Yay!!!! Ireland wins appeal at Europe's General Court!!

Shefwedfan wrote: »

The funny part is the voters go on about every other party, they have done XYZ. Yet she lies constantly to them about everything and they lap it up and spout about how great she is


This is basic stuff, even the most stupid person in Ireland should at this stage realize the 13 billion is not going to be handed out to us. Yet we have her on TV telling people that we should take the 13 billion now because of Covid.


Either she is an idiot or she thinks the voters are idiots

The voters are idiots. Any moron can say what you want people to hear without any consequence to it.

CalamariFritti wrote: »

I did. Not that it matters. It’s essentially the same thing regardless whether there’s a thin veil of legality over it or not.

But people who themselves have 50% plus of their income taken by the taxman will applaud nonetheless. Go figure.

But to even call what Apple did as tax avoidance is wrong in my view. It was planning their tax affairs in a wholly legal manner in the most tax efficient manner that laws allowed. It's not like it was some sneaky loophole that a clever accountant found and few knew about.

According to Irish tax rules as they were, companies are only subject to Irish tax if they are tax resident here or if they have a permanent establishment (or branch) here. The Apple companies were not tax resident here but they did have a branch. The profits attributable to the branch were duly taxed at 12.5%.

The haven had a rule that companies resident there paid 0% tax. The Apple companies were tax resident in such a haven.

The US has a rule that says profits arising to US subsidiaries are subject to tax in the US with credit allowed for foreign tax paid. So under this rule Apple would have had an approximate 30% tax liability in the US. However, the US has an exemption to this called the "check the box" rule. Subject to certain conditions, which are easily met, this allows companies to defer their US tax until the funds are actually remitted to the US. Apple availed of this exemption/deferral, so legitimately paid no US tax on their profits.

Ireland got its fair share. Haven didn't want anything. The US were happy to defer their share.

Of course, morally it's not right that MNCs can park huge amounts of profits in havens to avail of 0% tax rates. As I said before, the US should have put an end to it years ago, but it has taken the OECD to come up with plans to stop it from the other side. So the profit generating IP has to be moved to a territory where the company has substance.

Wanderer78 wrote: »

again, theyd hardly send more of that money into things such as share buy backs?

They could use it for share buy backs, but i think the point is to get them in the door and 10% of something rather than 100% of nothing.

I'm not sure if changing the rate would do much good, a cost benefit analysis would be needed but even that would be difficult to model accurately.

christy c wrote: »

They could use it for share buy backs, but i think the point is to get them in the door and 10% of something rather than 100% of nothing.

I'm not sure if changing the rate would do much good, a cost benefit analysis would be needed but even that would be difficult to model accurately.

so reducing it, may not do much for us at all, theyre already here, and by the looks of things, they aint going anywhere

Iscreamkone wrote: »

If 12.5% is good, why wouldn't 10% be better?
It would piss off some in the EU, but with Brexit ongoing the EU may not want to push us too much.

You're probably a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but 12.5% is our trademark. It's been there a long time, it's got through a lot of international pressure to be changed, but it's still set in stone.

Moving it down wouldn't give a whole heap of benefit, but it would create some uncertainty. "If it can move down, it can move up", etc. Companies who make the investment to create jobs here crave stability and predictability. Knowing that our 12.5% rate is here to stay, no matter what, is a great trademark, and moving it even slightly, up or down, would negatively impact on that.

It only would have paid the long term scrounger bill for a year anyway.

Still it gives the ultras a reason to be reelected by the layabouts.

Iscreamkone wrote: »

If 12.5% is good, why wouldn't 10% be better?
It would piss off some in the EU, but with Brexit ongoing the EU may not want to push us too much.

We are attracting sufficient inward investment with the 12.5% so why would be reduce it? If we were attracting too little, or too much, then we would have an argument for change.

Shefwedfan wrote: »

They can leave in the morning, every other country in Europe and the world would offer them huge rewards to move. Not sure how you don’t understand this?

Dell had manufacturing here which is the hardest to move and they done it, most of these companies have software development etc, they can pack up in morning and tell staff move to XYZ or see you

so by maintaining our current rate, theyre gonna leave, why arent we already panicking over this?

Wanderer78 wrote: »

but maintaining the status quo more than likely will maintain the status quo, we re all in desperate need of more tax revenue, and the majority of citizens are largely tapped out in this regard, something has to change

The majority of citizens are not largely tapped out.

Our property tax - LPT - is among the lowest in Europe
The income taxation burden on those earning below the average wage is the lowest in Europe.
We don't have water charges or local service taxes.
Our carbon taxes are too low.

There are a lot of areas which are untapped. You do have a point with regard to:

Those on higher than average incomes are taxed on incomes to a greater extent than elsewhere.
Our excise duties are high, but this may be a good thing.
Our VAT rates are similar to most - however, the exempt categories are too many

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Your talking about the desperate need for tax, mass unemployment is going to deliver more tax is it?

Or where you getting this tax from?

jebus! maintain current rate, change the way we accept this revenue, partially in stocks and shares, continue to work with other eu countries and eu institutions to slowlt change the rates in the eu as a whole, ideally slowly increasing rates uniformly, possibly partially accepting these revenues as stocks and shares. sounds simple, but im sure its far from it

Wanderer78 wrote: »

but maintaining the status quo more than likely will maintain the status quo, we re all in desperate need of more tax revenue, and the majority of citizens are largely tapped out in this regard, something has to change

What are you proposing?

Shefwedfan wrote: »

In terms of tax, The issue is our spending and not our income. We need to cut back. Our Social welfare, the mismanagement of HSE, our politician are highly paid, the bottomless pit that is rte etc etc

we done this after the last recession, it hasnt worked out well, policies such as austerity are known to cause far more damage than solve

Shefwedfan wrote: »

The funny part is the voters go on about every other party, they have done XYZ. Yet she lies constantly to them about everything and they lap it up and spout about how great she is


This is basic stuff, even the most stupid person in Ireland should at this stage realize the 13 billion is not going to be handed out to us. Yet we have her on TV telling people that we should take the 13 billion now because of Covid.


Either she is an idiot or she thinks the voters are idiots

Their manifesto for government included €22.1bn in additional expenditure over the next five years with an increase in taxes of €1.4bn

So a budget deficit of €20.7bn over five years or €4.14bn per year?

She thinks her voters are idiots.