Hacker News Reader

Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

Lots of US companies moved there because of favorable tax conditions, but now the US administration wants to revert that.

Can't say I blame them. The Irish and Dutch are the worst when it comes to tax evasion.

View on HN

Is that true though, quick bit of Googling has Ireland and Netherlands in many but not all Top 10 lists and none at the top. When it comes to citizens using off-shoring to evade tax, the more literal reading of your point, neither Irish nor Dutch people appear in the top ten lists I’ve come across.

There's different taxes for individuals and for companies. Hence different countries are tax havens for individuals vs companies. Ireland is worse than UK for individuals' tax, but under the minimum tax for companies (despite signing more than one treaty (one at OECD, one at EU) to raise company taxes, then not doing it, in other words: the Irish government simply lied, with the net result that the EU is talking about reintroducing taxes when money crosses any border, including any EU border. It is, predictably, turning into a complicated disaster, like EU VAT tax. Thank you Ireland)

Companies evade EU taxes in Ireland, these days without Netherlands. Individuals evade EU taxes in London, Monaco or Luxembourg.

Regardless of their position on any list, the Irish/Dutch sandwich arrangement for tax purposes shouldn't go unmentioned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_as_a_tax_haven

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich

You misread. It's the Irish and Dutch who have favorable tax havens. Not necessarily citizens who evade taxes.

I didn’t, that’s what I responded to first - the Irish/Dutch didn’t appear in positions 1 or 2 (the worst) on any of the lists I found.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com