Ethics of tax planning

[grumbler]

I wish Grumbles, CC and DG would just fuck and get it over with. I'd assume it would be DG getting the Eiffel Tower treatment.

I  fucked just last night, so that part is done.  CC is married, so it might be tougher for him to fuck. 

[The Brain]

Fuck on, fuck off.

[viper37]

He isn't saying we should cut taxes on the wealthy, he is saying that it is possible that doing so might have some positive side effects that you might not realize.

The particulars of whether you should or not in some specific circumstance is not the same.

At least, I think that is what he is saying.

I am challenging the assumption that the reason that companies plan around taxes is because they are too high. If the company is making millions it seems hard to conceive of a rate where it would just not make sense to do so. Even if it was 1% surely that is worth hiring a few tax attorneys.

Now some tax rates are so burdensome that companies will just get out of dodge but I have yet to see that federal taxes are high enough to have that sort of impact. Sometimes the states drive them away though.

tax is an expense like any other.  Your duty, to your shareholders, is to maximise their wealth.  There is no downside in reducing your tax expense, customers won't stop shopping at your place when they learn you dodge taxes any legal way you can.  Paying more taxes does not bring more customers either.

So it comes down to pure costs.  How much does it costs to hire fiscalists to plan my taxes vs how much money I will save.
You may put an allowance for future defense costs, but usually, in these cases, the worst case scenario is that the government will change the rules and it will not be allowed in the future, but your past gains are still ok.

[viper37]

Employers here do not report salary information but instead issue statements which the employee provides to the tax authority.  Auditing of salaried and hourly wage earners is very rare.  Voluntary compliance among that group of tax payers is very high.

Not entirely true.

First, for my sector, I have to make monthly report to the appropriate authority the salary, sector of activity, union, hours, region of work and salary bonus of all my workforce.
I have to report monthly and yearly the wages paid to all employees, the income tax and all other deductions I took on their pay and give the government their due.
Yearly I will then have to give each employee and the government the same individual reports as well as a global one.  The only thing the Revenue agency does not get is the hours made, that is the responsibility of another agency.

For bartenders&waiters, the employer must provide a statement for the amount of tip received.  If below 10%, the government will assume they are cheating and the employer as well as the employee will need to prove they make less.

[CountDeMoney]

I wish Grumbles, CC and DG would just fuck and get it over with. I'd assume it would be DG getting the Eiffel Tower treatment.

"Sacre bleu, hell...damned near killed 'em!"

[Ed Anger]

Do I want to find out what that is?

Yeah, you should.

[Martinus]

While I do think simplifying it would be nice, I am more thinking of just starting over from scratch from some foundational principles.

You do realise that would put hundreds of companies out of business and thousands of people out of work, right?

[Valmy]

While I do think simplifying it would be nice, I am more thinking of just starting over from scratch from some foundational principles.

You do realise that would put hundreds of companies out of business and thousands of people out of work, right?

I have been told that eliminating taxes would in fact lead to everybody having a high paying job, now that all the job creators have been freed from their chains.

[viper37]

While I do think simplifying it would be nice, I am more thinking of just starting over from scratch from some foundational principles.

You do realise that would put hundreds of companies out of business and thousands of people out of work, right?

they said that when they reformed the old french civil code in my province.  Now they're saying lawyers are so expensive that they risk destroying their own practice since barely anyone but a tiny rich minority can really afford them.

[Zanza]

While I do think simplifying it would be nice, I am more thinking of just starting over from scratch from some foundational principles.

You do realise that would put hundreds of companies out of business and thousands of people out of work, right?

Taxes exist to fund public expenditure, not to generate tax advisory jobs.

[Tonitrus]

While I do think simplifying it would be nice, I am more thinking of just starting over from scratch from some foundational principles.

You do realise that would put hundreds of companies out of business and thousands of people out of work, right?

Just like single-payer healthcare. 

[alfred russel]

While I do think simplifying it would be nice, I am more thinking of just starting over from scratch from some foundational principles.

You do realise that would put hundreds of companies out of business and thousands of people out of work, right?

We can also stimulate demand for window repair and replacement jobs by throwing bricks through windows.

[alfred russel]

I  fucked just last night, so that part is done. 

Fucking up this thread doesn't count.

[grumbler]

I  fucked just last night, so that part is done. 

Fucking up this thread doesn't count.

No, you will have to try something new.  It will be worth it, if you are successful.

[MadImmortalMan]

I am challenging the assumption that the reason that companies plan around taxes is because they are too high. If the company is making millions it seems hard to conceive of a rate where it would just not make sense to do so. Even if it was 1% surely that is worth hiring a few tax attorneys.

Yeah, they would plan around the taxes no matter what the rates are, because that's just obvious. There's not going to be a company who says "we don't care about the taxes because they aren't that bad". They will always be weighing the costs of relocation vs the costs of staying. Moving stuff is expensive. You can tax a company quite a lot before moving makes sense. If it gets to that point where there is a mass exodus or whatever, you're well past the question of tactical planning and more in the line of either increasing repression or loosening. A lot.

I do think that world governments competing for better tax rates is a good force in the market though. "Tax havens" could be easily put out of business by removing their advantage. Just out-compete them. It's happening to my own state now in the corporate registration arena. For decades, a corporation residence Mecca. We can't hack it and we're getting screwed. If we weren't making sweetheart deals with Tesla and Apple we'd be going down the drain. It's all about the high-powered connections.
Once you start relying on that stuff, you're done. It might be tomorrow, it might be a few decades, but that's it.