SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A bunch of small Welsh business folk are playing the likes of Amazon and Google at their own game, by proposing to move their tax domiciles offshore – with the connivance of the publicly funded Beeb.
According to an upcoming BBC documentary – The Town That Went Offshore – five businesses based in Crickhowell, Powys have banded together to try and emulate their much bigger rivals. They include a baker, a coffee shop, an optician, an outdoors retailer and, strangely, a smoker.
Apparently, coffee shop owner Jo Carthew reckons "we've put our heads together, and worked out a way to mimic these big tax dodgers. It's jolly clever."
Local optician Irena Kolaleva said that having worked out a way to register themselves abroad, "we've got a moral obligation".
We assume Irena means "a moral obligation" to expose such financial chicanery, rather than lumping herself in with Goldmans' boss Lloyd Blankfien, who claimed back in 2009 that bankers "do God's work".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Sunday November 15 2015, @03:12PM
Oh please do this! This needs to happen. Everyone needs to offshore, including individuals! Even thou there are a million laws to keep individuals from doing just this (especially USian which have the most oppressive tax regime when it comes to foreign finances for individuals), but if we dig through enough we might find a loophole. That will teach the stupid governments around the world a lesson when the tax money stops flowing. Maybe finally they will get their asses off the top of their heads and finally do something.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Sunday November 15 2015, @08:13PM
Of course one way to reduce loopholes would be to say that if a corporation says that certain profits belong to it (for purposes of legal control or financial reports - annual reports), then those profits should be taxable. To avoid unfair double taxation you could say that the organization would be taxed on what's left over of the profit from other taxes. So if it's taxed zero by Ireland then the USA could tax it 39.1% (especially if the corporation wants to keep bragging about its profits in the USA).
If you publicly say "we made 2 billion" and you can use those billions as if they are yours (to borrow more money from banks or in other ways) then that profit is yours and thus it should be taxed as if it is yours. Now if only some entity in Ireland gets to say "we made 2 billion" and use those billions in whatever way they want and the company with a similar name in the USA can't do a thing about it nor claim it owns those billions (without breaking fraud laws), then yes the company in the USA doesn't own those billions and shouldn't be taxed based on them.
After all if I go around publicly saying I made 20 million this year and use the millions to buy cars and houses for my use, should the tax department agree with me that those millions aren't mine but actually belong to some entity in Antigua/Ireland etc and so aren't taxable income?
Yes it would mean that some companies may leave the USA. But hey at least it stops them from bragging that they made so much, they are a US company and deserve the benefits of a US company. You're getting more honesty and less bullshit and lies. And how much would you really lose? Not like they are paying taxes. You really think Apple/Google will sack everyone in USA and fully move to other countries?