Almost $500bn ‘lost to tax abuse by firms and super-rich in 2021’
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
If I take the liberty of assuming you'll give me $5 for whatever reason (or in the case of taxation, I threaten to take $5 and assume you'll comply), and you do not do so, is it fair to say that I've "lost" that $5?
From the article: "...$312bn of the total sum was the result of cross-border corporate tax abuse by multinational corporations and $171bn offshore tax evasion by wealthy individuals."
Depending on how "tax abuse" and "tax evasion" are defined, the article may be referring to something that's literally a crime.
It's either illegal tax evasion or operating within the established legal framework. If a territory is "missing out" on tax revenue perhaps they should take some time to introspect and think about why rather than blame the evil business owners doing the rational thing.
Is someone committing a crime by aggressively reducing their taxes if they don't get audited? Not paying taxes isn't a crime, but the IRS has been decreasing audits of the rich.
Not paying taxes certainly can be a crime.
The point of the person above is valid - it's bs to call something 'tax abuse'. It's either illegal or not. It might be a grey area which hasn't been tested yet and there is a process to decide the outcome. It is eventually deemed illegal or not.
I'm comfortable saying a tax loophole should be banned without saying it's users are criminals or either unethical. Asking if someone should be able to deduct their private jet is a political question to me, not a legal one.
But there are other instance where people are taking advantage of lack of enforcement. For instance conservation easements. There's an example of a mining developer who gave 6000 acres to a charitable trust in CA. An issue is the mining company didn't own the subsurface gas and mineral rights to the land. They weren't explicitly clear about that when donating, so the donation was probably overvalued.
https://www.kassounilaw.com/publications/the-uses-and-abuses...
It looks like court precedence is really important in some areas of tax law in determining what's ok. It's a problem if someone can take a really novel and beneficial reading of a policy and assume they won't have to defend it.
Court precedence in common law countries like the US is equivalent to law.
This piece reads like a retail store owner complaining about people buying their products on sale and stacking coupons, that are explicitly permitted in the terms of the sale, on the sale items.
Are you aware of what percentage of aggregate tax revenue the "rich" are responsible for in the US (or heck your home country if elsewhere)? How about the bottom 80%?
Unless you have cancer or an illness that requires tailored treatment. The US has significantly better severe illness outcomes than the UK.
The fun part is monopolies keep popping up everywhere as they divide us over everything else and we have defacto socialism because either way all your choice is gone.
It’s not a debate about whether it’s “good” to end world hunger, it’s a debate about whether it should cost $700 a meal to fix the problem, and who should pay for it.
On the subject of tax systems, I won’t sit for lecturing how the billionaire and political class evade $500b of taxes, and therefore this is some rationale for raising taxes on everyone who isn’t a billionaire.
5 years later
>What do you mean you're not paying taxes you don't need to pay because we specifically said you don't have to? That's theft!