Yeah, to prevent the race to the bottom the world has experienced over the last decades and that led to widespread inability of governments to fulfill their responsibilities.
You don't actually think that your comment negates my point, do you?
The point of the sarcasm is to emphasize that if you already cannot do it with trillions then you certainly are not going to get it done with billions.
It's a simple argument that stands entirely on it's own.
You first need to provide convincing evidence to the contrary rather than just saying things like "imagine if we gave even more money to something that we already give money too ..."
Is HN devolving into 3-year old logic? I swear the last couple of years have been bad.
There's double taxation all the time. For instance, if I run a store, and I pay sales tax on what I sell, and then I pay income tax on net revenue, the income from the same transaction is taxed twice.
And your employees are paid from that taxed income and that is taxed. When the employee buys something with that money that is taxed as is their dwelling via property tax. And the cycle continues.
I do wonder how long it takes for a dollar to be 100% taxed as it is exchanged. Transactional taxes certainly give government incentive to stoke consumption as the faster the dollar is exchanging hands the more tax revenue they are collecting.
Apart from the material question of whether or not it’s double taxation: why does it matter? Plenty of things are doubly taxed: I pay taxes once on my income, and then I pay it again when I exchange my income for goods or redeem any financial instrument that my income went into.
Personally, I would say it matters because that scenario is BS.
Further, don't forget that while the IRS knows exactly how much you have made - they still require you to figure it out at the end of the year and then in all likelihood pay more taxes than what was taxed.
In scandanavian countries - their taxes are high - but at least the system is simple; they send you a summary of what you made, what you were taxed and you basically just sign it (according to some friends from there - I do not have first hand knowledge of how its actually done in Sweden/Norway/Finland)
> Personally, I would say it matters because that scenario is BS.
Which scenario?
To be clear, I agree that the IRS’s guessing game system is ridiculous. I’d much prefer the Scandinavian system. But I’m not clear on what that has to do with double taxation, seeing how those countries do it as well (via VAT or any discretionary tax.) No country can accurately tax you ahead of time on discretionary spending, and I don’t believe any does.
Double taxation is a funny concept because the economy is cyclic anyway. If any given dollar could only be taxed once, eventually you'd run out of untaxed dollars to tax.
Because taxes are necessary and we just make up a rule that works in practice. This is not "foundations of logic", it is just "where can I shoehorn a tax so I can fund the public services and the military". It does not need to make sense when put in weird hypothetical made up edge cases.
Taxes on corporate net income should not count as "double taxation" because the corporation is legally distinct in nearly every way from its shareholders. That's the whole point of corporations. The corporation gets taxed once on net income because that corporation exists as a construct within govt structures. The shareholders get taxed because of the relationship they have with the corporation. It's literally fee for service.
This argument falls apart for flow through entities. They are essentially treated the same as the shareholders by the IRS but they are treated as distinct by other parts of the government, banks, courts, etc.
So what service are you actually paying for besides just... Getting taxed by the IRS?
I do not have any professional expertise that would allow me to make recommendations or financial/legal advice. Do you know if these flow through entities provide any limits on liabilities for the people who benefit from owning the pass through entity? If so, I would consider that as a benefit.
That's my point. They are not taxed separately but they do provide liability protection. In your other comment you made it sound like they are taxed separately and that was the cost to pay for being treated like a separate entity.
It looks like I misunderstood your comment. The point I want to drive home is that when the government "backs" one entity, paying for that backing via taxes on net income should not count as double taxation because I consider that tax a fee to pay for that one entity. Whether the government offers some other kind of entity with different tax advantages is, to me, beside the point because as someone who is not a corporate tax expert, I have to assume that there must be some kind of advantage to running a C corp vs an llc.
As I understand it, many countries set the rate of tax on dividends, and on gains from selling shares, to be below the rate of income tax by roughly the rate of corporation tax.
In particular, things tend to be set up so that for small companies it doesn't make much difference whether the owner takes money out by paying themselves a salary or a dividend.
How? Example: I sell you a good at inflated price and you resell it at shipping cost. You make 0 profit.
