4 ms·

For me, this says everything: > The structures helped the company [Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)] reach an effective corporate tax rate of 4.7 per cent, far below

by Loic 2y ago

For me, this says everything: > The structures helped the company [Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)] reach an effective corporate tax rate of 4.7 per cent, far below the US statutory rate of 21 per cent.

koolba 2y ago
The real answer to all of this is scrap the corporate tax rate entirely. It’s only 6% of the total revenue the government takes in anyway. The main payers are not these large corporations, it’s the little guy who can’t retain earnings year over year without paying that statutory rate. The little guy doesn’t have offshore entities and transfer pricing. And these little guys are 75% of corporate tax receipts! Scrap the whole thing and this shell game disappears.
- castrodd 2y ago
  Your solution to corporations using tax havens is to eliminate all corporate taxes? How does that help? They only pay 6% now, you are saying, so let's have them pay 0%?
  - willcipriano 2y ago
    Tax the shareholders instead. At a minimum tax capital gains at the same rate as labor. Ideally, don't tax labor at all either, they are taxed plenty by inflation.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    i generally think we should tax people, not corporate entities. if we want to extract money from corporations, probably should just tax capital gains directly.
    - eastbound 2y ago
      Tax what you want to eliminate. Don’t tax labour. Tax pollution. Of course policy changes tend to remain half done, like Davos’ motto, and we’re left with two taxes.
    - tikkabhuna 2y ago
      So I can park money in a corporate entity and then use it to buy everything for me? This seems like an amazing loophole. Never extract your cash from a company and you never pay tax!
      - koolba 2y ago
        Spending corporate money on non corporate expenses would be fraud. You can’t do that regardless of the tax rate. What this does allow for is carrying over profits from year to year for small businesses that operate on a cash accounting basis. Which in turn allows multi year planning without taking a 22% hit. Never extracting the profits would lock them away in the corporation with no means of spending them. It’s definitely a possibility, but it’s not really an issue for public corporations because the shareholders wouldn’t want a company just sitting on cash.
        delusional 2y ago
        > but it’s not really an issue for public corporations because the shareholders wouldn’t want a company just sitting on What if my company just held on to the cash but every share had some ownership of that cash. Sure, it probably wouldn't trade at par, but it would also be silly for it to trade at the payout rate considering it's non taxable. Could the paper backed by my corporation become a new currency?
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        sure, but if you sold any of that paper you would have to pay taxes on it.
        yread 2y ago
        > Spending corporate money on non corporate expenses would be fraud Where does it say that? And what are non-corporate expenses anyway? Keeping the founder happy surely is a corporate expense otherwise this guy would rot in prison https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/01/canoo-spent-double-its-annual-revenue-on-the-ceos-private-jet-in-2023/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/01/canoo-spent-double-its-ann...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    No, don’t you see, removing those burdensome taxes will spur corporate investment and grow the economy. You may Laff, but I can draw a curve that shows eliminating corporate taxes is the right thing to do. Just don’t ask Kansas.

by Loic 2y ago

For me, this says everything: > The structures helped the company [Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)] reach an effective corporate tax rate of 4.7 per cent, far below the US statutory rate of 21 per cent.

koolba 2y ago

The real answer to all of this is scrap the corporate tax rate entirely. It’s only 6% of the total revenue the government takes in anyway. The main payers are not these large corporations, it’s the little guy who can’t retain earnings year over year without paying that statutory rate. The little guy doesn’t have offshore entities and transfer pricing. And these little guys are 75% of corporate tax receipts! Scrap the whole thing and this shell game disappears.

castrodd 2y ago
Your solution to corporations using tax havens is to eliminate all corporate taxes? How does that help? They only pay 6% now, you are saying, so let's have them pay 0%?
- willcipriano 2y ago
  Tax the shareholders instead. At a minimum tax capital gains at the same rate as labor. Ideally, don't tax labor at all either, they are taxed plenty by inflation.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  i generally think we should tax people, not corporate entities. if we want to extract money from corporations, probably should just tax capital gains directly.
  - eastbound 2y ago
    Tax what you want to eliminate. Don’t tax labour. Tax pollution. Of course policy changes tend to remain half done, like Davos’ motto, and we’re left with two taxes.
  - tikkabhuna 2y ago
    So I can park money in a corporate entity and then use it to buy everything for me? This seems like an amazing loophole. Never extract your cash from a company and you never pay tax!
    - koolba 2y ago
      Spending corporate money on non corporate expenses would be fraud. You can’t do that regardless of the tax rate. What this does allow for is carrying over profits from year to year for small businesses that operate on a cash accounting basis. Which in turn allows multi year planning without taking a 22% hit. Never extracting the profits would lock them away in the corporation with no means of spending them. It’s definitely a possibility, but it’s not really an issue for public corporations because the shareholders wouldn’t want a company just sitting on cash.
      - delusional 2y ago
        > but it’s not really an issue for public corporations because the shareholders wouldn’t want a company just sitting on What if my company just held on to the cash but every share had some ownership of that cash. Sure, it probably wouldn't trade at par, but it would also be silly for it to trade at the payout rate considering it's non taxable. Could the paper backed by my corporation become a new currency?
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        sure, but if you sold any of that paper you would have to pay taxes on it.
      - yread 2y ago
        > Spending corporate money on non corporate expenses would be fraud Where does it say that? And what are non-corporate expenses anyway? Keeping the founder happy surely is a corporate expense otherwise this guy would rot in prison https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/01/canoo-spent-double-its-annual-revenue-on-the-ceos-private-jet-in-2023/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/01/canoo-spent-double-its-ann...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  No, don’t you see, removing those burdensome taxes will spur corporate investment and grow the economy. You may Laff, but I can draw a curve that shows eliminating corporate taxes is the right thing to do. Just don’t ask Kansas.