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Comment by grp | Hacker News Reader

What about the concrete initiative of just paying taxes in each countries where the real business is done?

If you're in the US and want to actually make the world better there are ridiculously more efficient ways to do so than handing your money to the government. Tax dollars paid in the US are probably more of a negative force in the world than a positive one when you consider the damage our military and corporate subsidies have done over the last 50 years.

Facebook has oodles of untaxed cash by virtue of the Double Irish, so it could choose any of a number of EU governments to invest charitably in. Not just the USA.

I wonder what Greece would think of free cash injections, for example? What could improved infrastructure do for that struggling country?

what makes you think pumping even more free cash into greece would help anybody but a select few that handles that cash? just throwing cash at problems rarely fixes them, what these guys are trying to do (zuck, gates, etc) is create a movement that goes for the root of the problems. it's quite encouraging and kudos to them

Greece was a random (and poor) example.

The pith of my point was that Facebook does not need to repatriate money to America and get taxed to do good, contrary to my post's parent's assertion. There is plenty of good to be done all over the world, and Facebook already has untaxed pools of Euros to use.

I don't disagree, but it's not because his wealth is actually valued at 45B that he deserves more democratic power than me or anyone else in the US or the world.

This trend for "corporations can make the world better" is misleading. Everyone else has failed: military corp, narco, public corp (as in ancient urrs), ... If only one has succeed, we should see it.

If Facebook were to pay taxes "where the real business is done" (assuming there is a legal way to avoid doing so), it would probably be considered gross negligence. I imagine the same is true of any multinational.

Besides, Facebook can put that money to much better use than government. All the lowly users of Facebook on the other hand do not know how to best spend their money and had better hand it over. Zuck says so (so do Gates and Soros).

I have yet to see unemployment checks from facebook, or social security, or public services or infrastructure. But I've seen budget cuts and austerity and the GAFAM's tax evasion plays a role in this.

The point is that if facebook were to stop its tax evasion business, it would probably not be profitable.

If you are taxed, you are, by definition, profitable.

I don't think 'internet.org' is the best way to teach the lowly users how to best spend their money.

The responsability of teaching should be public (so like a government), not just 3 random guys.

Zuck also says "you need to work in a hangar"... Nah, I want my workplace to be better than my home.

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