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> Personally I think the tax authorities ought to take the line that a company posting serial losses like this is clearly not a viable, ongoing concern and ough
by bko 2mo ago
> Personally I think the tax authorities ought to take the line that a company posting serial losses like this is clearly not a viable, ongoing concern and ought to be wound up.
Tax authorities don't need to do this. Investors will. Where will the money come from? If there's no future prospects, it will cease operations.
> If Starbucks UK is a loss-making venture, they should have some explaining to do when they're opening new branches.
I like how discussion of taxes turned everyone into a fierce defender of profit maximization. Nothing about adding back to the community, paying decent wages, etc.
- Nursie 2mo ago> If there's no future prospects, it will cease operations. That's the point, there are plenty of future prospects, but the company is playing accounting games to hide the profits. > I like how discussion of taxes turned everyone into a fierce defender of profit maximization. No, we're just calling bullshit on the whole thing because we're tired of wealthy multinationals dodging taxes in our countries. That's how they should be contributing.
- perpetuallunch 2mo agoThere are counties that have zero percent corporate profits tax. Be like them and the corporations won’t have a need to offshore their profit. The alternative is One World Government, which, in its lesser form, empire, has a nasty habit rapidly turning quite sour.
- Nursie 2mo agoThis has to be one of the most ludicrous, cartoonishly libertarian things I've ever read. No thanks! I'd rather have a functioning society!
- Swenrekcah 2mo ago> I like how discussion of taxes turned everyone into a fierce defender of profit maximization. Nothing about adding back to the community, paying decent wages, etc. You are fundamentally missing the issue. What most of these multinationals do is to extract value from the places they operate but then move all the profit (in the books) to another tax jurisdiction, thereby not contributing to the community where they operate. Furthermore this undercuts local businesses, further impoverishing the area. Global commerce and cooperation unlocks some truly great opportunities but the finance people can really bring ruin if allowed free reign.
- bko 2mo agoWhat value do they extract? They provide a good or service to denizens. Unless of course you believe in a serf model of government in which people are an asset of the state and everything should serve the states goals.
- perpetuallunch 2mo agoThis is increasingly, and worryingly, becoming an ideology people are being swept up by. It doesn’t help that there are Card Carrying Socialist activists in our public school system in Australia, indoctrinating kids in to a politically and economically bent out of shape ideology. I don’t believe many Australians are aware of just how dangerously few steps away from the mouldy bread and rotting fish head soup lines version of “equality” we really are. Since when has government, of any sort, been a reliable arbiter of truth or wisdom? P.J. O’Rourke would be turning in his grave. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. Socialists in Schools: https://www.victoriansocialists.org.au/campaigns/socialists-in-schools https://www.victoriansocialists.org.au/campaigns/socialists-...
- Swenrekcah 2mo agoThe dangerous ideology is that giving money and power to corporations is any better than the government. The government in a free democracy is ultimately controlled by the people, is supposed to (and usually does) work for the people, to protect the environment where that is necessary, protect people from being exploited by too powerful corporations, etc. None of this is socialism, this is in fact the system that made the US great in the years after WW2. Also I am neither Australian nor socialist.
- Swenrekcah 2mo agoI honestly don’t understand how you believe this to be a reasonable response. It does sound like a bad faith argument, an attempt at ad hominem. When an entity operates in an area but optimises the financial structures in such a way as to siphon all the profits out to another area, that is extracting value that used to remain in the area. That service or goods are provided has no bearing on the matter.