Off Topic Thread 3.0

Buer · 31-01-2017 01:52PM

awec wrote: »

Enda Kenny standing shaking his hand on March 17 is going to be embarrassing.

He'd be mad not to go, though. It would be the definition of cutting your nose off to spite your face. There would only be one loser from that action.

The big petition to have him not go is just head in the sand, bandwagon stuff. If we cancelled the visit, Trump wouldn't give us a second moment's consideration. He'd most likely blast us on Twitter and that would be that. We might not even be afforded the opportunity to resume such a visit in the future under other presidents once the tradition is broken by us.

There are tens of thousands of Irish in the USA. We have one opportunity to actually get to meet Trump and say our piece in an effort to protect those people. To give up that opportunity would be silly.

awec · 31-01-2017 01:55PM

Oh I'm not saying he shouldn't go, just saying it's going to be pretty embarrassing.

Theresa May's visit was also fairly nauseating with the constant "special relationship" nonsense, she may as well have got down on one knee and bowed before him, but it just highlights the relative insignificance of small European nations when it comes to dealing with the US.

wp_rathead · 31-01-2017 01:56PM

dregin wrote: »

It's now called the Alt Right, I think??

Alt Right are just rebranded Neo Nazis

Tea Party are Traditional Conservatives mixed with Evangelical Christianity

Neil3030 · 31-01-2017 02:01PM

Alt right are, at best, a bunch of misguided pseudo intellectual hipsters who are trying to intellectualise your standard far-right hatred. Women and muslims seem to be the primary targets, from the (thankfully) limited number of times I've seen these people speak. Crap like, "we're not saying X are inferior/violent/dangerous, but research shows... blah blah".

Bazzo · 31-01-2017 03:46PM

pickarooney wrote: »

'Emanating Reagan'
Is this 'alternative English' ?

[url="http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-conservatives-guide-to-the-alt-right/]This article[/url] is good for giving people an idea of what Breitbart stands for. Featuring such wonderful snippets as:

Liberal democracy, they argued, had no better a historical track record than monarchy, while egalitarianism flew in the face of every piece of research on hereditary intelligence. Asking people to see each other as human beings rather than members of a demographic in-group, meanwhile, ignored every piece of research on tribal psychology.

or

Steve Sailer, meanwhile, helped spark the “human biodiversity” movement, a group of bloggers and researchers who strode eagerly into the minefield of scientific race differences — in a much less measured tone than former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade.

irishbucsfan · 31-01-2017 03:51PM

This UK Parliament debate on Brexit is basically person after person saying "I don't agree with it, and I think it's the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the human race, but I'm going to vote for it"

CatFromHue · 31-01-2017 04:05PM

The Eu Commission is talking about the Apple Tax thing again.

I have to say while I don't know much about tax it does sound like they don't have a monkey's either.

How can tax due here somehow also be payable to other EU countries??

Stheno · 31-01-2017 04:08PM

CatFromHue wrote: »

The Eu Commission is talking about the Apple Tax thing again.

I have to say while I don't know much about tax it does sound like they don't have a monkey's either.

How can tax due here somehow also be payable to other EU countries??

Basically apple sold stuff in other EU countries, and the profits were assigned to Apple Ireland to avoid paying tax in the countries in which the profit was generated/tax liability arose. That's it in a nutshell.

There's a giant thread on it in the politics cafe if you've nothing better to do

CatFromHue · 31-01-2017 04:18PM

I thought it was related to corporation tax and not VAT and that the money was owed to the US

awec · 31-01-2017 04:21PM

CatFromHue wrote: »

I thought it was related to corporation tax and not VAT

It is corpo tax.

If Apple sell products throughout the EU and assign the profits to Apple IE then the bulk of apple's EU profit will be subject to corporation tax in Ireland rather than other EU countries.

CatFromHue · 31-01-2017 04:25PM

So if the money is owed to us via Corp Tax, which I thought was meant to be payed in the US as they did the main R&D and were the head office, how would other EU countries be due some of the money.

