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Comment by mLuby | Hacker News Reader

Legality doesn't imply morality, as in this case where avoiding taxes is legal but immoral.

I'm just about ready to file my taxes -- which deductions are the immoral ones?

Move (on paper) to a country that doesn't tax offshore, then base your company on some island. Have offices in every major city, then send all net income to your offshore company. Make max tax reduction in the countries you operate and get financial aid from the tax money others pay.

True. The cruise lines did this, although now it may come back to haunt them, assuming they are unable to lobby for US government aid.

> U.S. Royal Caribbean is based in Liberia, Norwegian Cruise Lines is based in Bermuda, and Carnival/Princess is based in Panama.

Avoiding taxes by relocating is not just for big businesses. It’s super easy to do today in the golden age of remote work.

Plenty of people have left CA for UT/NV to do the same.

But then that’s a physical move. Plenty of companies have their executives/leadership in a location that is different from the taxable entity. If all the headquarters and executives physically resided in Caiman islands or Ireland or even Delaware, it would be different.

Yes, it’s easier for businesses to relocate than people. This is an issue of physicality, not morality. If we drive into the specifics, it’s not hard to illustrate that businesses are fundamentally different in nature than people. My point is that tax avoidance is commonplace for individual returns as well.

The solution to all of this is to fix the tax code to represent what we actually intended, not blame those who are following the rules.

Tax is simply math, calling tax avoidance immoral is as silly as calling encryption immoral.

It's not like the law makers are unaware of the loop-holes, but by making the rules more complicated you increase the cost of doing business, to the degree that you benefit from economy of scale, meaning the big companies still wins.

You'll find that many rich folk are non-doms in the country they reside in for tax purposes also.

I don't think it's necessarily that any single deduction or tax incentive is immoral. Rather, it could be immoral when, taken together, they mean that a corporation does not pay its fair share.

More specifically, I think the immorality comes when someone who already is able to provide for themselves is enriched at the expense of societies ability to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.

I agree. But who bears the responsibility for that immorality? The smallest single group with the power to actually rectify the situation is Congress.

I'd say a combination of congress and corporations.

The ones that you lobbied for and that ultimately cause significant underfunding and dysfunction at all levels of government.

How do you feel about avoiding sin taxes like by not smoking cigarettes ?

That seems like a tax functioning as designed.

How about buying a smaller house to avoid property taxes ?

Seems fine too?

The tax system is designed by the government to get people and companies to act a certain way.

There are discounts for capital gains and extra taxes for gasoline, travel and cigarettes.

So companies act the way they are told to act.

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