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The US government wrote the Section 482 tax regulations. Corporations followed the regulations the government wrote. The government provided tons of examples

The US government wrote the Section 482 tax regulations. Corporations followed the regulations the government wrote. The government provided tons of examples on how taxpayers could follow their rules in the tax guidelines. I've spend hundreds of hours of my life reading the section 482 regs. Multinational companies need to comply with these. Never really understood the vilification of companies that are following the rules.

notacoward 6y ago
> Never really understood the vilification of companies that are following the rules. Your statement is based on a false axiom. Much of the ire is at companies not following the rules. It's just really really hard to untangle all of the shells and subsidiaries and internal transfers of a modern medium-or-larger corporation, so even when they do get caught they end up paying pennies on the dollar of what they owe. Or nothing. Did you hear the news this week about a certain Mr. Trump, who paid zero taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars of forgiven loans (i.e. gifts)? But hey, let's pretend for the sake of argument everyone does play by the rules. Does that make everything OK? Of course not. Those rules are a sociopolitical construct, and do you know who has an outsize influence on what those rules are? Why, the very same corporate "persons" they apply to! From lobbying to regulatory capture to the "revolving door" to outright graft, corporations use their assets to secure laws more favorable to them than any of us mere humans could get. And they make a great return on that investment. Several hundred percent minimum IIRC. Most of it's legal (true graft is only a tiny fraction of it) but that doesn't make it OK.