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Comment by jjoonathan | Hacker News Reader

Ah, yes, double taxed: once at 0%, due to Ireland, and once at 15%, due to the special capital gains rate. I wish my income was double taxed like that! Where do I sign up?

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What proportion of businesses are taxed like that?

Different scenario, but tech giants in the US have some amazing arrangements. I’m in New Zealand and their clever arrangements here see them paying minuscule bills on massive revenue

“In 2018 Google NZ Ltd (an entity of Alphabet group) paid income tax of NZ$398,341 – about 0.055 per cent of the estimated gross ad revenue “extracted” from the New Zealand market.”

Facebook, Apple and Amazon have all been in and out of the news here for their arrangements too.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/121505796/google-and-facebook...

You have to be a multinational by definition to do this, and yet the proposed taxes will hit most medium sized businesses.

“It will hurt Apple and Amazon” is not a problem. “It will hurt most growing businesses”, is.

On account of where campaign finance comes from, I'm afraid politicians see it the other way around.

Better question: what proportion of corporate profits are taxed like that? Because the cheesemonger down the street isn't pulling a Double Irish to avoid taxes on the ~0% of GDP that they're generating.

Agreed - I would like to know what the effect would be on regular businesses are growing, not a few giant multinationals.

If people care about this loophole, how about just closing it, rather than taxing everyone else?

How do you close a loophole without bought politicians replacing one loophole with ten?

A bit of an "angels dancing on a pinhead" question, I'll admit

Look up double Irish with a Dutch sandwich. Not really my area of expertise, but in the past at least basically all big tech companies used that strategy.

I don’t need to look it up, I know what it is.

The proposal would hit every business not just a few tech giants.

Yeah, everyone knows what it is, and has known for a long time. It goes to show that the loophole is not an accident but rather an intentional result of our political process. Unfortunately.

True - but of the business activity is in EU, then really it's Ireland's issue to sort out with the EU, it's a separate issue from the 'other side' of the taxation in the US. What they should do is sort it out.

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