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Comment by float4 | Hacker News Reader

Most Dutch left-wing voters have been acknowledging this for many years now. It's very often been publicly criticised in Dutch media as well.

Google "Nederland belastingparadijs" and you'll find a lot of Dutch articles about it.

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Yeah, I guess it's not fair that the Dutch taxpayers and the small/medium sized companies there have to foot the bill for running the country while the trillion+ dollar Apples of the world pay next to nothing.

It's not. Actually the government will bend backwards just to keep the big companies in the country, while hunting down regular tax payers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand... . The tax laws here are ambiguous so that the tax man can judge to his liking whether you are friend or foe.

Except that being a tax haven is a net positive for the Netherlands. Without it Apple wouldn't be in Amsterdam, they would be in Dublin or Luxembourg. And without Apple paying their low percentage on a huge number in Amsterdam, the Dutch would have to pay more tax themselves.

Is it really? I think eg. Apple paying their fair share of taxes would be morally right.

If that requires me paying a bit more tax, fine by me.

Net positive in economical sense, sure ethically it's wrong that the Dutch are stealing tax money from other countries.

Actually, they would have moved to Cork, Ireland 40 years ago.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apples-cork-campus-ce...

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