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Comment by gareim | Hacker News Reader

As I understand it, if the cash is repatriated, the income is taxed at US corporate tax rates minus what they've already paid to a foreign government. So essentially they would be paying an amount equivalent to the US corporate tax. Framing it as "foreign and US corporate tax" is misleading.

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There was a day, not long ago, where paying taxes was a societal duty. We all benefit from the governments programs and thus need to fund the government. There shouldn’t be this huge pressure to find a way to not pay for taxes at an ethical and functional level.

You might not (probably don’t) agree with everything government does, but government still needs to be funded. Many local governments would really benefit from paid taxes, fwiw.

There isn’t any period when higher than necessary tax rates were willingly paid. Tax policy that assumes any tax rate is fully collectible is responsible for the tax preparation and structuring industry.

The societal duty to perform sacrifices in order to receive benefits from a higher power is indeed an ancient idea, though.

There was a day, not long ago, where state and federal spending was less than 15% of GDP. Now it’s over 25%.

We also benefit from investment. So why are we taxing it at such high rates? The real corporate tax rate should be zero to encourage investing in the US. You could raise as much tax revenues by taxing dividends and capital gains at ordinary income rates. Which also would make our tax system more progressive.

It’s misleading because it’s far worse than what you describe.

First they pay income tax to the foreign government.

Then out of what’s left the pay state corporate income tax.

Then out of what’s left they pay federal income tax, or the special repatriation tax.

Then the dividend what’s left to shareholders who pay state income taxes on it.

Then out of what’s left they pay federal dividend taxes.

A little old retiree in California is lucky if they don’t lose 60% of their share of their Apple profits to taxes.

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