Pascal Saint-Amans restates the OECD intention to tackle double non-taxation in this follow-up piece to the taxation of MNCs in the Australian Financial Review.
“The current rules legally facilitate the location of the profit in non-tax jurisdictions. In other words you can develop schemes that can put your intangibles in Singapore or Switzerland or Luxembourg while there is no activity there. You can deduct your expenses in Australia. You can put your intangibles in Singapore – where it is not taxed. You can lend money to your subsidiaries across the world so that you can erase profit in all these countries because there is excessive interest, then you locate a treasury centre in Ireland for there is no tax either. At the end of the day there is no tax anywhere.”
15 replies on “No tax anywhere”
Tony Benn’s 5 questions for the untaxed
What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”
Seafoid,
I love Harold Wilson’s put down of the former Viscount Stansgate. “He immatured as he got older.”
@ Tull
Do you take the Sunday Telegraph ? I bought it on Sunday for the rugby coverage. Fascinating.
No tax anywhere, but tax reliefs everywhere, at least in Ireland.
The Finance Act 2011 introduced changes to remove property reliefs, subject to the delaying tactic of a commencement order and after the completion of an ‘economic assessment impact’.
The Finance Act 2012 quietly removed the changes proposed in 2011, retaining most of the reliefs.
Strange, the way that the tax laws are made and then discarded, without any need for soup fueled protests outside the Dail or elsewhere.
The retention of the reliefs has done little for homeless people, more like ‘rubbing lard to a fat pigs a$se’, as the saying goes.
S ,
Not a fan of the Torygraph. Given up buying Papers tbh. Journos all spin now. Thinking on AWB, he did more damage to Labour than Margaret.
Last week One Direction, the boyband, asked fans to petition George Osborne, the UK chancellor, to avoid cuts in development aid in today’s budget and tackle corporate tax avoidance instead.
Sign of changing times maybe and a clearer message than from Bono who criticises resource companies in Africa for using Dutch tax haven schemes that he avails of himself.
Then there was Uli Hoeness, Bayern Munich president, in recent weeks, admitting cheating his country out of €27m in taxes – 8 times the level on his charge sheet. It didn’t save him from jail.
The people lobbying Pascal Saint-Amans cost little compared with what their clients may lose. So let us hope that the Frenchman will resist the bribery of a lucrative job offer.
Enda Kenny told a group of American business folk that he will personally provide a support service for them.
“If you’ve got a problem, you have an issue or anxiety or concern or a proposition I want to hear it. My number is a public number you can call me anytime,” he is reported as saying. “For American business and American investment in our country, you have an open door to Government. Because it’s in [the] Government’s interest to see that these obstacles are removed and opportunities are created for people to live and work and grow our economy. That is an invitation, it is open to everybody,” Kenny added.
This could be dismissed as a bit of blarney but it wouldn’t be a service available for the typical Irish SME and there was no nuance about the offer: “an open door” from a doormat government.
One of the very few journalists that dared touch Irish Corp tax with a barge pole.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/the-super-rich-must-pay-more-tax-it-s-a-matter-of-evolution-1.1728716
Michael Hennigan,
Hoeneß was known to have cheated 3 Mio, and beyond 1 Mio prison sentences are mandatory in Germany, except for extreme cases. There was simply no way he could get around jail.
But the prosecution knew, that Hoeneß knew, that …. there was a lot more, the prosecution could only proof, if his swiss lawyer would hand over documents, the german prosecution would not get from the swiss bank.
That this went so smooth with the 10x kicker in 4 days, meant that there was a backroom deal, prepared, and the numbers agreed on within one day last week.
Now, 3.5 years doesn’t sound so bad, you could run over your wife for 10 years, but he will most likely have to serve 60%, 2 years, since he is repentant and will not bite the adoring guard. The chancellor herself uttered already her respect.
Cheating 30 Mio of taxes means he made at least 150 Mio profit on this trades, on top of his sausage factory empire, other holdings, the AAA rated Bayern Munich.
He basically bought 1 -2 years freedom for 10 – 20 % of his net wealth.
