The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[chrisp65]

in similar news to Chindie’s (I couildn’t give it a like, what the ****’s to like!), France closed the border for 48 hours on Monday but we’ve sent a crack team of negotiators over and we’ve got them to agree to open the border again. On Wednesday.

I’d imagine some consultant somewhere just earned another eight million.

[colhint]

21 minutes ago, Chindie said:

You **** idiots. **** dumb dumb little England clearings in the woods.

Why? why have they bought so many doses of a drug they have not approved of. This isn't being little Englanders. This is France and Germany saying to the EU  get your flipping act together. The EU will not meet until January 6th to decide whether it's ok to use and Modena say it will only be available in mass in Spring 2021. The German press are going mad at the EU and Merkel, they think it's outrageous that the only German given the vaccine happened to be in the UK. The EU has suffered nearly 50k deaths per month. So waiting until 6th of jan is at a guess half a months worth. Even if it can be delivered and administered on th\at day.

[StefanAVFC]

54 minutes ago, Chindie said:

You **** idiots. **** dumb dumb little England clearings in the woods.

Also this

Being part of a club that genuinely stands up for each other's interests is objectively a good thing

[blandy]

42 minutes ago, colhint said:

Why on earth would you think tax avoiders voted leave? The biggest tax avoiders absolutely love the EU. Amazon apple etc, put money into the remain campaign. 

Because the EU, in terms of individuals wants to introduce more taxes on the stuff rich people do and want to have more openness about currently hidden assets and so on.

Companies don't vote.

Quote

Amazon apple etc, put money into the remain campaign. 

Do you have a source for that allegation? It would be illegal were it true.

[chrisp65]

 

 

[ml1dch]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

A bit!  He’s taken yet another Laurel & Hardy move from Bunter Johnson (using a so called much more nasty virus mutation as a fig leaf excuse to undo his previous **** up) and turned it on the UK - a “look what happens when ports get blocked - better be careful, wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to your export trucks in January now, would you?” not so subtle message on Brexit talks - an arm twist.

On the other hand, our Government have said that the virus is so dangerous and prevalent that people shouldn't leave Kent to move to a different part of England.

It's a bit rich for them to say that it's too dangerous for someone to move from Kent to Surrey, but going from Kent to northern France should be fine.

[blandy]

35 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

It's a bit rich for them to say that it's too dangerous for someone to move from Kent to Surrey, but going from Kent to northern France should be fine.

Exactly - Our lot have said "ooh, Dangerous new fungus, that's why we cancelled our Xmas opening up, nothing to do with our incompetence" and so Macron has just gone "Wahey! English Muppets -  well better shut the border then because "fungus" & show them what'll happen with no deal, or a deal we don't like."

[Enda]

5 hours ago, colhint said:

Why on earth would you think tax avoiders voted leave? The biggest tax avoiders absolutely love the EU. Amazon apple etc, put money into the remain campaign. 

Amazon has only paid £83m tax in the UK in the last decade. Last year sales topped £6.1b here and they paid £14m in tax. Apparently 97% of the things we bought last year came from  Ireland and Luxembourg. And 88% of all iphone contracts and purchases came from just Ireland. 

Taxation is a member state competence. The EU doesn’t have powers on corporate tax avoidance, that’s a matter for the individual members. Companies such as Amazon love the EU because it allows them to buy and sell (and, yes, make a profit) easily, not because the EU is sort of tax avoidance. That’s not the EU’s job.

If you start a restaurant and lose £10k in your first year, you can carry those losses forward the next year. That means if you turn £12k profit in year two you only pay tax on the £2k accumulated profits, acknowledging your prior losses. Amazon uses this fact to pay very little tax on its UK profits, because Amazon was unprofitable for so long.

If Starbucks makes £100k from a branch in Manchester, some of that is because of the smart decisions to play Oasis and Paul Weller over the radio there, but most of it is because of the branding, recipes and supply chain logistics that have been perfected by Starbucks Inc, not Dave the Branch Manager in Manchester. So the £100k profit is partly taxable in Seattle, where Starbucks is based. Starbucks will push the numbers in their favour, but the truth is very little of the £100k profit is because of Dave the Manager. Starbucks ends up paying little tax to HMG, like they would if they had to pay a large franchise fee to open the branch. Much the same phenomenon goes on with Apple. Their value added in the UK is small. Jim the salesman in Carphone Warehouse boosts Apple’s profit every time he makes a sale, but the real money ends up in Silicon Valley. Rightly so.

Apple’s European accountants are based in Cork so the company “books” most of its overseas profits in Ireland, and pays very little tax on it because it’s ultimately repatriated to California and taxed there at US rates not Irish rates. The ECJ recently ruled the EU is not very powerful in how much it can tell Ireland what to do with its tax laws.  

I’m not being flippant when I say if you’re unhappy with the flexibility British tax law, blame your MP not Amazon or the EU. British corporate tax law is very loose... God bless the Tories, eh?

[colhint]

What has it got to do with British tax law? The EU case was that it was receiving state aid by paying taxes at 0.005%. It's the split double Irish tax system, not offered to any Irish companies, just US multinationals and made it the largest beps user in the world'

Ireland is listed by all academics as a tax haven, which is why the EU went after it. It's the only country in the EU blacklisted by a g20. The EU Itself called  Ireland the biggest tax haven in the world in 2016.

Makes you wonder why Margarethe Vestager spent 8 million on the case when it seems to be so simple. God bless the EU eh.

