[sjwpv]

>Sovereign countries are free to set their tax rate to 0 in order to attract companies there.

Then those companies should only sell products and services in those countries. Otherwise, something should be done about it. I'm not saying it's easy, but it can be improved.

[awestroke]

So exporting should be illegal?

[kartan]

Doing business with tax havens should be illegal. A tax Haven creates an agreement between companies and a country to steal another country tax reveneu.

Tax havens produce close to nothing, so they have very small exports. It's just a legal arrangement that has nothing to do with production.

[xondono]

You are assuming that somehow that tax revenue is theirs in the first place.

What if that tax rate makes a business non-profitable in France but a money-making machine in Ireland?

Also, too much focus is centered around taxes when spurious regulations are generally more damning for a lot of companies. For example some friends of mine have attempted to start escape rooms, they have all abandoned their pursuits because here in Spain the legal framework is unclear. All escape rooms in this country are in a legal greyish area.

[kartan]

> You are assuming that somehow that tax revenue is theirs in the first place. The big corporations that evade taxes are using the economic power, infrastructure and legal systems of countries without contributing to any of them. That is money that the corporations owe to the citizens of those countries.

> What if that tax rate makes a business non-profitable in France but a money-making machine in Ireland? I see your point, they are centred about maximizing profit. But, there are other goals as well. The goal of improving the taxation system is related to broad social issues like wealth redistribution. It has nothing to do with the only goal is to maximize short term profits for companies.

> Also, too much focus is centered around taxes when spurious regulations are generally more damning for a lot of companies. For example some friends of mine have attempted to start escape rooms, they have all abandoned their pursuits because here in Spain the legal framework is unclear. All escape rooms in this country are in a legal greyish area.

This is one of the many reasons regulations take a long time to be in place for new kinds of business: https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/five-girls-locked-in-ho...

I hope that your friends find a good way to start escape rooms in the end. If it is their passion they will succeed. Regulations may be slow, but regulations get set and then people can do business safely for everyone involved.

[Mirioron]

Or more likely: fewer people do business. It would certainly explain Spain's economy.

[dawnerd]

Escape rooms and haunted houses are a nightmare in local fire code in the states as well. Ends up putting a lot of smaller productions out of business.

[xondono]

If it were that, I’d understand. The main issue my friends had was with declaring their “official activity”. In spain you need to declare what activity your bussiness is into, and the categories available are so restrictive and ill defined that a lot of people end up just making up something and going with it.

I’ve seen contractors with numbers in their paperwork that was obviously made up by putting a completely random number (they even admitted to that privately).

It’s important? No, is a risk that could destroy your bussiness? Certainly.

[dawnerd]

Wow that's pretty lame then. We have something similar but it's not really something you're held to, mostly just for them to have an idea what your deductions should be (or something like that, not a tax expert). Wondering, could they classify themselves as theater or similar? That's what's commonly used at least in the circles Im part of.

[chongli]

Tax havens are often highly desirable tourist destinations. Making it illegal to do business with them would anger a lot of tourists and is, frankly, a violation of freedom of movement.