Amazon's Luxembourg Tax Deals 200
Presto Vivace writes in with this story of a European Commission investigation into a secret tax agreement between Amazon and Luxembourg. "Leaked tax documents from accounting firm PwC in Luxembourg show how Amazon sidesteps the 30 per cent tax rates local [Australian] players face. The Luxembourg documents, obtained in a review led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, contain some of the first hard numbers and details on how Amazon pays virtually no tax for its non-US earnings, including in Australia. Last month, the European Commission announced an investigation into the secret 2003 advance tax agreement Amazon struck with Luxembourg that is the key to its global tax strategy. The Luxembourg documents show not only the extent of the related-party transactions in Amazon's Luxembourg companies but how Amazon has changed its tax strategy after investigation by French tax authorities and the US Internal Revenue Service. The change is so dramatic it raises questions whether the European Commission is targeting the right transactions."
What was quote about Internet and censorship? (Score:5, Interesting)
Paraphrasing John Gilmore [wikiquote.org]:Corporations interpret taxation as damage and route around it.
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Taxation is damage and if you are not routing around it you get damaged. Income related taxes are anti-progress, anti-society, anti-economy. "Progressive" income taxes are anti-individual liberty, pro-discrimination. Income related taxes are immoral and bad economics (let government to grow when the other spending is actually cut by people, governments should be cut just like all other expenses when people cut down on spending, by tying government to income taxes, society destroys savings thus destroying
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Now that's out of the way can we take it as read that some don't agree with it and would ike to discuss details of this tax/tithe/volunteering stuff you see as evil?
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Wrong, involuntary coercion is not teamwork. Violence is evil and what you call a 'team', I call a pack of thieves if they are using the collective to steal from others to subsidize themselves or anybody ag all. So lets start over: violence is evil. Real voluntary exchange is teamwork that does not rely on violence.
Using violence to force people to give up anything in life is evil, cooperating on voluntary basis is helpful.
Taxes are state (mob) violence. Non agression is not even discussed as a subject
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Using violence to force people to give up anything in life is evil
What if you use violence to force them to give up attempts at committing violence against others or you?
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The phrase "turn about is fair play" comes to mind. You always have the option of responding to another's actions in kind. You can't claim a right which you don't extend to others. The thief has no legitimate claim to property rights; the murderer cannot claim a right not to be killed.
Is it evil if I use violence to force you to give up the property that promised to give to me?
If it was a mere promise, then yes. A promise of future action is not binding in the way that an actual transfer of ownership would be. (This is a consequence of inalienable self-ownership; the property rights themselves are t
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That's a nice rant on income taxation but the article here is discussing corporate taxation (and evasion).
Corporate income taxation, so the rant is directly on topic, whether or not you agree with it.
Personally, income taxes don't give me heartburn, but I think corporate taxes are a bad idea. They're just a way to hide taxes from the real taxpayers. Hidden taxes are truly evil. Government provides value for money, and the customers/owners of government (the taxpayers) need to see both the costs and the value clearly so they know if they're getting a good deal. Hiding costs subverts critical transparency.
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I'm going to insist here that, while income taxes on corporations are debatable, lower-level taxes on corporations are necessary. Factories and the like use public infrastructure, and not making them pay for it distorts the market.
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They started as a way to separate investors from liability, but ended up a tool of the 1% to pay less in tax on millions of income than the average person pays.
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Income related taxes are immoral and bad economics (let government to grow when the other spending is actually cut by people, governments should be cut just like all other expenses when people cut down on spending, by tying government to income taxes, society destroys savings thus destroying and preventing capital investments).
If governments spent low enough, taxes aren't even necessary. With a strong currency, the government can print more, rather than manipulating interest rates, and pay for services out of that. We can't do that in the US because of the military, but other places with lower taxes and more services could.
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It's roman_mir, every day is nutballer thursday.
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The rising tide lifts all boats, you are completely confused as to what a tide is, just like vast majority of the economically challenged. It is not consumption by a billionaire or anybody for that matter that 'lifts all boats', it is production by the said billionaire, and production in case of a billionaire comes in the form of savings - the capital that does the work. It is savings, investments, production that lifts all boats, because only savings, investments and production create new / better / chea
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Wait... You believe the police should be privatized?
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Just to play along...