I made all the profit. I'm outside the G20.
You're my corp inside the G20.
Your tax rate is zero
Surprised other countries aren't calling this out as an attack on their sovereignty. Co-operation frameworks seem to become governance bodies pretty fast. The problem isn't that these companies aren't taxed enough, the problem is their influence operations on various national governments, and this tax issue is a distraction.
What I think we're seeing more broadly is the dissolution of the nation state into a single global administrative regime, and the inevitable consequence from a risk perspective is when you homogenize and correlate everyone under the same rules and criteria, it also fails as a single correlated entity, and this is why people and smaller countries should resist it in principle.
Extracting value from one nation/people and not paying taxes to support the public services of that nation/people is "not pulling your weight". Your corporate entity is involved in the life of these people so it should pay for their growth. That is more of an axiom for me.
There were always concessions and deals with kings and empires for monopolies, free trade and exclusions from taxation. There are myriads of examples from the age of empires. E.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
The freedom to do whatever i want. Societies don't really provide freedoms, they exist to curb them. Technology on the other hand is empowering individuals
I get that many people share your point of view, but I really do not understand it. Could you elaborate on it? Why would someone not want to join a post scarcity society where the only limits on your freedom is to not hurt other creatures and nature as a whole. A global government is necessary for that, in my mind mainly in order to fund blue sky research, respond to crises, and ensure monopolies are busted.
This is the recipe that gets you communism / nazism / all kinds of single-minded societies. Do people forget that millions died for the freedom from such regimes?
That assumption in your first sentence is just wrong. What stops you from leaving and being your own island in such a story? Nothing, if you truly want it. In a post scarcity society you just go and isolate yourself or find like minded people. Just do not expect the "global government" to provide for you or to stand quiet when you damage "the Commons".
Whenever I have had this conversation, people say "they would not let me leave" when they mean "they will not let me leave and start damaging our common resources". I think there is a gigantic difference between these two and the first is just wrong (I agree it would be terrible if it was true) while the second is a policy I would support. Am I missing something?
TLDR: Being able to leave is of fundamental importance to freedom and it is in no way forbidden by the imaginary global government that prompted this discussion. But when you leave you should stop expecting to have the benefits of that society.
Can you provide an example of an island that will be 'left alone'? Right now we have treaties extending the rights of countries to all the land, the seas and up in space. Even in international waters they are removing people who want to seastead there. There's truly nowhere to go because a global government expands itself until it fills the vessel.
Alaska for example? Get your own power generation and latrine. It does seem you have to pay taxes on owned land though. But living out of an RV seems to get around that.
In my country you can be the custodian of a mountain hut (some of them with plenty of amenities). Again there are some minor taxes to pay (not unreasonable given that they provide for the upkeep of the road to the hut), but again, living from an RV gets around that.
I guess the RV would require insurance too. So my examples do not fulfill a fundamentalist interpretation of your requirements, but it seems to me it fullfils the most important features (being left 99% alone, with 1% minor inconveniences). As I mentioned, the fact that the government would go after you if you damage the commons (e.g. hunt endangered species) is a feature, not a bug.
Does this at least fulfill the spirit of your question?
Of course not. That is not 'exiting' a society, that s isolating yourself while still being burdened by the whole legal system and requirements of the country you are in. Exiting requires that everyone has an opportunity to escape to another, often competing, society, like how Snowden was able to exit to russia
This probably would make me sound as an extremist to Americans, but I do think the correct word to use in your second paragraph is totalitarianism, not communism. I am not necessarily a fan of communism, but the distinction seems pretty big and important to me.
Surely a global government constitutes a monopoly that cannot be busted.
The aspiration above seems to be assuming as a premise, without argument or evidence, that a global government is not just a necessary condition for a post-scarcity Utopia, but a guaranteed means of reaching such a goal.
Given the magnitude of such a step, and in the light of the appalling outcomes of past attempts to create world empires, along with the level of coercion and misdirection required, notably in dealing with the inevitable dissidents, I would imagine such a premise ought to be subject to very careful scrutiny before it can be simply assumed. One cannot simply reverse the burden of proof!
