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> You seem to be suggesting that a business would be doing something unreasonable by moving any of its operations into a jurisdiction with lower taxes [...] Mo

by skore 13y ago

> You seem to be suggesting that a business would be doing something unreasonable by moving any of its operations into a jurisdiction with lower taxes [...] Moving to or setting up a subsidiary in a different jurisdiction: Completely fine. Doing the same thing for the sole purpose of avoiding taxes: Not fine. I really don't get what's so hard to understand about that. How many employees do Google or Apple have in Ireland, the Cayman Islands or the Netherlands? And how many in the US? Quite simple, I think.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
>Moving to or setting up a subsidiary in a different jurisdiction: Completely fine. >Doing the same thing for the sole purpose of avoiding taxes: Not fine. And how exactly do you propose to distinguish the two? "Number of employees" is a completely worthless metric. Apple (and/or Foxconn) employs many times more employees in China than in the U.S., does that mean they should be reporting most of their profits in China?
- skore 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure that Foxconn and Apple are separate corporations, so I have no idea what you're getting at. Apple has 73k employees, 50k of which are in the US. Pretty sure most of them have benefited from US society (education, roads, police stations etc.) or benefit from it now that they have moved to the US.
  - pvnick 13y ago
    You're overcomplicating the issue. It's not the accountant's job to make up for lazy lawmaking. It's the lawmakers. Go bug the lawmakers, not the people trying to make money within the law. Would you seriously have done differently in Google's shoes if it meant the difference between millions of dollars? Billions of dollars? Your answer to that question is probably why you're not making those kinds of decisions.
    - skore 13y ago
      Well, I suppose I can only quote Larry Page on this: --- --- --- --- He also noted that he has also been sad with how the industry has been unable to advance the Web as quickly as it could have because of a focus on negativity and zero sum gains. He also noted other companies like Oracle and his difficulty in working with them, “Money is more important to them than collaboration.” --- --- --- --- As for your feeble attempt at diverting on the law issue: Look, Apple has more cash reserves than the US government. To act as though all that is needed is lawmakers "finally doing their job right" is ludicrous. The reason why I cannot go bug the lawmakers is because they have dozens of lobbyist per capita throwing money into their faces all day long. At the end of the day, I believe in human progress. Human progress happens when we are fair and kind to one another. Apple doesn't need all of that money, just as Google doesn't need all of theirs. Asking them to give a tiny bit more back to the society that they are a powerful member of so that everybody is better of is far from being as silly as you try to paint it.
      - cardine 13y ago
        Who cares what Apple needs? Consumers voluntarily gave Apple that money and they should have the right to do whatever they want with it and not have to worry about the government arbitrarily stealing it from them in the name of fairness.
  - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
    >I'm pretty sure that Foxconn and Apple are separate corporations, so I have no idea what you're getting at. Apple US is a separate corporation from Apple China too, that's how all of this works. Apple Ireland ends up with all the profits and is a distinct corporate entity from Apple US. You keep talking about use of government services or where employees are. Those things are not corporate profit. If you want to tax companies that employ your workforce then you can tax payroll. If you want to tax companies that use local government services then you can tax commercial real estate. What you can't do is try to tax corporate profit at one of the highest nominal rates in the world and then be surprised when international corporations arrange to stop reporting any profits within your jurisdiction. Profit is a highly mobile asset. It's like trying to levy a local property tax on gold bullion -- the people who own large amounts of bullion are just going to move it out of your tax jurisdiction. If you then say "but they still live here and use government services" they're just going to shrug and look at you like you're a crazy person for expecting anything different to have happened, because you're trying to tax the wrong thing.
    - skore 13y ago
      Sheesh. Foxconn wasn't build as a subsidiary of Apple. Not sure what you're getting at with that. Yes, I understand the technicalities, but if it didn't happen that way and the intent of how it happens is the way it is, arguing the permutations is a strawman. > You keep talking about use of government services or where employees are. Those things are not corporate profit. Yes and no. Those government services are not corporate profit, sure. But they are what makes the Apple corporation possible in the first place. Apple wasn't founded in Ireland, the Netherlands and certainly not on the Cayman Islands. The "thank you" payment for that is called taxes. > they're just going to shrug and look at you like you're a crazy person for expecting anything different to have happened Yup, that's what I would call destructive attitude. A society works because a sufficient number of people think it's a good idea to make it work. Large corporations are simply lucky to get away with behaving differently, for profit. If a majority of people were behaving like that - cutting around the system at every chance they get while obscuring their tracks with money, for their own benefit - you end up with no society at all very quickly. Put differently: large corporations should count themselves lucky that there are enough reasonable people (the lower and middle class suckers who are constantly being degraded to a purer form of worker drone consumers) to offset the damage that they do. All laws have to assume to a varying extent that people are interested in the society they live in. Because if they aren't, no law whatsoever is going to make them a good member of society. Kind of like how the DSM-IV has no definition of psychopathy because it describes the absence of a mind capable of having a disorder in the first place. The way those large corporations behave is truly antisocial behavior, lacking regard for the deeper and finer points of how society works. > because you're trying to tax the wrong thing Funny, because to me it seems that no matter what you tax, people who don't want to pay taxes will either seek and find or invest and create a way around that. This isn't a law problem, it's a culture problem. But I suppose you're right, no sense in arguing culture and civil responsibility with people who lack both.