In any large society, there will be groups of people who band together and are willing to use violence. Since they're a group, they're going to be using collective violence in the service of collective aggression (whether you believe in it or not), and typically use it as an instrument of oppression. The ones who aren't in the violent groups will be at the mercy of violent groups, unless they have some sort of protection from a sufficiently strong violent group. Frequently, the su
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If only we could all have the inalienable right to a private continent, then l'aissez faire could work.
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Production follows demand, always, no exceptions.
No demand (ie, no consumption) = no production, no investment.
Capital does not do "work" by any sane definition of the word. It enables work, yes, but that's quite a different thing. And still, capital only enables work when it's actually invested...and it's not invested without demand...and there's no demand without consumption.
And of course savings is the opposite of investment; It's the hording of capital, removing it from circulation.
Here's the real kic
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It makes no sense to invest in production when there is a demand gap ... better to invest in rent generating assets and politicians.
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The rising tide lifts all boats,
That's what Bush called Voodoo economics, when Reagan proposed it.
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I'm sure you'd complain too if you had to pay $300,000,000 out of $1,000,000,000.
Paying 30 cents for a dollar doesn't seem like a lot... but $300,000,000 is quite a bit.
Tax rates are too high. This is why corporations evade them: so they can stay alive.
Re:What was quote about Internet and censorship? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations avoid them because it is profitable to do so.
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Wow, insightful. People avoid having their money taken from them because it is profitable not to have your money taken from you. Hmmm. Water is wet, fire burns, people want other people's money.
Re:What was quote about Internet and censorship? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure you'd complain too if you had to pay $300,000,000 out of $1,000,000,000.
Paying 30 cents for a dollar doesn't seem like a lot... but $300,000,000 is quite a bit.
Tax rates are too high. This is why corporations evade them: so they can stay alive.
No, I think I'd be too busy sipping pina coladas on a beach somewhere to complain about much of anything if had $700 million after tax!
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No, I think I'd be too busy sipping pina coladas on a beach somewhere to complain about much of anything if had $700 million after tax!
Indeed. I run my own small business. There's all sorts of tricks I could use to minimize personal tax down to almost nothing. I don't because I like the country I live in and I understand taxes are necessary to keep it running. So, I do my taxes normally.
So sure, it sticks in my craw a bit at the time I have to part with money because hey, who wants to have less money, but
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Paying 30 cents for a dollar doesn't seem like a lot... but $300,000,000 is quite a bit.
Keeping 70 cents per dollar doesn't seem like a lot... but $700,000,000 is loads!
30% isn't that bad all in all, what high taxes mean is that the companies put the prices up to compensate so the retained income after tax is enough to maintain the company. If the tax dropped to 20% then the company would just find it had more leeway to reduce prices and be more competitive.
So high company taxes hurt the consumer, but then
Does Australia tax losses? (Score:2)
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How much does Amazon Australia spend on R&D? I'm betting they do make a profit and remit it back to the US parent which then spends on R&D. Quite fair for Australia to ask for a cut of the profit made in Australia.
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Re:Does Australia tax losses? (Score:4, Informative)
Amazon is making a shitload of profit, they're just shifting the profits around by having their holdings that doesn't pay these taxes charge them a 'fee' to reduce the amount of profit they 'have'.
Tax collection for hire (Score:5, Interesting)
Essentially what Luxembourg is doing here is offering tax collection as a service. Luxembourg collects a small percentage but much more than they would get otherwise, since Amazon et al. don't do much business in Luxembourg and offers these large corporations a legal shield against other countries' taxes.
This would appear to be a bug in the international tax system.
Re:Tax collection for hire (Score:5, Insightful)
This would appear to be a bug in the international tax system.
Quite the contrary. It's not a bug it's a feature. The kind of deal Amazon was able to strike with Luxembourg is an important defense against overly greedy countries (like the U.S.) which try to tax more than they should be entitled to. Note that the story says this is only about non-U.S. earning. Why should the U.S. be entitled to taxes on non-U.S. earnings?
If Luxembourg is willing to offer lower tax rates than other countries, why shouldn't Amazon accept? It's no different than choosing to shop at a store that offers the lowest prices.
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Here's a great book explaining the issue, sold by amazon no less: Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens [amazon.com]
Worth every penny, and a must-read regardless of your political leanings.
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Note that the story says this is only about non-U.S. earning. Why should the U.S. be entitled to taxes on non-U.S. earnings?
You are a moron, aren't you? Non-US earnings are not taxed by US until money is transferred by said company back into the US. How fucking hard is it to comprehend that?