The thread started with "federation" which slowly turned to a "global empire" in your comment. Yeah, with that premise you are right, but that was not the premise of the OP. We were discussing democratic federations where member states have significant independence. This is also what makes it different from a monopoly: a big company or an empire would fit the bill, a democracy is not a monopoly.
Sure, the EU, for instance, fails at that utopic view for now, because of how byzantine and convoluted its attempt at democracy is. But we are getting there and might even succeed, especially given that we have never before had access to today's "almost post scarcity" technology.
But yes, you are right that it is not a guarantee. But it seems like one of the worthiest goals we can have.
I think the issue discussed was different. Can you please explain WHY a global government would create a post-scarcity society?
In fact, I'm quite curious what the connection is between global governance and post-scarcity at all. How does scarcity prevent global governance? How does abundance require it? How is it helped by abundance? Surely abundance would do the opposite: it seems to me this would amplify the desire for self-determination on ever smaller scales which seems to be at odds with global governance.
I don't even think people will like the result. Surely the end result of an abundant society is 99% of people sitting in a room with Youtube + Netflix + Caviar and alcohol from the replicator. I'm sure they'll want to go for a walk every now and then but interaction between people will die off a LOT more than it already has. I of course can't be sure but I think people living such lives will have a very bad reaction to any attempt at governance.
The connection I am suggesting is in the other direction: post-scarcity (thanks to technology) makes it easier to have a peaceful federated democratic global government.
> I don't even think people will like the result. Surely the end result of an abundant society is 99% of people sitting in a room with Youtube + Netflix + Caviar and alcohol from the replicator
History seems to point to the exact opposite: much (not all) of scientific progress is driven by the privileged few that have their needs taken care off. Most (not all) scientists and scholars up until recently were of privileged background. Nor are the children of the rich today just living the lonely life of hedonism you suggest.
Yes, because if there's one thing I've learned about "the privileged few" it's how much they like and respect governance limiting what they can do ... My point is that such people will fight against any and all attempts at intervening in their lives, whether or not they get a vote in it.
But yes, some have hobbies. 1 in 1000 or so has useful hobbies, and there have been historical time periods where that really mattered.
Previous attempts to unify the world have been somewhat unedifying, to say the least, but let's not go there...
The main problem with removing boundaries and autonomy, whether this happens on a small scale such as a family group, or on a global scale, is that the very worst actors and ideas no longer face obstacles to their influence, there is no means of escaping them, and no better alternatives by which to judge them. It creates a race to the bottom.
Bermuda is an island of 65k people in the middle of the Atlantic with 40k registered companies.
Claiming sovereignty to take registration fees from multinationals that want to obfuscate their financials is just absurd. This is just blatant financial shenanigans:
> Surprised other countries aren't calling this out as an attack on their sovereignty.
That is called out early in the article: that issue has blocked progress* on this issue until now but the financial impact of the pandemic (greater calls on governments as “insurers of last resort” and greater profits at the top of the power law distribution) plus changes in governments has created a different environment.
* “progress” in the sense of forward motion; not using the word in any political sense.
> The working class shouldn't be subsidizing large corporations.
Totally agreed. This is exactly why HN’s constant support for corporate tax avoidance confuses me. Most HNers live in high CoL countries, where corps do not pay their share of taxes. This leads to the same HNers paying more taxes to support their country. Truly hilarious!
Personally, I don't know, but one argument friends have made is that you "tax what you want less of" and taxing businesses might create a smaller economy.
I also wonder about the laffer curve, where sometimes higher taxes might lead to lower tax revenue and vice versa.
Because it all works out in the end. If a company is taxed more it just means less profits which means I have a smaller 401k, fewer employees and so on, buys less materials, does less work...
Corporations aren't magic money trees. It's like damming a river, you don't get magic free water and get to send water downstream too. Dams have lots of downsides in return for controlling flow.
Some thing are experiential. I can't substantially explain riding a bike to someone who hasn't gone through the process of learning and then being able to ride. It just won't really make any sense and there isn't a frame of reference.
