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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

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.
  - dontreact 9y ago
    Another reason would be that it could be argued that this unfair if they are selling products with very different margins in different countries.
    - Maarten88 9y ago
      That is what they argue now, they argue their margin in EU is almost zero. But because they transfer costs internally in any way they like (abusing the IP laws that they need to do business in the first place), they can make the profit appear in any country they want. If countries want to stop missing out on these taxes, I think they should just stop accepting the whole argument. If companies really accept lower margins in some country, they can also afford to pay a bit more taxes.
      - dontreact 9y ago
        Does this work for non-tech companies or other companies who really do have different margins in different countries? How do you decide who to enforce it for?
  - Maarten88 9y ago
    That is a solved problem. Online sales also pay VAT somewhere already.

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.
- dontreact 9y ago
  Another reason would be that it could be argued that this unfair if they are selling products with very different margins in different countries.
  - Maarten88 9y ago
    That is what they argue now, they argue their margin in EU is almost zero. But because they transfer costs internally in any way they like (abusing the IP laws that they need to do business in the first place), they can make the profit appear in any country they want. If countries want to stop missing out on these taxes, I think they should just stop accepting the whole argument. If companies really accept lower margins in some country, they can also afford to pay a bit more taxes.
    - dontreact 9y ago
      Does this work for non-tech companies or other companies who really do have different margins in different countries? How do you decide who to enforce it for?
- Maarten88 9y ago
  That is a solved problem. Online sales also pay VAT somewhere already.