The fuckup is other nations that are apparently part of a "union" to transfer money between said jurisdictions that do NOT have unified tax code, to transfer them without paying fair taxes to the destination. EU either has to fix their tax system so tax rates are uniform, OR it has to stop with the practice of tax-free money flows in the EU.
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Of course, there are people, like the parent, that are too stupid to understand how taxation work in the first place. So things like tax heavens are completely over their heads.
True, I was so stupid, I used to think they were called "tax havens", not "tax heavens". But I guess you enjoy paying taxes so much, you consider it a heavenly experience.
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Well, considering that you're NOT paying taxes in a tax haven, tax "heaven" seems reasonable.
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Note that the story says this is only about non-U.S. earning.
If you RTFA, there's only one of three possibilities:
1. US assets were under priced in order to keep income out of the US.
2. European assets were over priced in order to shift income to a lower tax EU jurisdiction.
3. All of the Above
The correct answer is 3 and this story is not about US earnings, because those articles have already been written.
Special Report: Amazon's billion-dollar tax shield [reuters.com]
Dec 6, 2012
Amazon disclosed in October 2011 that the IRS wanted $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes. It has declined to say exactly what transactions the charge relates to but said it was linked to "transfer pricing with our foreign subsidiaries" over a seven-year period from 2005.
Who knows why the EU didn't bother to aggressively investigate until now.
The broad outlines were laid ou
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Well the positive thing about the EU finally getting involved is they have no trouble dealing out billion dollar fines.
But this goes *way* beyond Amazon. The director of the department where the lady in charge of investigating this (Magrethe Vestager) is the former prime minister of Luxembourg and *might* be deeply involved with the tax evasion.
Some very interesting times ahead, especially for Luxembourg...
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Why should the U.S. be entitled to taxes on non-U.S. earnings?
Why shouldn't I be able to declare my residence a PO Box in Luxembourg, and work in the US but deduct the majority of my earnings as licensing fees to my other headquarters (and so earned there rather than here), thus only paying a fraction of the taxes I would otherwise? And then receive government services and aid due to my low income? That's the sort of thing corporations do.
And actually I might be able to pull this off, if I create a company elsewhere, hire myself at my company at low wage, and offer th
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Though I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn't allowed for the little guy.
You are more than capable of incorporating yourself if you think it will help with taxes. I did it when I was doing independent consulting. I even had a lease agreement with myself so I could deduct extra expenses even though I was taking the standard deduction on my personal tax returns. It i perfectly legal.
But when it comes to employee compensation, there are going to be rules governing what you can or cannot expense as a business. Just like there are or the big guys.
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Quite the contrary. It's not a bug it's a feature. The kind of deal Amazon was able to strike with Luxembourg is an important defense against overly greedy countries (like the U.S.) which try to tax more than they should be entitled to. Note that the story says this is only about non-U.S. earning. Why should the U.S. be entitled to taxes on non-U.S. earnings?
"Amazon EU ended up paying 0.5 per cent tax." So by your reckoning a tax rate of any higher than 0.5% is unwarranted government greed? I think you misunderstood what people mean when they talk about "the 1%" - it ain't supposed to be their tax rate!
Re:Tax collection for hire (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was only shielding non-US profits from US tax collection I'd be inclined to agree, but I think they're evading taxes in every country they're doing business in.
Luxembourg can afford to offer low tax rates because there's no cost to them. Amazon is using the infrastructure in other countries (e.g. roads, airports, etc.) to make money without paying for it. If they actually based their entire business in Luxembourg and then shipped worldwide I'd say it made sense. This is not competition on tax rates, this is just a scam.
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Don't like it? Move.
What Amazon is doing here is eating their cake and keeping it too. They get the advantage of using the infrastructure and then skip out on paying the taxes that fund the infrastructure. If they don't want to pay for it, don't use it.
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Don't like it? Move.
What Amazon is doing here is eating their cake and keeping it too. They get the advantage of using the infrastructure and then skip out on paying the taxes that fund the infrastructure. If they don't want to pay for it, don't use it.
You want to make sure that corporations pay for all of the infrastructure they use? It's very simple: eliminate corporate income tax, and focus instead on taxing the investors, the employees, the property, the fuel, etc... all of the people that make up the corporations and all of the infrastructure they use, because while it's easy to move profits around, costs are tightly bound to where the money is spent. For that matter, you can tax the customers, too (sales tax), because they're fairly fixed geographic
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Yeah, I pay sales tax on goods I purchase, yet I still have to pay income tax. Funny how that works.