I strongly recommend starting a company and trying to sell something if you truly want an answer to your question.
Interesting and I agree there's a real problem, but...what about the difference in what tax deductions are allowed? It seems like you'll just end up with competition in which countries allow more 'expenses' to be deducted. If one country gives a higher tax benefit for any business that is carbon-neutral, say, allowing deductions to count more if they are somehow linked to combating climate change, is that cheating? How broad are they allowed to define "combating climate change"? Or any other thing you might plausibly have tax policies that are intended to encourage something or other. I see why they want to do this, but ultimately I am skeptical as to whether or not it will make any real change in the tax rates that large corporations (who can afford savvy accountants) will pay.
The intent is like the US’s Alternative Minimum Tax: individuals can use all the tax breaks they qualify for but also calculate AMT which has a simpler formula, and then pay the larger of the two.
In this case the agreement calls for that AMT to be 15% or more.
A global tax, is the way to inject global enforcement and global justice, hence global government. Guess which party is the only one that is international, has many genocides in its history and wants to rule the world eagerly as a predator with hunger?
What it means is world government. First the coordination on monetary policy , now taxation , then world army or sth. Centralization and the inevitable authoritarianism that grows with it continues apace
International coordination on economic/monetary/tax policy doesn't necessarily mean a move toward world government. In my mind, it opens a path in the exact opposite direction!
The trend toward coordination has been almost exclusively on matters of trade/monetary policy, with the power being consolidated in supra-national organizations and broad trade agreements. It seems safe to consolidate power in this area, so long as nations are weary of these institutions (given that all institutions tend to develop a kind of will to grow in power and scope) and, of course, as long as nations are able to unilaterally opt out.
But even as this consolidation of economic power has occurred, there has been no trend of consolidation of general governmental power. In fact, the opposite has occurred. The number of distinct nations has increased by ~10% since the 80's (from (roughly) 188 [1] to 206 [2], though the definitions are a bit fuzzy). The proportion of elective/representative governments has also risen dramatically.[3]
So there is no trend toward centralized/authoritarian governance. The general trend has been in the direction of smaller, more representative governance. The trend of economic coordination has merely nibbled away at some aspects of national governmental autonomy, and only the consent of those governments and their people.
In my mind, these two trends have us headed toward a marvelous future; one where supra-national institutions facilitate economic integration, and cumbersome national governments give way to modern states which are smaller, more accountable, and more democratic.
* countries don't have to increase their corporate tax rate to 15%
* home countries can "top-up" until the effective tax rate is 15%
* Tax havens can still exist, but the incentive for multinational firms to move their profits to tax havens goes away because their home countries just top-up until effective tax rate is 15%.
Inversion prohibitions are suggested. Inversions happen when companies move to tax havens while keeping their management and substantial operations in their previous home country.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadTime for that to end.
So, governments don't have trillions in tax dollars a year to provide necessary services for citizens?
Billions more should radically change everything for the better, right? Clearly, that's just a modus ponens logic 101 right there. Yup.
The point of the sarcasm is to emphasize that if you already cannot do it with trillions then you certainly are not going to get it done with billions.
It's a simple argument that stands entirely on it's own.
You first need to provide convincing evidence to the contrary rather than just saying things like "imagine if we gave even more money to something that we already give money too ..."
Is HN devolving into 3-year old logic? I swear the last couple of years have been bad.
The corporations end up distributing the money to stakeholders who then owe taxes on it.
What would happen if corporate tax rates were 0% because ... they aren’t really people after all?
Double taxation happens a lot. I don't think it's a good rule for determining if a tax is fair.
I do wonder how long it takes for a dollar to be 100% taxed as it is exchanged. Transactional taxes certainly give government incentive to stoke consumption as the faster the dollar is exchanging hands the more tax revenue they are collecting.
I’m not railing against taxes here. Just curious how long it takes the government to completely reconsider each dollar put into circulation.
Further, don't forget that while the IRS knows exactly how much you have made - they still require you to figure it out at the end of the year and then in all likelihood pay more taxes than what was taxed.
