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Ireland is about to discover how unattractive it is as a locale for multinational HQs when the playing field is somewhat more level. And I'm in favor of the mov
by m0zg 5y ago
Ireland is about to discover how unattractive it is as a locale for multinational HQs when the playing field is somewhat more level. And I'm in favor of the move as a middle class US taxpayer and a small business owner who pays through the nose, but this is a quite obvious self-own in the long run for them, much for the same reason why introducing a wealth tax was a self-own for France. Big Money is mobile, sophisticated, and quick on its feet.
- munk-a 5y agoSure - but it's the process of making the world a better place. The more these tax havens get shut down the fewer (and riskier) places that corporations have to shelter their revenue.
- lettergram 5y agoYeah because governments use those funds so effectively. It’s why when I look around the U.S. at the trillions we spent over the last two decades and I see... well looks pretty much the same as the 90s honestly
- munk-a 5y agoSorry, because governments spend money inefficiently we should just allow rampant corruption? That's an insanely fatalist view to take.
- m0zg 5y agoGovernment is the primary enabler of corruption in the first place. Don't know how it is in Ireland, but in the United States I can't really see it serving any other function at the moment. It abdicated all its responsibilities entirely, and for the past several decades it's been working only for its donors, not constituents. I would be surprised if Ireland is any better.
- Maarten88 5y agoThat is projection. I think if you look around in the world you could see many countries where government works quite well, with little corruption, maybe a bit slow, yet offering services that are better and more efficient than businesses could. In the US people have been led to believe this is simply impossible. Government may be the enabler of corruption but there is no alternative other than to fix it. Libertarians may believe you can mostly do without a government, but they are mistaken.
- m0zg 5y agoDoes it? Or does it work that way only in the Nordics where you seem to be from, judging by your handle?
- ulzeraj 5y agoBy funneling more money to bloody murderer US gov and friends you are enabling rampart corruption.
- seoaeu 5y agoBy what metric? The crime rate is down and the stock market is up. Not to mention that given the scale of the country, just continuing the same level of government services costs trillions
- cpursley 5y agoThe murder rate has skyrocketed in the past two years in the US. As have other crimes.
- seoaeu 5y agoThat's not the full picture. Population adjusted, violent crime is at nearly the lowest level it has been at it decades. Murder has spiked, but is still way below the peak of the early 90s [0] [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/57581270 https://www.bbc.com/news/57581270
- m0zg 5y agoYes, but it'll make Dublin a worse place. That's something local governments should keep in mind. Also, the top corporations OWN the governments worldwide at this point. The suggestion that any of this will significantly affect them is naive at best.
- munk-a 5y agoI don't disagree - I can't imagine Ireland signed onto this without getting a serious benefit from it... and I think that ideally we should be looking at solutions that don't require any individual country to be altruistic - but still, I'm happy the change has happened.
- Macha 5y agoI think it's literally a case of it was getting done with or without the Irish government, so they took the "all members will have a minumum of at least 15%" to "all members will have a minimum of 15%" change so they had something to present as a win and to avoid a later discussion raising the minimum further.
- throw123123123 5y agoA non-elected set of administrators advocating for taxes make the world a better place? Which world are we talking about?
- Jotra7 5y agoAnd big money can stop moving if countries stop giving them tax breaks.
- seoaeu 5y agoI suspect that there was some amount of "persuasion" by other countries that weren't happy about Ireland's status as a tax haven. Factoring that in, joining the agreement may have been a wise move for them
- lettergram 5y agoI just saw 100 new $740m shell companies lol
- munk-a 5y agoAssuming Irish tax collections aren't idiots either one of those companies owns all the shell companies - or those "independent" companies will be cooperating in a very anti-trust vulnerable manner.
- sgjohnson 5y agoIt doesn’t matter if they are idiots or not. The only thing that matters is whether they care. Probably not, which means that the game of tax competition just became less transparent. Sure, the headline rate may now be 15%, but so what if the tax collectors don’t care? Besides it’d probably still be significantly cheaper for companies to pay the fine for any “alleged wrongdoing” than to pay the headline tax rate.
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- bserge 5y agoFrance has way bigger problems than the wealth tax.
- m0zg 5y agoAnd it's exacerbating those problems by driving out its taxable rich people (who both in the US and in France pay the vast majority of taxes already) while not actually collecting all that much money. I'm not ultra rich, but you can't imagine how quickly I'll leave the state I live in if it imposes a wealth tax of any kind. And I spend quite a bit of money here, all of which is already taxed _at least_ three times: business taxes, personal income / social security taxes (of which I pay not half, but the entire amount), and sales taxes. Taxing me 4th time? They can fuck right off with that shit.
- oaiey 5y agoThey are still native English speakers, more compatible with the anglo-american law and have a two hour shorter flight time to New York. That is still solid when it comes to advantages.