[Enda]

4 minutes ago, colhint said:

Ireland is listed by all academics as a tax haven

I’m an academic and don’t think Ireland is a tax haven

[StefanAVFC]

A Brexiteer finally emerged 

[LondonLax]

You don't have to support Brexit to think that Ireland's (or Luxemberg's) tax arrangements are dodgy. It's a bit of a cop out to say 'well the EU doesn't have any powers over corporate tax avoidance'. It doesn't because member states have decided they don't want it to and prefer to keep their dodgy tax arrangements in place. 

[Enda]

36 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

You don't have to support Brexit to think that Ireland's (or Luxemberg's) tax arrangements are dodgy. It's a bit of a cop out to say 'well the EU doesn't have any powers over corporate tax avoidance'. It doesn't because member states have decided they don't want it to and prefer to keep their dodgy tax arrangements in place. 

Agreed on the first point.

Disagree that Ireland’s tax arrangements are dodgy. Ireland fails exactly zero of the OECD conditions for “tax haven” status. Zero. The main academic list of “tax havens” was published in 1991, and so is about as relevant to policy today is as Graham Taylor is to the English football team. It was even written ten years before the euro came about, so it hopelessly out of date. Ireland is not listed as a tax haven by the European Commission. There was a report by a Dutch socialist MEP that claims Ireland *looks like* a tax haven, but that’s essentially propaganda. Just because someone makes money on the stock market doesn’t mean it’s laundered.

Ireland is geographically convenient, English speaking, a member of the EU, democratically stable, with one of the youngest populations in Europe, and is a famously welcoming place. Ireland has a low corporate tax rate (12.5%), a highly qualified workforce, and a deeply entrenched network in America. Since WWII the U.S. Speaker of the House has been called McCormack for 9 years, O’Neill for 10 years, and Foley for 6 years.

Lots of countries have low tax rates. Bulgaria’s corporate tax rate is lower than Ireland’s. So if it’s just for the taxes, why don’t companies move to Sofia? Because they’d lose the young educated work force, the easy shipping and aviation links, and the political and corporate network. Thinking Ireland’s growth is because its tax rate is low is neglects a dozen other factors.

[bickster]

21 minutes ago, Enda said:

Dutch socialist MEP that claims Ireland *looks like* a tax haven

Thats rich coming from the country that allows Uber (and countless others to pay eff all tax)

[colhint]

Oecd don't list the Cayman Islands as a tax haven either. You may think Irelands corporate tax  rate is 12.5% (eu average 22.5%) but the only people  paying this are Irish companies. The Multinationals are paying between 0.005 and 2% This accounts for nearly 80% if corporate taxes collected. Furthermore 10 of these companies pay almost 10% of all taxes collected. This is because of the beps system, base erosion and profit sharing. Ireland is the biggest inflow for beps in the world. The complex structures, the double Irish, Single Malt and CIAI, allow multinationals to move profits from other countries to Ireland.

Multinationals don't move to Bulgaria because Ireland is welcoming and has an educated workforce. They don't move to Bulgaria and other similar low tax countries because they have nothing like Beps in place.

Why would Apple move there to pay 9% CT when they can pay 0.005% in Ireland.

[LondonLax]

Quote

Economists estimate that 80% of profits shifted from EU countries wind up in tax havens located in the EU, namely Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands. Luxembourg accounted for $47 billion in shifted profit in 2015. Ireland accounted for $106 billion and the Netherlands accounted for $57 billion in the same year.

 

Quote

Though Luxembourg has a population of around 630,000, it attracts as much foreign direct investment (FDI) as the United States.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100115/why-luxembourg-considered-tax-haven.asp

There is still a lot of work to be done on taxation in the EU. 

[Genie]

Sky News just saying faint rumours (from the Brussels side) of a trade deal is done.

[Enda]

7 minutes ago, colhint said:

Oecd don't list the Cayman Islands as a tax haven either. You may think Irelands corporate tax  rate is 12.5% (eu average 22.5%) but the only people  paying this are Irish companies. The Multinationals are paying between 0.005 and 2% This accounts for nearly 80% if corporate taxes collected. Furthermore 10 of these companies pay almost 10% of all taxes collected. This is because of the beps system, base erosion and profit sharing. Ireland is the biggest inflow for beps in the world. The complex structures, the double Irish, Single Malt and CIAI, allow multinationals to move profits from other countries to Ireland.

Multinationals don't move to Bulgaria because Ireland is welcoming and has an educated workforce. They don't move to Bulgaria and other similar low tax countries because they have nothing like Beps in place.

Why would Apple move there to pay 9% CT when they can pay 0.005% in Ireland.

Cayman Islands dropped off the list when they agreed to share taxpayer information. Ireland never on the list because it has shared and cooperated for years and years and years. You could make a case Ireland was a tax haven in 1991. Not anymore. Incidentally, you should check the status of the British Virgin Islands, Jersey, Gibraltar, and the Isle of Man.

The 0.005% figure was tried in the European Court. As discussed above, that was money collected worldwide and sent onwards to California. Taxable under US rates, not Irish. It’s a dramatic figure but unfortunately I don’t think the Irish exchequer is entitled to 12.5% of Apple’s worldwide profits. Ireland is only entitled to 12.5% of the value attributable to activities in Ireland. Having accountants in Cork means that’s a small fraction of Apple’s bottom line.

[Enda]

12 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100115/why-luxembourg-considered-tax-haven.asp

There is still a lot of work to be done on taxation in the EU. 

I don’t think it’s an *EU* problem. I think Luxembourg is a bit of a cheeky bastard, but I don’t think it’s the EU’s place to mention it.

[Enda]

26 minutes ago, bickster said:

Thats rich coming from the country that allows Uber (and countless others to pay eff all tax)

Socialists, innit.