In scandanavian countries - their taxes are high - but at least the system is simple; they send you a summary of what you made, what you were taxed and you basically just sign it (according to some friends from there - I do not have first hand knowledge of how its actually done in Sweden/Norway/Finland)
Which scenario?
To be clear, I agree that the IRS’s guessing game system is ridiculous. I’d much prefer the Scandinavian system. But I’m not clear on what that has to do with double taxation, seeing how those countries do it as well (via VAT or any discretionary tax.) No country can accurately tax you ahead of time on discretionary spending, and I don’t believe any does.
Why are their taxes on every single transaction?
So what service are you actually paying for besides just... Getting taxed by the IRS?
In particular, things tend to be set up so that for small companies it doesn't make much difference whether the owner takes money out by paying themselves a salary or a dividend.
What I think we're seeing more broadly is the dissolution of the nation state into a single global administrative regime, and the inevitable consequence from a risk perspective is when you homogenize and correlate everyone under the same rules and criteria, it also fails as a single correlated entity, and this is why people and smaller countries should resist it in principle.
Do provide some sources or examples?
Instead, we have American companies like FAANG, Uber, etc claim they’re Irish/Dutch to avoid taxes globally.
Coercing other countries to have the tax rates that you wish is the same thing
Today, what do you do if you don't want to join society?
More broadly, what DO you want?
The freedom to do whatever i want. Societies don't really provide freedoms, they exist to curb them. Technology on the other hand is empowering individuals
This is the recipe that gets you communism / nazism / all kinds of single-minded societies. Do people forget that millions died for the freedom from such regimes?
Whenever I have had this conversation, people say "they would not let me leave" when they mean "they will not let me leave and start damaging our common resources". I think there is a gigantic difference between these two and the first is just wrong (I agree it would be terrible if it was true) while the second is a policy I would support. Am I missing something?
TLDR: Being able to leave is of fundamental importance to freedom and it is in no way forbidden by the imaginary global government that prompted this discussion. But when you leave you should stop expecting to have the benefits of that society.
In my country you can be the custodian of a mountain hut (some of them with plenty of amenities). Again there are some minor taxes to pay (not unreasonable given that they provide for the upkeep of the road to the hut), but again, living from an RV gets around that.
I guess the RV would require insurance too. So my examples do not fulfill a fundamentalist interpretation of your requirements, but it seems to me it fullfils the most important features (being left 99% alone, with 1% minor inconveniences). As I mentioned, the fact that the government would go after you if you damage the commons (e.g. hunt endangered species) is a feature, not a bug.
Does this at least fulfill the spirit of your question?
The aspiration above seems to be assuming as a premise, without argument or evidence, that a global government is not just a necessary condition for a post-scarcity Utopia, but a guaranteed means of reaching such a goal.
Given the magnitude of such a step, and in the light of the appalling outcomes of past attempts to create world empires, along with the level of coercion and misdirection required, notably in dealing with the inevitable dissidents, I would imagine such a premise ought to be subject to very careful scrutiny before it can be simply assumed. One cannot simply reverse the burden of proof!
Sure, the EU, for instance, fails at that utopic view for now, because of how byzantine and convoluted its attempt at democracy is. But we are getting there and might even succeed, especially given that we have never before had access to today's "almost post scarcity" technology.
But yes, you are right that it is not a guarantee. But it seems like one of the worthiest goals we can have.
In fact, I'm quite curious what the connection is between global governance and post-scarcity at all. How does scarcity prevent global governance? How does abundance require it? How is it helped by abundance? Surely abundance would do the opposite: it seems to me this would amplify the desire for self-determination on ever smaller scales which seems to be at odds with global governance.
I don't even think people will like the result. Surely the end result of an abundant society is 99% of people sitting in a room with Youtube + Netflix + Caviar and alcohol from the replicator. I'm sure they'll want to go for a walk every now and then but interaction between people will die off a LOT more than it already has. I of course can't be sure but I think people living such lives will have a very bad reaction to any attempt at governance.
