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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 int

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.

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.