4 ms·

I think the tech companies will keep their headquarters in Ireland even after this - Ireland is still not going to raise it's corporate tax rate above 15%, ther

I think the tech companies will keep their headquarters in Ireland even after this - Ireland is still not going to raise it's corporate tax rate above 15%, there's inertia, and Ireland is now the only native English-speaking country in the EU (except maybe for Malta).

crishoj 5y ago
The greater impact of the agreement as I understand it will come from the requirement for companies to pay taxes in the countries where they do business, and not just in the country of registration.
- ensignavenger 5y ago
  Whenever some one visits Hacker News, where is Ycombinator "doing business" from? The country where the visitor is located? The country where the Hacker News moderators/programmers are located? The country where Ycombinator is headquartered? The location of the Hacker News servers? The location of the advertisers on HackerNews? If each country makes up their own tax rules to determine where Ycombinator is doing business, then a company may have to pay 200% of their total revenue in taxes to cover all the different locations that could claim business was being conducted there.
  - aspenmayer 5y ago
    I would be surprised if double taxation was not addressed or considered.
  - tweedledee 5y ago
    I think there is a single entity that determines allocation. Details TBD. It’s a one liner in the following doc; https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-on-a-two-pillar-solution-to-address-the-tax-challenges-arising-from-the-digitalisation-of-the-economy-october-2021.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-on-a-two-pillar-solu...
    - ensignavenger 5y ago
      I just now read that... a lot of details to be worked out, and lot of opportunity for this to fail long before implementation.
      - tweedledee 5y ago
        It’s a back door federalization. Members will have to conform to additional TBD rules or put their tax allocation at risk.
asdff 5y ago
Is the language barrier really an issue when you have nations like Germany where half the population speaks english? When you consider knowledge worker germans I wouldn't be surprised if this jumps up to U.S. proportions where 78% of the population speaks english.
tommiegannert 5y ago
> I think the tech companies will keep their headquarters in Ireland even after this I agree they probably won't leave. Ireland is cheap for labour as well. (It has/had one of Google's lowest salary levels, for instance.) However, it will make new companies question moving there. I was in Ireland when Brexit was becoming a reality. My guess was that Fintechs would flee London into Dublin, but it looked like many went to Amsterdam. English is fairly widespread in continental Europe now. Even Switzerland (which already has four national/federation languages, depending on region) is slowly moving towards English as second language.

crishoj 5y ago

The greater impact of the agreement as I understand it will come from the requirement for companies to pay taxes in the countries where they do business, and not just in the country of registration.

ensignavenger 5y ago
Whenever some one visits Hacker News, where is Ycombinator "doing business" from? The country where the visitor is located? The country where the Hacker News moderators/programmers are located? The country where Ycombinator is headquartered? The location of the Hacker News servers? The location of the advertisers on HackerNews? If each country makes up their own tax rules to determine where Ycombinator is doing business, then a company may have to pay 200% of their total revenue in taxes to cover all the different locations that could claim business was being conducted there.
- aspenmayer 5y ago
  I would be surprised if double taxation was not addressed or considered.
- tweedledee 5y ago
  I think there is a single entity that determines allocation. Details TBD. It’s a one liner in the following doc; https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-on-a-two-pillar-solution-to-address-the-tax-challenges-arising-from-the-digitalisation-of-the-economy-october-2021.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-on-a-two-pillar-solu...
  - ensignavenger 5y ago
    I just now read that... a lot of details to be worked out, and lot of opportunity for this to fail long before implementation.
    - tweedledee 5y ago
      It’s a back door federalization. Members will have to conform to additional TBD rules or put their tax allocation at risk.

asdff 5y ago

Is the language barrier really an issue when you have nations like Germany where half the population speaks english? When you consider knowledge worker germans I wouldn't be surprised if this jumps up to U.S. proportions where 78% of the population speaks english.

tommiegannert 5y ago

> I think the tech companies will keep their headquarters in Ireland even after this I agree they probably won't leave. Ireland is cheap for labour as well. (It has/had one of Google's lowest salary levels, for instance.) However, it will make new companies question moving there. I was in Ireland when Brexit was becoming a reality. My guess was that Fintechs would flee London into Dublin, but it looked like many went to Amsterdam. English is fairly widespread in continental Europe now. Even Switzerland (which already has four national/federation languages, depending on region) is slowly moving towards English as second language.