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The US administration is presenting the new tax as if it was specifically targeted to US companies because of their origin. Like a tariff. It is not the case
by ElKrist 7y ago
The US administration is presenting the new tax as if it was specifically targeted to US companies because of their origin. Like a tariff.
It is not the case at all. Yes the biggest tech giants that do not pay enough tax are mostly from the US (also other companies from other countries are affected too)
But it is not because they are from the US that this new tax is created. It is simply because they don't pay enough tax
- fiter 7y agoI suppose it's just like how the tax law changes in the US were not designed to hurt high-tax liberal states more than low-tax conservative states, but that the high-tax liberal states were just taking advantage of the standard deduction. Unfortunately in these cases, perception is just as important as the nominal reason.
- liberte82 7y agoThe US is big into tariffs these days, why do they complain when the same treatment is applied in return?
- harry8 7y agoThe US loves a cheat. Home town legal decisions are the norm. Gerrymandered electorates are the majority. The american exceptionalism of we can but you can't is openly embraced by all in politics and the media. Regulatory capture is the norm. Revolving door Washington lobbyists is not even a story anymore. Cheating is an absolute way of life nowadays. Which is really, really strange because it seems to me that most Americans really don't like cheats and cheating. Brady.
- colechristensen 7y agoAn easy rebuff to the US is simple: if they are American companies, why aren't they paying American taxes on their European business activities?
- pkaye 7y agoMaybe because of Ireland?
- manfredo 7y agoThey are. The US taxes companies on profits made abroad. The issue is that these taxes are only collected when the money enters th US, so companies park this money abroad.
- calcifer 7y ago> They are. The rest of your comment refutes this. They might pay it sometime in the future, but they are not paying it by parking it abroad.
- manfredo 7y agoThey can't spend it when it's parked abroad either. It's less that they're not paying taxes, just that they aren't paying taxes on it yet. By comparison, most European countries don't tax companies on foreign earnings at all.
- colechristensen 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_tax_holiday https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_tax_holiday Or they wait for good deals to come up to bring the funds back home at a fraction of the cost. Meanwhile it's easy to get domestic loans based on foreign assets which gives them easy access to spend that same money locally. Put it in safe low yield securities on the other side, take out low interest loans here and profit on the tax money which should have been paid at the expense of small competitors who don't have the scale for tax scams or the lobbyists to legalize them.
- TearsInTheRain 7y agoHow much tax is enough tax?
- rasz 7y agomore than 4 milion on $11.3bn of revenue https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/02/amazon-halved-uk-corporation-tax-bill-to-45m-last-year https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/02/amazon-ha...
- justchilly 7y agoStock based comp expense. If Amazon paid these employees cash instead of stock, Amazon's cash profits would have been lower. Instead they pay in stock, and employees pay the tax (which they're happy to do because the stock keeps going up). Furthermore if Amazon sold that stock in the public markets to fund those cash payments to employees, it wouldn't be revenue at all, and still not taxable. From the article: "On average the thousands of staff who handle orders received about £3,000 per person last year. Senior staff will have taken home considerably more. Amazon’s share price has surged 84% in the last two years. Last year the shares vested at an average stock price of $992, in 2016 it was $704 and in 2015 $467. The payouts will have reduced Amazon’s tax bill because under UK tax law companies are required to deduct the vest value of the shares provided to employees."
- umeshunni 7y agoTaxes are not paid on revenue. They pay sales tax on these goods sold in any case.