This Amazon/Starbucks etc tax issue.

[Pat Vegas]

I'm in 2 minds on this subject.

Firstly they are doing nothing wrong.

However same could be said that companies like are destroying the high street shops.

[Brentwood]

http://www.economist.com/node/6919139

If you track their purchase of raw materials, you'll see that they sail it around the world to register it at a port to pay low tax, then ship it somewhere else so it can be boxed etc etc. When people say that having high taxes causes companies to move abroad, this is an example of it in practice

[JJSB]

There's something like well over a trillion dollars worth of funds held offshore in tax havens like the Cayman Islands.

[Pokster]

do the sam in reverse from sales overseas???

[Brentwood]

Don't they separate their coffee bean division from their shop division and then buy the coffee beans from Starbucks Luxemburg for a fortune, meaning they make a loss?

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Can't fault them for taking advantage if so.

I would love to pay less tax if I could. And PRSI. And universal social charge.

Ireland is ****.

http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/frown.gif

[Bergkamp's Brain]

make this kind of loophole illegal and problem solved. The businesses have done nothing wrong and are not to blame, at all.

[barrybueno]

these companies are employing thousands of people paying millions in PAYE etc...

[7evens]

Very difficult to compete against someone who isn't paying the same tax levels as everyone else.

[JJSB]

then when he buys products from shops the profits on those will be corporation taxed. If he buys petrol/travel tickets etc.

And then when he dies if his estate is worth enough, that will be taxed too.

He can't turn around and say I'll be paying all these taxes through other means anyway, so why not just give me a very generous tax rate on my earnings!

[PSRB]

and until that changes I can't really see them offering to pay billions more in tax. It's the loopholes and laws that need to be changed

[JJSB]

[Mack]

Your use of 'etc' is not very enlightening as to what the f**k you are in about ( bit out of the loop here). You then give a 'firstly' and have no 'secondly'.
As for your use of 'like' in your final sentence .. http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/puke.gif
God be with the days when you cared http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/frown.gif ...

[Peter]

Does anyone really expect them to pay tax they dont have to? f**ked up way to run a business http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/hehe.gif

[barrybueno]

really well. It's the system that's the problem here

[JJSB]

to maximise their profits.

It's a corrupt society when governments and big businesses are entwined hand in hand, but that's the way it's been going for a while.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

will listen and vent their "anger" at the business concerned, when in actual fact the responsibility lies with the government, fully.

[Ashberto]

[PSRB]

Not a lot is my guess

[JJSB]

type fiddle.

And if a person works in Dubai, they don't pay any tax.

[PSRB]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

I probably did not articulate my point correctly.

If Starbucks are avoiding tax which i assume this is what the issue is, then the system as such is wrong. They are simply taking advantage of it.

[Peter]

To some extent.

Tax should be a legal issue. If it is morally wrong for them to et away with it, make it illegal.

[Witharby 2-3 weeks]

[dismalswamp]

Why should any business throw away money for no good reason?
Change the law instead of bleating.

[Camp Freddie]

...especially when the administration in charge know exactly what loopholes there are. Morality is at the heart of it, I would argue...

[taxman10]

All perfectly legal and probably impossible to stop unless we come out of the eu. The problem is the freedom of establishment and free movement of capital in the euro zone. Luxembourg and the netherlands plus Ireland all have more generous tax systems so people set up there to trade across the euro zone (not really a surprise is it, after all thats the reason for those countries tax systems to be so generous - to attract companies)