And the employees and shareholders of Amazon pay income and capital gains taxes as well, so what is your point? They just don't feel they should be paying twice in a global market where they have other options.
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Yeah, I pay sales tax on goods I purchase, yet I still have to pay income tax. Funny how that works.
And the employees and shareholders of Amazon pay income and capital gains taxes as well, so what is your point? They just don't feel they should be paying twice in a global market where they have other options.
There are always "other options." If I feel I've been wronged by my neighbor, why should I have to put up with all the fuss of a lawyer and court when I have other options, like shooting him?
The whole point of this is that both multinational corporations and individuals shouldn't be given the option of paying no taxes anywhere, or a token amount. They only have other options because the rest of us are idiots for letting them have those options. Sure, idiots can be taken advantage of, but that doesn't mak
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Quite the contrary. It's not a bug it's a feature. The kind of deal Amazon was able to strike with Luxembourg is an important defense against overly greedy countries (like the U.S.) which try to tax more than they should be entitled to.
Well, then I'm supposed to say "thank you" fot this "defense" that allows to pay these companies much less than they "should" have to pay?
Sorry, but that is pure rubbish as there is no objective view on how many taxes a company SHOULD have to pay. (This holds for my above example, too, of course)
Entities have to pay as many taxes as the laws require them to pay. But defining how many taxes someone SHOULD have to pay, depends on who you're asking. Me for example, shouldn't have to pay any taxes, because I'm
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You don't have to say "thank you" for it, but you have to weigh your options. Two options are making a new tax treaty with the country involved to get rid of the shielding, and sanctioning the country to prevent Americans and American companies from dealing with them.
But you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? What burden does Amazon really put on the US? When they make more sales in Australia, does that somehow increase their burden in the US? If not, then why require them to pay more than they already d
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Thank you for that US centric point of view.
Who cares if Amazon damages the US, France or Italy? (again: what damage do they actually take compared to WHAT? Counting taxes a company should have payed as damage makes as much sense as filing an insurance claim for the Picasso that COULD have bin in the trunk of your totaled car)
The biggest damage also isn't for the US at all, because as you mentioned, they create at least some high paying jobs there. But from all other states, Amazon (in this example - replac
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I think what I said could apply to any country, not just the US. But regardless, I agree with your main point that small businesses are hurt by this. I think corporate taxes should be abolished completely. Charge taxes to the people who make up the corporation. That can be income tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, etc. Each country does it however they want. If you live in America, you pay taxes in America regardless of where you earned the money. If you buy something in China, you pay Chinese sales tax reg
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This would appear to be a bug in the international tax system.
Quite the contrary. It's not a bug it's a feature. The kind of deal Amazon was able to strike with Luxembourg is an important defense against overly greedy countries (like the U.S.) which try to tax more than they should be entitled to. Note that the story says this is only about non-U.S. earning. Why should the U.S. be entitled to taxes on non-U.S. earnings?
If Luxembourg is willing to offer lower tax rates than other countries, why shouldn't Amazon accept? It's no different than choosing to shop at a store that offers the lowest prices.
Turn it around. Why should Amazon be allowed to transfer profits made in any one country out of that country to avoid paying taxes there?
You, as a taxpayer, should really be asking this question because it's you, as a taxpayer, that is going to have to pick up the difference in who funds the national bill.
As far as which country, it doesn't matter. If Amazon does business in country ABC, it should pay taxes in that country per the laws of the country as part of its business model.
When mega-companies like
Smaller scale? (Score:2)
So the question then becomes, is anyone running a service which makes this available to individuals for a fee? If it's legal for Amazon, it must be legal in general, right? You contract them to handle your finances or something.
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Well, as a normal US citizen (I'm an ex-pat so I have to deal with this crap) the US wants to tax you on your worldwide income. The only legal way to avoid that is to give up your US citizenship. Currently, I think the US is the only country that tries to tax you on your worldwide income so pretty much if you shift your citizenship to any other country you can then go reside in whatever low tax locale you can and only pay the local taxes. The US has come up with an "exit tax" though, so if you have a sub
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Well, I haven't found a country I'd want to call my own selling citizenships for less than 100k yet. Any useful info there?
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Nope - I haven't given up on my US citizenship yet.