Also I'd have thought if 1 other EU country was due money then all other EU countries would be due money so our 13bn would very quickly evaporate to a small amount considering the size of Ireland and it's market compared to Europe and other European country's markets.

irishbucsfan · 31-01-2017 04:37PM

Sure if you took tax away from Ireland "all we'd have left is butter and dodgy priests" (Max Keiser quote)

Stheno · 31-01-2017 04:37PM

CatFromHue wrote: »

So if the money is owed to us via Corp Tax, which I thought was meant to be payed in the US as they did the main R&D and were the head office, how would other EU countries be due some of the money.

Also I'd have thought if 1 other EU country was due money then all other EU countries would be due money so our 13bn would very quickly evaporate to a small amount considering the size of Ireland and it's market compared to Europe and other European country's markets.

By assigning the profits to Apple Ireland Apple didn't pay the corporation tax they should have paid in other EU countries on profits they made in those countries, they paid our rate of corporation tax which was minute.

Yeah it's likely that lots of countries could make a claim on some of the money, it's all a bit up in the air.

Podge_irl · 31-01-2017 04:41PM

Stheno wrote: »

By assigning the profits to Apple Ireland Apple didn't pay the corporation tax they should have paid in other EU countries on profits they made in those countries, they paid our rate of corporation tax which was minute.

Yeah it's likely that lots of countries could make a claim on some of the money, it's all a bit up in the air.

There is nothing untoward about that though, don't loads of companies do it?

The issue at hand is that it is claimed Apple got some kind of special deal from Ireland which they are equating to state subvention, which is illegal under EU law.

Stheno · 31-01-2017 04:43PM

Podge_irl wrote: »

There is nothing untoward about that though, don't loads of companies do it?

The issue at hand is that it is claimed Apple got some kind of special deal from Ireland which they are equating to state subvention, which is illegal under EU law.

Yeah which they then used as a vehicle to repatriate the profits back to.

Revenue here at the time approved it.

Whatever it was has now been removed as a "loophole"

CatFromHue · 31-01-2017 04:46PM

Margrethe Vestager has appeared before the Oireachtas Finance Committee after ruling last year that €13bn is owed by the US giant.

The Government's appealing to the European Courts and one of its grounds is that it can not be a tax collector for all of Europe.
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But the Commissioner says the money is owed to Ireland: "We have not redone for obvious reasons, we are not the tax authority and do not have the numbers of the individual member states, so we have not redone the adult organisation, or the value creation and recording

"My guess is that the large large large majority of the unpaid taxes would be due in Ireland."

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/european-commissioner-vast-majority-of-apple-back-tax-due-in-ireland-774846.html

They're some pretty vague comments about something that I would have thought should be straight forward. Also sounds like they haven't actually crunched the numbers properly

Bazzo · 31-01-2017 05:22PM

Stheno wrote: »

By assigning the profits to Apple Ireland Apple didn't pay the corporation tax they should have paid in other EU countries on profits they made in those countries, they paid our rate of corporation tax which was minute.

Yeah it's likely that lots of countries could make a claim on some of the money, it's all a bit up in the air.

Not sure they even paid our rate. Weren't there loopholes in use meaning their effective tax rates on the money brought in to Ireland were as low as 0.05% or even 0.005% some years?

I know they'll basically horde the money here for a decade or so until the US declares a "once off" special tax year or something of the like for coporations bringing money in to the country and then they'll move it all back to the US taxed at 5 or so %. Bush had the last exemption year in 2004 IIRC.

Podge_irl · 31-01-2017 05:33PM

Bazzo wrote: »

Not sure they even paid our rate. Weren't there loopholes in use meaning their effective tax rates on the money brought in to Ireland were as low as 0.05% or even 0.005% some years?

I know they'll basically horde the money here for a decade or so until the US declares a "once off" special tax year or something of the like for coporations bringing money in to the country and then they'll move it all back to the US taxed at 5 or so %. Bush had the last exemption year in 2004 IIRC.

Yeah, if they had just paid our rate I don't think there would be any issue at all. They were able to avoid paying it on a huge amount of their income. They are claiming they'll pay it in the US when they repatriate the profits there - but they are unlikely to do that anytime soon.

