7 ms·

Agreed, the only sane solution to this is a massive overhaul of international tax law. Shaming companies just isn't a scalable solution in any way. There's a ma

• jcion 9y ago
  It's tough when the "only sane solution" also happens to be a enormous task to even begin talking about. I agree with you, but I also struggling to imagine a time when that overhaul could take place.
  • m12k 9y ago
    I agree, it's a massive undertaking and getting support for something like that is really, really hard. The way I see it, all of that anti-globalism rage that is currently being directed toward foreigners really ought to be directed toward fixing this, since this would actually help (e.g. have more money for a wellfare system to handle unemployment from outsourcing and automation). But unfortunately it's much easier directing rage toward 'weird people with other skin tones and religion' than something abstract like a broken international tax system.
• rectang 9y ago
  The tax haven countries should be subjected to overwhelming, crushing sanctions. They deserve to be international pariahs.
  • peoplewindow 9y ago
    What is a "tax haven" country? You realise that the USA has states that act as significant tax havens in some situations, do you? Is Ireland a "tax haven" because it has low corp tax rates? The EU certainly thinks so but the Irish disagree.
• Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  That simply won't work if there's even one country (like the known tax haven islands) that don't abide by it. Unless international tax laws start charging taxes for every penny that crosses a border, things like that will keep happening. There's a huge financial incentive for small countries to become tax havens, they take a relatively tiny amount of money, which for them multiplies their GDP.
  • improbable22 9y ago
    But will people travel to this tax haven to buy their computers? Will Apple's employees all move there to write software? Nope. What we mean by Apple operating in (say) Germany is these things: they make sales there, and they have employees there. Where the letterhead says they're incorporated... isn't this just an implementation detail? It's like asking where their datacenter is located. It's in the cloud, who cares? It seems to me that making the tax laws care about this is crazy... why do we this? Why not simply tax the things which cannot move, transactions involving real people who live in particular places?
    • valuearb 9y ago
      apple already pays huge amounts of taxes to germany. It just doesn’t pay large amounts of a specific tax called “income tax” because it isn’t based in Germany.
      • improbable22 9y ago
        But "income tax" is a misleading name for this. It's a tax on corporate profits. The letter wants you to compare this rate to _your_ rate of income tax and be shocked. But this is stupid, the corporation is not a human being. For those profits to be enjoyed by anyone, they have to be paid out again as salary, or dividend, or recovered by selling shares... and these transactions are all taxed. And, of course, all of this money which is now profit was taxed when whoever bought the computer was charged VAT. (Who signs the check to the tax man on each of these transactions is irrelevant, but another common way to mislead people for outrage. The tax man stands between you and Apple and demands VAT... and between Apple and their employee and demands income tax... how this is collected is, again, an implementation detail.)
• Yizahi 9y ago
  But overhaul can't happen like "now". It need some initial impulse, an outrage bigger than average etc. Apple case may help this.
  • tyingq 9y ago
    That's a good point. I'm not dismissing the PR and awareness value of raging about Apple. Just hoping that the fix isn't perceived as "going after apple". Going after existing law, tax havens, etc, is more productive.
    • valuearb 9y ago
      You mean unproductive and counterproductive.
• valuearb 9y ago
  Eliminating corporate income taxes would be the best way to start, given it would benefit society immensely.
  • jamesblonde 9y ago
    How would it benefit society? Reduced state income that could be used to invest in infrastructure and people? Will the companies invest that money with society's interest at best better than the govt would? I don't think so. What do Apple do with their money? They horde it, waiting for a windfall to bring it back to the States and pay low/no corporate tax on the repatriated profits.
    • improbable22 9y ago
      It would benefit society because we could all spend our outrage on things more productive than pushing on a rope. The profits were taxed as VAT or something on the way into Apple. They will be taxed again as income tax or something on their way out again. We are free to adjust these rates as we wish. But trying to tax intermediate steps which seem to be largely accounting fictions (like exactly which puzzle piece of the global empire actually made that profit) seems like a fool's errand.
    • valuearb 9y ago
      You tax things you want less of, not more if. Taxing corporate profits is a tax on investment. Apples actual income tax rate is in excess of 60% if they repatriate. First, they have to pay corporate income taxes in all their foreign countries. Then, they owe 9% to state of California on what’s left. Then they owe 35% to the US treasury on what’s left. Then they pay the remainder as dividends, and shareholders owe up to 10% to their stars, and then 15-20% to the federal government. We could likely generate as much or more in tax revenues by eliminating the corporate income tax and treating individual dividend payments as regular income (taxed at 28-38% normally). This way reinvested profits aren’t taxed, leading to more investment, which leads to more profits and more dividends. And the return on investing for individuals increases, leading to more investment. More investment means more jobs, higher productivity and higher pay. And hundreds of thousands of corporate tax accountants can now actually be switched to work that benefits society.