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Actually, it doesn't matter how long you reside outside of the US they still want their bite.
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Actually, it doesn't matter how long you reside outside of the US they still want their bite.
Actually, it's even better than that: even if you live outside of the US and renounce your US citizenship they still want their bite.
At least Amazon has an office in Luxembourg (Score:2)
It's possible or even likely that Amazon had to open an office of a certain size in Luxembourg as part of the deal they
How is this different? (Score:2)
Oh, I get it....because it is a geek company, Amazon.
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The reason the EU are targeting Amazon at this time is that they are making the case that the "special tax rates" that the Luxembourg state gave to Amazon constituted illegal state aid. That is the EU has tough rules on governments handing out money to companies to stop a race to the bottom. So it is not that Luxembourg has low tax rates but that they cut Amazon a special rate.
Likely outcome is that Amazon will have large back taxes to pay to the Luxembourg government, and the EU will then impose a fine on
handy infographic (Score:2)
mass stupidity (Score:2)
implication isn't guilt (Score:2)
Is *anything* they're doing actually illegal? I somehow suspect not - as much as companies don't want to pay taxes, they want to leave themselves open to prosecution even less.
The article implies strong condemnation for their practices, but the fact is that taxes aren't charity - a company, like an individual, is ENTITLED to avoid tax however they legally can.
If the tax schemes are so complicated that they prevent their own regulators from understanding what's happening, that's hardly the company/individua
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OK - well I'm not but let's assume - Why not :
- single out that this is not normal or moral (even if legal) and shop accordingly
- let the bad publicity be asserted again and again until it changes (by example, just tell every time you talk about Amazon about their tax rate)
- talk about the sociopaths ruling the place as such and isolate them socially until they change (you know, like in certain societies / countries it is not accepted to do some things but perfectly acceptable to do in others ? it works.)
un
Re:jury (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool, the people involved in this are going before a jury, right? ...right?
No.
And it's worth noting that Apple and Microsoft do the same thing, but because they're paying Slashdot, we're being set onto one of their competitors instead, like the baying pack of dogs we are.
Re:jury (Score:5, Interesting)
They'd be incompetent if they didn't. You can order your own tax sandwich here [www.mhc.ie] (pdf)
Re:jury (Score:5, Insightful)
They're just playing the game that's being played, they all do it. For example: Apple's Tax Strategy [nytimes.com]
No, much of their local competition in book sales etc (not being international companies with multiple subsidiaries in the EU) are not doing this. Apple etc's competitors are generally multinationals who also play these tricks. But in many cases Amazon's are not, and the effects of tax abuse are that much more problematic as they don't only affect tax revenue but also distort the market.
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There is a big difference between an allowance and a loophole; where you are allowed to write down xyx against your tax bill, that is an intended tax allowance by your tax authority, put in play for whatever reason - balancing the tax system, encouraging certain types of spending, buying votes, etc. Such allowances are all part of making sure everyone pays a fair amount of tax, and everyone ultimately benefits.
A loophole however is not intended; a loophole is legal only because governments have not figured
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Loopholes are only the tip of the iceburg. Even if you attempted to remove all the loopholes, you would still
be sunk as a large multinational basically has the ability to write it's own loopholes. It also has other tricks
that individuals don't have like telling random country X that they will move 30million dollars to their country
if they give them below market taxes. Walmart and factories do this all the time where they will get 5 years
where they don't have to pay any sales tax for building a new store.
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Taking advantage of such loopholes benefits nobody except Amazon;
it keeps the cost down for the buyers, as such its not only just helping amazon its helping us because if you really think amazon is going to eat a 30% tax and not charge us more i got this here bridge to sell ya
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Its better for the individual if corps pay little or no tax as it keeps the cost of goods down
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But they have not been caught so blatantly (Score:3)
However there's more to come and it looks like there's something on Rupert Murdoch's companies (Fox, Newscorp etc) in the documents.
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we wish (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only will no executives be on trial for tax evasion, and not only will they not lose any of the fortunes they have been amassing as "bonuses", but we will soon be hearing about how Amazon is broke and taxes are unfair for a company the size of Amazon (it's only good for us commoners to keep us common).
Oh wait, a few threads are already making those latter claims...
Re:we wish (Score:5, Informative)
It worked like this: Amazon Europe paid 105 million EU to Amazon Technologies Inc in Nevada to license the rights to Amazon's intellectual property -- the patents and software for the websites, including that button that buys a book with one click.