by skore 13y ago

AnthonyMouse 13y ago

>Moving to or setting up a subsidiary in a different jurisdiction: Completely fine. >Doing the same thing for the sole purpose of avoiding taxes: Not fine. And how exactly do you propose to distinguish the two? "Number of employees" is a completely worthless metric. Apple (and/or Foxconn) employs many times more employees in China than in the U.S., does that mean they should be reporting most of their profits in China?

skore 13y ago
I'm pretty sure that Foxconn and Apple are separate corporations, so I have no idea what you're getting at. Apple has 73k employees, 50k of which are in the US. Pretty sure most of them have benefited from US society (education, roads, police stations etc.) or benefit from it now that they have moved to the US.
- pvnick 13y ago
  You're overcomplicating the issue. It's not the accountant's job to make up for lazy lawmaking. It's the lawmakers. Go bug the lawmakers, not the people trying to make money within the law. Would you seriously have done differently in Google's shoes if it meant the difference between millions of dollars? Billions of dollars? Your answer to that question is probably why you're not making those kinds of decisions.
  - skore 13y ago
    Well, I suppose I can only quote Larry Page on this: --- --- --- --- He also noted that he has also been sad with how the industry has been unable to advance the Web as quickly as it could have because of a focus on negativity and zero sum gains. He also noted other companies like Oracle and his difficulty in working with them, “Money is more important to them than collaboration.” --- --- --- --- As for your feeble attempt at diverting on the law issue: Look, Apple has more cash reserves than the US government. To act as though all that is needed is lawmakers "finally doing their job right" is ludicrous. The reason why I cannot go bug the lawmakers is because they have dozens of lobbyist per capita throwing money into their faces all day long. At the end of the day, I believe in human progress. Human progress happens when we are fair and kind to one another. Apple doesn't need all of that money, just as Google doesn't need all of theirs. Asking them to give a tiny bit more back to the society that they are a powerful member of so that everybody is better of is far from being as silly as you try to paint it.
    - cardine 13y ago
      Who cares what Apple needs? Consumers voluntarily gave Apple that money and they should have the right to do whatever they want with it and not have to worry about the government arbitrarily stealing it from them in the name of fairness.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  >I'm pretty sure that Foxconn and Apple are separate corporations, so I have no idea what you're getting at. Apple US is a separate corporation from Apple China too, that's how all of this works. Apple Ireland ends up with all the profits and is a distinct corporate entity from Apple US. You keep talking about use of government services or where employees are. Those things are not corporate profit. If you want to tax companies that employ your workforce then you can tax payroll. If you want to tax companies that use local government services then you can tax commercial real estate. What you can't do is try to tax corporate profit at one of the highest nominal rates in the world and then be surprised when international corporations arrange to stop reporting any profits within your jurisdiction. Profit is a highly mobile asset. It's like trying to levy a local property tax on gold bullion -- the people who own large amounts of bullion are just going to move it out of your tax jurisdiction. If you then say "but they still live here and use government services" they're just going to shrug and look at you like you're a crazy person for expecting anything different to have happened, because you're trying to tax the wrong thing.
  - skore 13y ago
    Sheesh. Foxconn wasn't build as a subsidiary of Apple. Not sure what you're getting at with that. Yes, I understand the technicalities, but if it didn't happen that way and the intent of how it happens is the way it is, arguing the permutations is a strawman. > You keep talking about use of government services or where employees are. Those things are not corporate profit. Yes and no. Those government services are not corporate profit, sure. But they are what makes the Apple corporation possible in the first place. Apple wasn't founded in Ireland, the Netherlands and certainly not on the Cayman Islands. The "thank you" payment for that is called taxes. > they're just going to shrug and look at you like you're a crazy person for expecting anything different to have happened Yup, that's what I would call destructive attitude. A society works because a sufficient number of people think it's a good idea to make it work. Large corporations are simply lucky to get away with behaving differently, for profit. If a majority of people were behaving like that - cutting around the system at every chance they get while obscuring their tracks with money, for their own benefit - you end up with no society at all very quickly. Put differently: large corporations should count themselves lucky that there are enough reasonable people (the lower and middle class suckers who are constantly being degraded to a purer form of worker drone consumers) to offset the damage that they do. All laws have to assume to a varying extent that people are interested in the society they live in. Because if they aren't, no law whatsoever is going to make them a good member of society. Kind of like how the DSM-IV has no definition of psychopathy because it describes the absence of a mind capable of having a disorder in the first place. The way those large corporations behave is truly antisocial behavior, lacking regard for the deeper and finer points of how society works. > because you're trying to tax the wrong thing Funny, because to me it seems that no matter what you tax, people who don't want to pay taxes will either seek and find or invest and create a way around that. This isn't a law problem, it's a culture problem. But I suppose you're right, no sense in arguing culture and civil responsibility with people who lack both.