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by eps 5167 days ago
Similarly IKEA pays zero tax by channeling all it's profits through a very complicated setup to an Irish non-profit. GE not only pays zero tax, but also manages to extract tax refunds from the US government.

The big question if an evasive tax setup makes sense at lower profit levels, or if the costs of setting up and maintaining it are prohibitive. Does anyone know?

2 comments

The big question more precisely, is at what profit threshold dollar amount does it start making sense to do it
If governments wanted to solve this problem, they could do so trivially by setting wealth taxes on the human owners of those corporations
Rich people can afford good accountants and lawyers. Tax avoidance[1] skirts the edge of tax evasion[2], but that's what the good accountants are for.

Putting different taxes on the owners of some corporation just means that no-one owns the corporation and that everyone is an employee.

[1] Avoidance is legally using loopholes to reduce a tax bill.

[2] Evasion is illegally using loopholes, or just plain not paying tax.