[tobltobs]

First we were told to be nice to the rich and give them tax reduction, because we will be all happy for the trickling down pennies. And now we are supposed to give the cooperation tax relief because there is money trickling down from the employees?

[caskance]

You're not "supposed" to do anything. If you want to raise tax, raise tax. Just keep in mind that this changes incentives for anyone who has to pay that tax. That's not a threat, it's a fact.

[tobltobs]

I do not want to raise taxes. I just want that everybody pays his taxes, because than we could lower taxes.

[caskance]

I haven't seen anyone claim that Facebook is failing to pay all the tax they are legally obligated to pay. Did you mean something else by "everybody pays his taxes?"

[tobltobs]

There are currently investigations in the EU if FB did fullfil the requirements to use the tax loopholes they are using. If not, FB did not pay the taxes they are obligated to pay.

[Karunamon]

And if they didn't, they'll be fined and be forced to pay whatever they didn't, which will probably not happen again in the future as a way to avoid being fined.

If they did? You seem to be dancing around the central point, which is, these numbers, while absurd, are generally completely above board and legal. Nobody is going to pay more tax than they're obligated to, and it's absurd to expect otherwise.

[justincormack]

Thats actually not the case. Starbucks voluntarily paid tax in the UK, even though it was apparently not obliged to as it has never managed to make any money(!).

The problem about prosecuting these cases is that transfer pricing and IP "costs" are difficult to demonstrate as faked, and some of the loopholes may be legal, although Apple is now dismantling its double Irish Dutch sandwich, one of the tax avoidance strategies it invented.

[caskance]

"Investigations in the EU" means jack shit. There have also been "investigations in the EU" about whether Google is an illegal monopoly and whether Facebook needs to segregate all its data on European entities into separate European data centers.

[kuschku]

And one of those led to Facebook being charged billions, and the others will lead to the same outcome.

"Investigations in the EU" means you’re fucked.

[raverbashing]

Do you know what's even better? The rich taking their business somewhere else

Then the unions can cry foul about how the big bad companies wouldn't put up with their crap anymore

I'm sure in an ideal world everybody would be a public servant with no productivity goals but that has problems as well

[tobltobs]

Sorry, I do not get what you want to say.

[h909415]

>The rich taking their business somewhere else

They already did. That's the whole point of globalization.