> I don't even think people will like the result. Surely the end result of an abundant society is 99% of people sitting in a room with Youtube + Netflix + Caviar and alcohol from the replicator
History seems to point to the exact opposite: much (not all) of scientific progress is driven by the privileged few that have their needs taken care off. Most (not all) scientists and scholars up until recently were of privileged background. Nor are the children of the rich today just living the lonely life of hedonism you suggest.
But yes, some have hobbies. 1 in 1000 or so has useful hobbies, and there have been historical time periods where that really mattered.
The main problem with removing boundaries and autonomy, whether this happens on a small scale such as a family group, or on a global scale, is that the very worst actors and ideas no longer face obstacles to their influence, there is no means of escaping them, and no better alternatives by which to judge them. It creates a race to the bottom.
Claiming sovereignty to take registration fees from multinationals that want to obfuscate their financials is just absurd. This is just blatant financial shenanigans:
https://www.gov.bm/38865/google-bermuda-limited-thomas-hutch...
https://www.gov.bm/18571/general-electric-bermuda-ltd-marcel...
https://www.gov.bm/30983/caterpillar-bermuda-holding-company...
That is called out early in the article: that issue has blocked progress* on this issue until now but the financial impact of the pandemic (greater calls on governments as “insurers of last resort” and greater profits at the top of the power law distribution) plus changes in governments has created a different environment.
* “progress” in the sense of forward motion; not using the word in any political sense.
The working class shouldn't be subsidizing large corporations.
Totally agreed. This is exactly why HN’s constant support for corporate tax avoidance confuses me. Most HNers live in high CoL countries, where corps do not pay their share of taxes. This leads to the same HNers paying more taxes to support their country. Truly hilarious!
I also wonder about the laffer curve, where sometimes higher taxes might lead to lower tax revenue and vice versa.
Corporations aren't magic money trees. It's like damming a river, you don't get magic free water and get to send water downstream too. Dams have lots of downsides in return for controlling flow.
* Higher taxes does not mean companies will attempt to output less revenue.
Why would companies work /less/? Do HNers work less or ask for lower salaries due to being in higher tax brackets?
I strongly recommend starting a company and trying to sell something if you truly want an answer to your question.
Corporations aren't also a zero sum game. More taxes could mean more profit. Make the whole pie bigger an all that.
I would love to live in a universe where higher taxes somehow magically gives more profit.
In this case the agreement calls for that AMT to be 15% or more.
Whether this is good policy imposed on poor countries by rich countries is a great question. But that has little to do with the premise you suggest.
The trend toward coordination has been almost exclusively on matters of trade/monetary policy, with the power being consolidated in supra-national organizations and broad trade agreements. It seems safe to consolidate power in this area, so long as nations are weary of these institutions (given that all institutions tend to develop a kind of will to grow in power and scope) and, of course, as long as nations are able to unilaterally opt out.
But even as this consolidation of economic power has occurred, there has been no trend of consolidation of general governmental power. In fact, the opposite has occurred. The number of distinct nations has increased by ~10% since the 80's (from (roughly) 188 [1] to 206 [2], though the definitions are a bit fuzzy). The proportion of elective/representative governments has also risen dramatically.[3]
So there is no trend toward centralized/authoritarian governance. The general trend has been in the direction of smaller, more representative governance. The trend of economic coordination has merely nibbled away at some aspects of national governmental autonomy, and only the consent of those governments and their people.
In my mind, these two trends have us headed toward a marvelous future; one where supra-national institutions facilitate economic integration, and cumbersome national governments give way to modern states which are smaller, more accountable, and more democratic.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_th... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states [3] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/14/more-than-h...
* the minimum corporate tax rate is 15%
* countries don't have to increase their corporate tax rate to 15%
* home countries can "top-up" until the effective tax rate is 15%
* Tax havens can still exist, but the incentive for multinational firms to move their profits to tax havens goes away because their home countries just top-up until effective tax rate is 15%.
Inversion prohibitions are suggested. Inversions happen when companies move to tax havens while keeping their management and substantial operations in their previous home country.
What would stop companies to record losses by buying “consulting services” in from companies in third countries with lower tax rates?