
Global Tax Deal Targets Multinationals - paulsutter
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38c6ce56-6ea4-11e5-aca9-d87542bf8673.html
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toyg
Good job to OECD for leading the way, as it often does, but these are mostly
guidelines. The devil will, as usually, cavort in the details of each
country's own implementation and related treaties. I don't have the time to go
through all produced material, but if it results in actions similar to the
European VAT-mess, they could end up being a lot of red tape for little gain.

There is also a real risk that some of these actions will be used as political
capital to spend against the implementation of T^^IP treaties, which could be
even more pernicious than a bit of tax evasion.

Of course, there will be the issue of forcing smaller countries to comply --
it took a decade of continuous brinkmanship to (sort-of) getting the likes of
Cayman to accept the minimum amount of scrutiny; it's fair to expect larger
changes to encounter more resistance.

~~~
CaptainZapp

      which could be even more pernicious than a bit of tax evasion.
    

Calling "up to $250bn a year in extra tax revenues" a bit of tax evasion is a
tad disengineous, don't you think?

~~~
toyg
It's 250bn around dozens of countries, i.e. a few billions here and there --
worth paying attention to, but not enough to sell all our rights for. I'd
rather let them get away with a few billions than become (even more of) an
indentured servant for Big Corp.

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porsupah
The Irish Times has a non-paywalled version:

[http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/global-tax-
deal-t...](http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/global-tax-deal-targets-
profits-of-multinationals-1.2386103)

------
shully
Go there through google:

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CBwQqQIwAGoVChMIyJHFodG8yAIVJKqmCh1tCwoe&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F38c6ce56-6ea4-11e5-aca9-d87542bf8673.html&usg=AFQjCNGn6G0oeWvA-J567r4x7-rXy4gBRQ&sig2=7t2QBw5I8gEVh40bskaQxA)

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ageek123
Because I'm sure these governments will spend the extra $250 billion/year so
much more productively than the companies they're taking it from... (not.)

~~~
toyg
Considering most of this untaxed money sits idle in some Caribbean virtual
bank, yes, even using it to dig holes would be a more productive use.

~~~
crdoconnor
>Considering most of this untaxed money sits idle in some Caribbean virtual
bank

It's not idle. Those carribean virtual banks buy a lot of empty condos in big
cities with tight housing markets all around the world.

God forbid that money would all be taxed away. Prices and rents might come
down and those condos would start to fill up with people... What a _waste_

~~~
zo1
>" _It 's not idle. Those carribean virtual banks buy a lot of empty condos in
big cities with tight housing markets all around the world._"

And who do they buy it from? And what do those individuals do with that money?

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crdoconnor
Property development corporations I guess.

~~~
zo1
The point is that it disperses throughout the economy anyways. Money doesn't
magically disappear into nothingness when it is invested, as it seemed in the
earlier comment. It eventually get's used by someone to buy something.

~~~
crdoconnor
>The point is that it disperses throughout the economy anyways.

The point is that the wealth trickles up and is getting _less and less_
dispersed. That ought to be obvious to anybody paying attention in the last 10
years.

~~~
zo1
Assuming that's true, and you want to social-engineer your populace into some
sort of "equality" utopia, then I can see why you might think that to be a
problem.

Unfortunately, we can disagree on that latter part as I believe in absolute
individual freedom from violence and coercion. That definitely includes state
engineering.

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lwhalen
Fascinating premise, utterly buried behind a paywall. Tried a different
browser, tried 'Private Mode', nothing. Please update with a non-paywalled
link.

~~~
jwr
I think HN should institute a policy that only links that are actually
accessible can be posted. This is the web — and while it is perfectly fine to
put things behind paywalls, one should not expect that people will link to
them on open sites like HN.

~~~
DanBC
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

Paywalls are fine; asking for help to get around the paywall is fine;
complaining about paywalls is off topic.

~~~
jwr
Oh, I haven't seen that posting. Thanks.

I disagree, but since those are the rules, I'll comply.