At least such is my likely awful understanding of the situation.

thomond2006 · 31-01-2017 05:39PM

Superbowl pick?

Podge_irl · 31-01-2017 05:43PM

thomond2006 wrote: »

Superbowl pick?

I desperately hope the Falcons but I expect to see Pats take it. Not really gonna be able to watch it as in Finland on Sunday so it doesn't even start til 0130am

thomond2006 · 31-01-2017 05:53PM

Podge_irl wrote: »

I desperately hope the Falcons but I expect to see Pats take it. Not really gonna be able to watch it as in Finland on Sunday so it doesn't even start til 0130am

Monday off.

CMOTDibbler · 31-01-2017 06:22PM

Podge_irl wrote: »

Yeah, if they had just paid our rate I don't think there would be any issue at all. They were able to avoid paying it on a huge amount of their income. They are claiming they'll pay it in the US when they repatriate the profits there - but they are unlikely to do that anytime soon.

At least such is my likely awful understanding of the situation.

That's pretty much spot on. The US repatriation thing could come up if Trump fulfills another election promise and cuts corporation tax. However he'd be up against the legislature there and although they should be supportive of him, they may not be if the outcome is the loss of income to the treasury.

He can't just write another signed tweet for that.

swiwi_ · 31-01-2017 09:32PM

molloyjh wrote: »

Ah yeah, eventually someone somewhere will put a stop to this. Or will they? We've all been saying that this farce would end sometime. Few believed for one second this clown would get elected. We all thought it was a funny sideshow that would end when Hilary was declared the winner. Then we consoled ourselves with the "he can't be as bad in office, his advisors will moderate his behaviour". Now we've seen that hasn't happened either we've moved where we think the answer will come from. I've no faith that there will be any meaningful change tbh. Trump had a load of things lined up to come in. He'll force as many things through as he can now and things will start to settle down once he's done that. But the reality is that little will really change.

In a perverse twisted kind of way I'm sort of enjoying the charade.

It's intriguing to see how far a man can go treating the president as being the CEO of a corporation.

It will end terribly and be a PR disaster for the states but I've never seen anything like it.

Once the republicans have had enough it will be over in a flash.

swiwi_ · 31-01-2017 09:37PM

awec wrote: »

Oh I'm not saying he shouldn't go, just saying it's going to be pretty embarrassing.

Theresa May's visit was also fairly nauseating with the constant "special relationship" nonsense, she may as well have got down on one knee and...

I was wondering for a second there where you were going with this. Wouldn't put anything past trump.

swiwi_ · 31-01-2017 09:39PM

There is one thing Ireland most definitely has over nz.

The quality of your actors.

Cillian Murphy is genius imo.

irishbucsfan · 31-01-2017 09:41PM

swiwi_ wrote: »

There is one thing Ireland most definitely has over nz.

The quality of your actors.

Cillian Murphy is genius imo.

NZ punch well above their weight in the film stakes as well to be fair

CatFromHue · 31-01-2017 09:50PM

NZ milk and dairy is muck though your desert pizza's are fantastic

swiwi_ · 31-01-2017 09:54PM

CatFromHue wrote: »

NZ milk and dairy is muck though your desert pizza's are fantastic

Yeah I'm not worried I have Swiss milk and dairy

But that Kerry Gold butter was a massive hit with my in-laws. Respect.

swiwi_ · 31-01-2017 10:03PM

irishbucsfan wrote: »

NZ punch well above their weight in the film stakes as well to be fair

Yeah, I dunno.

We sort of do quirky.

We have Russell Crowe - he's famous; I don't think he's a particularly amazing actor.

I suppose Sam Neill is fairly well known.

It's a bit like Irish golfers vs Kiwi golfers...

Bazzo · 31-01-2017 10:16PM

swiwi_ wrote: »

Yeah, I dunno.

We sort of do quirky.

We have Russell Crowe - he's famous; I don't think he's a particularly amazing actor.

I suppose Sam Neill is fairly well known.

It's a bit like Irish golfers vs Kiwi golfers...

I always thought Russell Crowe was Australian. Isn't he a league fan!?

Off Topic Thread 3.0

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