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by andrepd 3206 days ago
Decadent? I take issue. Google, like virtually every large corporation in the world, spends a significant amount of time and resources finding the optimal way to pay the least amount of taxes, through loopholes, borderline or actually illegal schemes, lobbying etc. We're supposed to blame the countries for being defrauded in this way, not the multinationals doing the defrauding? Come off it.

You want to do business in a country, you abide by the laws of that country. Governments serve their citizens and their interests. Whatever is convenient for corporations has (or should have) _zero_ bearing on any decisions. In true liberal style: if they don't like the rules they're welcome to go elsewhere.
1 comments
ben_w 3206 days ago
I view tax codes like buggy software, lawful tax minimisation like zero day exploits — only difference is that the law is not above itself, so if the tax loophole is legal, then it's legal.

That said, just because something is legal doesn't make it moral, but even though I think we agree on that, I'd have to argue loopholes are totally in the domain of legislators to fix — if I understand correctly, UK law requires tax payers to report any minimisation schemes they are party to. Does that have teeth? I don't know, but it's a thought.

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andrepd 3206 days ago
That's not a wholly correct interpretation. Law codes aren't rigorous; there's room for "interpreting" the law, and what really matters in the end is intent ("spirit of the law" > "letter of the law"). At any rate, the news is about "patching" the exploits.
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pyrale 3206 days ago
> I view tax codes like buggy software, lawful tax minimisation like zero day exploits

I have it you view lobbying as having a hand in the code you subsequently exploit, and therefore a major ethics breach ?

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ben_w 3206 days ago
Pretty much.

I view corporations as non-human intelligences, so while it's totally unethical for a human to manipulate the law to their own ends, it's also something I expect corporations to perceive as acceptable, in as much as that makes sense (they will not shun each other for it) and in much the way we humans generally agree it's wrong to kill but we don't shun people for amputations or appendectomies.

This is why I prefer democratic corporations, rare as they are, to pure capitalist ones — at least the metaphorical appendix has a vote.

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