
Microsoft had shifted at least $39B in U.S. profits to Puerto Rico - zoobab
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher
======
paxys
"Who deserves a corporation's taxes?" is still an unanswered question
globally.

A company pays employees who pay income taxes in jurisdictions where they live
and work.

It pays payroll taxes in the regions it operates and employs people.

It pays sales taxes on the materials it purchases and collects and transfers
sales taxes for stuff it sells, to the state/jurisdiction where the sale takes
place.

It pays property taxes on buildings it owns.

All of this is obvious, but then the company as a whole likely has some
revenue and (maybe) profit - who taxes those? The country where it is
registered? Where it has the most employees? _Every_ country and jurisdiction
it operates in or has sales in, with some agreed-upon split?

This last question is the cause of every single "company XYZ paid nothing in
taxes" or "company XYZ uses a tax haven" article out there.

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JoeAltmaier
Um. Puerto Rico _is_ part of the United States.

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rgbrenner
Except PR citizens and corporations don't generally pay US income taxes. There
are exceptions though, like if the income is from US activity. They do pay a
few other federal taxes (like FICA, FUTA), but those aren't relevant to the
article.

~~~
jdsully
No taxation without representation.

~~~
rgbrenner
Yes... I mention this because it's the only reason Microsoft's tax dodge
works, since as Joe mentions, PR is part of the US.

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8bitsrule
Some thoughtful consideration of corporate welfare:

[http://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/corporate-parasites-
ho...](http://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/corporate-parasites-how-
taxpayers-subsidize-profits-with-rana-foroohar-and-david-dayen/)

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cercatrova
If the fitness function of your system is to accrue as much capital as
possible, why wouldn't you perform actions that advances your fitness
function?

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gharding
I wish people were able to think about what is really doing on here for
themselves for a few seconds instead of swallowing whole the prepackaged
rhetoric from either side; on one side we have "corporations are evil and must
be taxed just as heavily as we want to tax the life out of all citizens to
support others against their will", and on the other side we have
"corporations are benevolent angels who are constantly persecuted and hunted
for their life blood while only ever having the most pure intentions and
thoughts any angel could ever have.

Reality though is quite a bit in the middle-ground … corporations are
enterprises headed by purely selfish and overwhelmingly people that are living
embodiments of the dark triad of personality traits (narcissism fueled by
psychopathy enacting machiavellianism), but on the other hand they are also
very much not wrong in simply wanting to preserve and keep what they have,
regardless of whether they got it illicitly and immorally in the first place,
largely enabled by the other tribe of the dark triad that only carry a
different banner, while also being corporatists, but feigning "concern for the
common man" while devising ever more elaborate schemes for how to disposes
people who actually earn things through productive and hard work of the fruits
of their labor in order to support themselves and those who empower them.

What it all can be reduced down to when you start disassembling the various
shields, force fields, lies, misdirection, and deception to get to the core of
things; what we are really facing is an actual, real, objective new form of
the parasitic exploitation model humanity has known in many forms, but most
often refers to its most obvious incarnation as slavery … we have a system of
modern slavery, one that long ago realized it is way more profitable to not
have to worry taking care of unproductive slaves you physically control, but
rather you simply take a huge chunk of most people who are productive and your
net profit is wildly higher. It's precisely one of the reasons that oligarchs
make sure to push everyone's attention to the trope of slavery, so most people
do not realize that "slavery" (a term referring to the systematic exploitation
of the slavs … a European people … even far and beyond feudal serfdom that was
also a "slavery" business model) pivoted its business model.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Corporate "slaves" are some of the best paid in history. I'm sure the "model"
figured out that if their labor is generally wealthier, it is far more
productive and profitable.

~~~
SirLotsaLocks
>"it"

refering to people as "it" is kind of wrong

also the only reason its better (if thats even true) is because things used to
be so shitty that anything is better than that

~~~
leetcrew
> refering to people as "it" is kind of wrong.

I don't agree. labor is functioning as a collective noun here. it's common to
use "it" to refer to a collective noun (even if the collective is people),
especially when there is a sense of the collective acting as a single unit
(eg, the jury delivered its verdict).

~~~
ksec
And a gentle reminder not everyone is native in English.

