations follow a clear line: min(Tax | Law abiding). Governments should fix this. I would call this the Peter Drucker way of looking at this. Morality (let's call it CSR) is a corporate concern. All for that. UN-goals etc. I would mainly point to suppliers, environment, customers as options for corporations to act morally within their functioning as a business. Morality-via-tax argument is second order at best. Who knows if the taxes are justly spend?

dontreact 9y ago
I no longer believe that it's possible for a single government to fix this. There is too much money in the game, the tax codes of multiple countries interact in too many complex ways, and I've already lived through multiple such tax loophole games being shut down by governments (most recently the double irish) only for new ones to crop up. I believe we will _never_ see change on this issue unless at least 1 large multinational steps up to the plate to help in spotting/closing loopholes. We need to, as citizens (or maybe as employees if applicable), try to pressure the ever fewer and ever larger corporations to assist in this.
- Maarten88 9y ago
  What if governments of large countries such as Germany (or the whole EU) would base the corporation tax simply on the total profit, divided by the revenue share of the country? For large public multinational corporations it is very easy to approximate how much they should pay in any country, when you just wouldn't accept the transfer pricing tricks that they use to move the profits around.
  - dontreact 9y ago
    I think one reason this is tricky because it's not easy to define where an online sale is happening.

dbatten 9y ago

I think the argument is stronger than that. It's not that tax avoidance is morally justified, it's that corporations have a fiduciary responsibility as stewards of their shareholders' investment to maximize the return on that investment (within the bounds of what the law allows). That includes reducing costs and, yes, that includes reducing tax burden. Tax avoidance within the bounds of the law is not just morally justified - it's morally required. (For the record, I think tax avoidance is a major problem, especially because large corporations end up being the only ones who can afford the accountants, lawyers, and international subsidiaries to facilitate it. Small business ends up getting shafted. But the way to solve it isn't to whine about Apple doing what Apple is supposed to do. The fix is to reform the tax code.)

soVeryTired 9y ago
You can't equate a fiduciary duty with a moral obligation. It is legal for a firm to outsource manufacturing to a sweatshop in a country with lax child labour laws, but I don't think many people would argue that it's moral to do so. The law is not the arbiter of morality. But I do agree that the solution is to fix the tax code. And to implement better international tax treaties.

hashmal 9y ago

The argument is that the focus is on the companies when the problem lies within rule-making. We cannot expect entities to obey rules that aren't there, whether these entities are individuals or companies. The distinction has to be made between what is lawful and what is moral. The law is a system that we all have to comply to (which may or may not be perceived as moral), morals are subjective and built on experience, environment, etc. Laws are often made with current/major moral views in mind. Tax evasion is clearly perceived as not moral, but it's lawful. We cannot expect companies (or individuals) to obey moral rules, since it's kinda unsolvable (morals being subjective). On the other hand, we can expect them to obey law. Again, focusing on companies in this case is pointless and unproductive, no matter how shocking it is. Governments like to criticize tax evasion, but they are the only ones who could do something about it. We have to go after them.