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by sgt101 3206 days ago
I think that all relies on a lot of judgement and perspective. I think that the way to fix things is to shrink down (or expand) the letter of the law so as to catch the corner cases and to protect people appropriately (from the application of the law).

I think that the letter of the law must be applied generously and sparingly - but the rapid expansion of egregious evasion should be addressed because it is having corrosive social effects that will compromise this attitude and the norms that underpin it.
1 comments
charlesdm 3206 days ago
Avoidance, you mean. I think there are more distorting effects in the market at the moment than tax avoidance, such as extremely low interest rates and quantitative easing (outside of the US).
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sgt101 3206 days ago
Yes - agree, sorry sloppy language. I agree that both of the other distortions are important and difficult too - but I think imposed on authorities by circumstance.

Also having other things in play doesn't mean that this thing shouldn't be fixed...

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charlesdm 3206 days ago
Yes, agree, but I just think in many cases the resources and effort it requires for tax authorities to win these cases often makes it not worth it.

A full tax case can easily run for 5 to 10 years, and the upside will be relatively limited. A lot has already been done in recent years and for a lot of EU companies the actual tax rate they pay has gone up with a few percentage points. But now most of the low hanging fruit is gone.

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