06-29-2013, 04:41 AM | #91 | |
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Let me explain to you again what I'm complaining about: I am complaining about the fact that big multinationals find ways to avoid taxes by schemes that were never intended by the EU and are not available to "us" (us, the people), because the only make sense on the scale of a big corporation. I am complaining about the fact that these loopholes stay open, because lobbying pays and blackmails politicans into leaving them open. I am complaining because therefore, big corporations have an influence over the very tax system that basically allows them to help decide the amount of taxes they (do not) have to pay. I am complaining about the fact that as an honest citizen we neither have this opportunity, the choice nor the influence Amazon has on this tax system and that we therefore are treated unfairly. I am complaining about the fact that a small business owner neither has this opportunity, the choice nor the influence Amazon has on this tax system. Get it now? |
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06-29-2013, 04:48 AM | #92 | |
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Countries are allowed to set their own rates for different types of good. They are not allowed to redefine what those types of goods are, or set different rates for different goods of the same type. |
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06-29-2013, 05:33 AM | #93 | |
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06-29-2013, 07:25 AM | #94 | |
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I understand the frustration of some at seeing the big companies out-muscle smaller players. But it really is up to the governments to enact the laws that would change things. Complaining about Amazon in an ebook forum will do no good whereas if you wrote you local government representative it might have a little impact. And sometimes these "loopholes" and "opportunity" backfire on Amazon as it appears to have done last year. In 2012, Amazon paid an effective corporate tax rate of 78.6%, a particularly high amount, in part due to its strategy of leveraging tax shelters overseas. So it can be a double edged sword for them too. At any rate, they are just playing within the system and the animosity aimed at them by a few in this thread appears to be excessive. Reserve the animosity for your politicians! --Pat |
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06-29-2013, 08:27 AM | #95 | |
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In the case of the US, why not blame voters for electing politicians who trumpet adherence to principle and attack the other party? You can't elect that kind and expect them to turn around and act non-partisan the next day. I also blame the framers of the constitution for creating a bicameral legislature. (Go Nebraska!) If different parties control them, as now, there's no way to pass anything without opening up the legislators to charges of flip-flopping. Consider the Amazon warehouse air-conditioning issue a few years ago. An Allentown newspaper found bad conditions for unorganized workers. Should Amazon have waited for Congress to pass a law making fines for hot facilities higher than the cost of improving the warehouses? Or was it more reasonable for Amazon to made correcting the situation a valid corporate function, as they did? There's a place for the law, but there's also a place for public pressure, and there's even a place for comproming the bottom line in the cause of common decency even before there's public pressure. Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 06-29-2013 at 08:31 AM. |
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06-29-2013, 09:23 AM | #96 | |||||
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And European nations already coordinate amongst themselves through the EU. If the loophole situation were harmful enough, they should act to close it. Quote:
Voters are definitely to blame for the government they end up with. Quote:
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--Pat |
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06-29-2013, 12:18 PM | #97 | |
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But for people like rizla it is easier to bash companies online than to try and get laws changed. |
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06-29-2013, 06:33 PM | #98 | ||
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The only non-byzantine proposal I am aware of is to replace corporate taxation with a consumption tax. Quote:
Every word of tax law changes will be parsed by companies with highly aggressive tax avoidance departments to find new loopholes. Other companies will have different priorities. See: CEO Integrity and Tax Avoidance Laws work best when most people agree with them, and adherence comes more from socialization than enforcement. Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 06-29-2013 at 07:24 PM. |
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06-29-2013, 10:34 PM | #99 | |
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06-30-2013, 02:21 AM | #100 | |
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I get your point, but you're mistaken - there's no dichotomy between politics and big business. I thought everybody knew that by now. Amazon isn't merely playing the cards it's been dealt, it stacked the deck, dealt the cards and now claims to be "merely playing by the rules". I have to call BS on that one. (2) I do not believe that complaining here is going to change anything. I'm not that naive. I just like to discuss stuff. Matt Last edited by MattW; 06-30-2013 at 02:32 AM. |
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06-30-2013, 02:31 AM | #101 | |
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Do you honestly believe that the thousands of lobbyits in Washington and Brussels are there for fun? Don't you think that they have influence over the decisions our politicians make? Corporations lobby for and get the rules they want; and if they don't they threaten to take jobs overseas and no politician wants to antagonize them and take jobs away from their electorate. It's simply not true that corporations are merely playing by the rules and if we don't like it, we could change the rules by electing different politicians. Take the US, for instance, this beacon of democracy: you can either vote Republican or Democrat (otherwise, your vote is basically meaningless on a national scale), and both have an absolutely atrocious track record of reigning in Big Business. The Republicans may be more aggressive in their pro business stance, but your chances of effecting meaningful change in the tax code (or the patent system) in the US as a voter are zero. [EDIT: I do not want to get into the whole Republicans vs. Democrats mess here; the situation that you as a voter have no real choice is true in many countries, albeit maybe not as extreme as in a two-party-system like the US] That's just a fact. As long as the system works they way it does -- as long as money plays as big a part in politics as it does now -- we're f*cked. We'll get one step closer to being able to effect real change onc we realise that corporations are the driving force behind most pro-business laws. So, damn yes, we should blame the corporations. We can and should, of course, blame the politicians too, but the claim that Big Business (Amazon among them) just plays by the rules and didn't make those same rules is patently absurd. Matt Last edited by MattW; 06-30-2013 at 02:37 AM. Reason: inserted political sh*tstorm disclaimer (note the EDIT) |
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06-30-2013, 05:49 AM | #102 | |
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I would agree with you on the situation in the US. Last edited by HansTWN; 06-30-2013 at 05:51 AM. |
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06-30-2013, 08:05 AM | #103 | |
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If you want things changed, don't keep voting in the politicians who will so readily get into bed with big business. In the meantime, there are politicians who are pushing for change in the way big multinationals such as Apple, Amazon and Google are taxed. In a pluralistic country such as the U.S., that change comes slowly. But at least they acknowledge the problems. --Pat |
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06-30-2013, 08:14 AM | #104 | |
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Blame the EU for allowing Luxemburg (and France) to lower their VAT and not going after them hard enough. They are clamping down, but it's the EU laws which allowed Amazon and others to take advantage of the loopholes in the first place. So at least as pertains to the main issues in this thread -- Amazon in Europe -- you are dead wrong on your insistence they are the ones who created the rules. And even if you want to consider Amazon only in the context of the U.S., it is a relatively new company. Its success and lobbying clout is recent, so any influence it had on current domestic laws pertaining to the taxation of U.S. corporations is probably negligible or minor. Those laws existed before Amazon was born. --Pat Last edited by PatNY; 06-30-2013 at 09:01 AM. |
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06-30-2013, 08:28 AM | #105 | |||
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--Pat |
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