5 ms·

A great deal for Ireland, a terrible deal for Europe. Ultimately I think there will need to be some kind of international agreements on taxation to prevent the

• albntomat0 6y ago
  It’ll have to be a highly concentrated effort, as (to my understanding) taxation policy is pretty much prisoners dilemma. One state has incentive to have slightly lower taxes than all the others to get companies to incorporate there, and then it’s a race to bottom.
  • 8note 6y ago
    That assumes countries have to accept that the licensing fees are tax deductible. Putting some tariffs on licensing intellectual property seems like a non-prisoners dillema solution
    • MrPowers 6y ago
      Not sure I follow. If US Multinational charges license to Italian Subsidiary, then the pricing impacts the profit allocation between the two entities. The IRS will say "the license should be really high" so the profits in the US are higher. The Italian tax authorities will say "the license should be low" so they get more tax revenue. For a complicated technology that's licensed, remember that neither taxing authority has any clue as to what it's actually worth. They don't care. They just want tax revenue. Remember to think about both taxing authorities when analyzing these transactions and imagine the ridiculous situations multinationals are put in.
  • loufe 6y ago
    This is exactly the goal of the global minimum tax rate the US is pushing for right now.
  • insert_coin 6y ago
    And yet it hasn't been that. Plenty of countries with 0 corporate tax, Why aren't all the companies incorporated there? Plenty of places with 0 income tax too, why isn't everyone moving there? The truth is balanced and properly planed taxes with a stable economy are only a minor part of doing business.
• lizardmancan 6y ago
  The most stupid part is that if they exist the company must use them.
• ralusek 6y ago
  And the worst deal for America. Just pay your fucking taxes you wankers.
  • djohnston 6y ago
    No no, they'll just have Sundar masturbate about building social value out of technology at the next Google I/O conference.
• MrPowers 6y ago
  There are international agreements on taxation. Tax authorities can also work with taxpayers and agree on the transfer price for goods and services in advance. Tax loopholes typically refer to ambiguous rules. In this case, the IRS was excruciatingly detailed on how to price related party intellectual property transfers. I always laugh about how congress / citizens get angry at when taxpayers follow their laws. Yes, I agree the laws are ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than the standard deduction the mortgage interest deduction and a myriad of other arbitrary tax laws.
• tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  It would be easier to abolish corporation tax and shift to taxing capital gains and dividends as normal income.
  • goodpoint 6y ago
    There's a reason for having many different taxes: it makes it more difficult to dodge them all and also reduces the payout of dodging any given one.
    • tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      It doesn’t seem to be making it difficult to dodge this one.
      • goodpoint 6y ago
        You are missing the point.
        • tonyedgecombe 6y ago
          No, I got the point, I just didn't think it was a good one.
• goodpoint 6y ago
  > They'll just find the next loophole now that this is closed. No, a "loophole" that stays is place for years and allows enormous tax evasion is not a glitch. A legitimate "bug" in a legal system can be fixed in weeks. Legislators work together with lobbyists to create these loopholes when needed. These are not glitches, they are the legal equivalent of backdoors. No, companies will not simply "just find another one". There's a clear political intention behind creating new loopholes or not doing so.
  • eloff 6y ago
    You may be right, but I'm inclined, especially with government, to not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.