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by rdtsc 3078 days ago
> The whole point is that earned income should not have to be repatriated to be taxed.

Agree. They used the double Irish paying basically no income tax there. Then were trying to move to Jersey (the island). This isn't new though and other companies were doing it. Is there any realistic short term hope that we'll finally close all the loopholes and the Apples and Googles of this country will start paying their fair share of taxes? Probably not.

But I don't see why not at least be happy with them paying some taxes and investing the money domestically? Yet everyone here is upset. It is not ideal, I'd rather have universal healthcare, basic income even, I'd rather these companies not be able to do these schemes and pay their fair share of taxes, but it is what it is, why not be happy for some positive thing happening.

1 comments

My guess is that the path outside of the legislature doing anything is through the courts. Since corporations are citizens there must be some kind of constitutional law since human citizens don’t get the same benefit.
I haven't thought of the courts. It might be interesting to see what would happen. Fighting with a hundred billion dollar company in court is tough though. The have infinite legal resources basically.

And yeah, I see the point about it being considered a person but that is mostly what is called "legal fiction" (it is actually a technical term, not just me being silly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction). And that only goes so far. Mostly to benefit the corporate entity not the society. I'd like to put some companies in prison for life for destroying the environment or poisoning its workers but it just won't work. It would be nice to see how far it would go though.

What they do is not illegal, so courts do not help. For example, see Fair Tax Town. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crickhowell-welsh-town...
I'm describing the US here, not the UK. In the US you can challenge a law or statue as being unconstitutional.