Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jjn2009 3590 days ago
Countries don't need to have a corporate tax, and if they do not have a corporate tax it doesn't mean the US government should get a piece of the pie because no one else decided to take it.

Just like a Comcast monopoly in a small rural town the US government without competition would continue to soak up more money and spend it on increasingly useless things.
1 comments
ubernostrum 3589 days ago
Don't look now, but you just moved the goalposts.
link
jjn2009 3589 days ago
Governments are averse to competition, bureaucrats need to realize they cannot bully companies into paying ever increasing taxes within a global economy. The goalposts moved a long time ago, I did not move them.
link
ubernostrum 3589 days ago
Well, the original complaint I responded to was "they shouldn't be taxed twice on the same money", and I pointed out they're not being taxed twice on the same money.

Meanwhile, if Apple wants to bring this money into the US, well, they can do what the US tells them to do when it comes to taxes. Apple has benefited enormously from services and infrastructure paid for by everyone else's taxes, and shouldn't get to leech off that without having to play by the same rules (and I say this as someone who pays a higher percentage of my own income in tax than Apple would even if it repatriated all its profits).

link
jjn2009 3589 days ago
I did not find that part of your argument to be substantial to the core of my point, they followed whatever tax regulations they were subject to abroad and if there are loopholes then those countries can close them if they so desire.

Overseas profits will end up paying for corporate infrastructure and jobs elsewhere, penalizing global activities by taxing profits which do not occur in the US is not a very forward thinking strategy for the US Government and it's why we will continue to get killed in trade with deficits until it obliterates our economy.

link
ubernostrum 3588 days ago
Overseas profits will end up paying for corporate infrastructure and jobs elsewhere

If those profits are never taxed, they won't. Of course, to avoid them being taxed you have to leave them sitting in accounts in Bermuda and the Caymans where that money can't be productive for the company either.

by taxing profits which do not occur in the US

The US isn't asking to tax their overseas profits. If you can't make your argument without openly lying about what's going on, I don't know how you can expect to be taken seriously.

link