Amazon Europe onsold the rights to use this intellectual property to Amazon EU for 519 million EU -- five times what it had paid the US company. Amazon Europe made an instant profit of 414 million EU, which would have been taxable, except that Amazon Europe is a limited partnership. It doesn't pay tax in Luxembourg.
Normally this would be called "transfer pricing" and considered "tax avoidance."
Transfer pricing involves a company selling [stuff] to its subsidiaries at market cost.
Tax avoidance involves completely legal maneuvers to minimize your tax exposure.
There are international norms for transfer pricing [oecd.org].
No way in hell is re-licensing some IP for a 400% profit going to pass muster.
Most likely, they'll have to restate some earnings and negotiate the size of their fine.
Over the last few years, there have been various hearings in the USA and internationally over transfer pricing.
It's on the radar of western governments and they're not very happy with the practice.
The most recent case I can think of was against Caterpillar. [foxrothschild.com]
They settled for peanuts on $2.4 billion in transferred profits.
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Transfer pricing involves a company selling [stuff] to its subsidiaries at market cost
yes, and it is a sensible means of not paying tax twice... however....
If you transfer your IP from the US company to the Dutch company at $1, and the Dutch company transfers the same IP to your Australian company at $1bn. You'll find that the Dutch company makes a huge profit and the Australian one makes no profit at all.
And as the Dutch company can record the profit, but not pay tax on it until some other criteria are met
Who are the numbnuts modding this ignoramus up? (Score:1)
Tax havens exist from the Cayman Islands and beyond --- Ireland until recently.
Any jackass modding the above ignoramous up is doing so on being completely gullible and is a complete shit-fer-brains.
Amazon would be incompetent to not attempt to avoid taxes.
And the above ignoramous no doubt works for a company whose companies strive to avoid
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They're part of the EU, and no doubt the US and EU have some back scratching deals to ensure everyone pays taxes to some degree or another. While we can debate who gets the better end of the deal, it is a natural solution to multinats trying to be above the law.
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last i checked, luxembourg is still a sovereign nation. this is about the USA is trying to tax companies & citizens of other countries.
Spot the one who works at amazon's legal dept. In what way is it about that? It's about amazon moving all their money to places where the make no tax by doing deals to licence it's name, site and itself to itself for vast or tiny sums of money depending on how the tax works in that particular country.
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Cool, the people involved in this are going before a jury, right? ...right?
Whoah there. Corporations are only people when it's in their benefit.
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Taxes — by definition — are collected at the point of a weapon. It is perfectly natural to wish to avoid them. And we used to understand that attitude a lot better in this country — if Boston Tea Party has taught anybody anything...
Re:Epidemic (Score:5, Insightful)
I also don't rob banks, because I consider it an obligation to society not to do so.
Perhaps you are a sociopath, and we need threats of violence to control people like you but not all of us are that way.
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No, dearest. It is the other way around. If, indeed, the tax-avoidance was only found among sociopaths, the Executive (IRS) wouldn't have needed the investigative apparatus, its own "Tax court [wikipedia.org]" (whose Judges the President is empowered to remove at whim), and the power to confiscate property [legalinfo.com] and bank-accounts [theweek.com] (on mere suspicion, neither proof nor even an accusation of wrongdoin [hotair.com]
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It is only hypocritical for those, who proclaim their trust in government determining the amount for other people...
But, hypocritical or not, you pay more than you believe is fair because you can not avoid it — on pain of having armed men come in and evict you from your house (though I doubt you have one, if you aren't American).
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What?! Why? Where? Which school of thought or religions has ever said anything of the kind?
Or are you conflating the volitional charitable help to fellow human beings with the mandatory? Jesus helped the poor — and encouraged followers to do so as well — but he never called for Caesar to raise taxes and give free food to anyone...
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Participants of the Boston Tea Party were not protesting the tax itself. They were protesting the fact that it came from legislators whom they did not elect, and who therefore didn't represent them.
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Replace "East India Company" with "Amazon" and "T
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Notice they don't put their businesses in some African shithole that offers no Government services. They take advantage of the services that Government provides like roads and an educated populace, but they never pay back.
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What makes you think that companies don't want and lobby for this complex tax code that is full of loopholes they can explot?
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And personal tax is a myth for the same reason because I just ask for a higher salary to offset my tax burden. By that logic you can't tax ANYTHING because the cost will get shifted somewhere else.