That he waited so long, I interpret more as an agreed deal to protect him from leaks in the prosecution and pretty clever anger management of the public. Somewhat cynical, but you’ve got to appreciate the handywork.
He will serve in Landsberg, maybe he gets the cell of Adolf H as a perk.
Typically cells there look pretty much like my former dorm apartment, this is not the end of the world. He is old enough to not have to work for 1.2 Euro / hour
@Duckworth Lewis
Yer only man. Ireland defeat the UAE in Twenty20 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh.
Key game vs Holland on Frl. @3.pm on Sky
Only the little people pay taxes.
p.s. Blind Biddy is back in Kharkov. Just one text from her today.
The so called ‘westh’ would want to tone down the ‘ironic’ rhetoric before they walk the ‘interim fools’ in Kiev, following Genghis Khan, into a ‘battle they cannot win’.
fyi
Leading Candidates Square Off: The Race for Europe’s Top Job
This May, European voters will decide for the first time who becomes the president of the European Commission. In a SPIEGEL interview, leading candidates Jean-Claude Juncker, 59, and Martin Schulz, 58, discuss their views on tax havens, euro bonds and the losers in the debt crisis.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/european-commission-candidates-square-off-in-spiegel-debate-a-959565.html#ref=nl-international
@DOD
Thanks for Spiegel link.
The article is about as confusing as the whole European setup.
The translators seem to make Spiegel ‘president of the commission’ on page two. The reply is presumably that of Schultz
“SPIEGEL: I think Schäuble’s idea is good, but so far, a European finance minister is little more than a title. We don’t need a European Finance Ministry to assert fair taxation. There are large companies that make profits but pay no taxes. And when speculators make losses, taxpayers are forced to cover them. The consequence of this has been a dramatic loss of trust by the citizens. As president of the Commission, I would introduce a simple principle: The country where the profit is made is the country where the tax is paid.”
fyi
Warning on economy – Fairness is central to any recovery
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
The European Commission’s assessment of our economy makes for sobering if not dispiriting reading
It suggests we face, at a minimum, another four years of difficult budgets. In immediate terms the commission predicts a €2.5bn cut in Government spending next year, some 25% more than had been anticipated.
After more than six years of cuts to public services, business closures, something approaching a Biblical exodus from the country, utterly unsustainable rates of unemployment and falling standards of living right across society, this prognosis is daunting. At this stage it would not be unreasonable, indeed it would be entirely human, to hope for a more optimistic outlook. What, after all, was — is — all of the sacrifice for? Even the most sceptical might accept that these figures are a blow to politicians who risked political capital, reputation and electoral prospects by advancing deeply unpopular measures to try to resolve our still-not-fixed crisis.
The commission’s assessment was published just as the OECD warned that curtailing social policies risked deepening the impact of the recession.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/ourview/warning-on-economy–fairness-is-central-to-any-recovery-262402.html
@Joseph Ryan
Bit like the tower of Babel. That said, both candidates are safe pragmatists from either side of the half-way line. Don’t expect a revolution – or what is really required – Euro=Bonds & a centralized Banking Regulator with a well loaded bazooka.
Austerity has been a DISASTER. And continue to be so.
Merryll Lynch bank bailout document now available on a UK website FTAlphaville, via Sinn Fein.
Here is a link to the document:
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2014/03/ML-Nov08.pdf
@ Francis
Hoeneß seems to have had a serious gambling problem. He had E150 million in his Vontobel account in 2005 and by 2010 there was nothing.
“Ich hatte den Eindruck, er versteht, was er macht” erinnert sich ein ehemaliger KaderMitarbeiter von Vontobel nach einer Besprechung mit Hoeneß”
.
“Es gab einen Moment in dem Hoeneß die Kontrolle verloren haben muss”
(NZZ)
I wonder what Schweini thinks of the whole thing. He got an awful boll$cking from Hoeneß after he missed a penalty in the 2012 CL final.
One answer would appear to be to cease to allow interest (and license fees) to be tax deductible.
Much like the ordinary household… suck that up Mr. Apple!