Tax avoidance: a necessary evil? | Alexandre Stylianoudis | TEDxUniversityofKent
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- čas přidán 20. 06. 2024
- Tax avoidance. A complex issue, hated by many, understood by few. With his talk, Alexander challenges dogmas to illustrate how chasing corporations for their taxes makes politicians popular, not successful.
Alexander Stylianoudis was born and raised in Geneva. He is currently studying Criminology and Sociology at the University of Kent, and has a particular interest in financial crimes and the socio-economic influence of corporations. His research will take him to California, Geneva and London, to study the various fiscal methods used both in tax planning and tax avoidance. Alexander aims to present a neutral, but thought provoking approach to his talk in which he will highlight the inconvenient truth of tax avoidance.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx
Good way to kick start his career as a lobbyist.
Penispirates
4 billion! THATS It? in the U.S corporate tax evasion is estimated at around 400 billion a year!!
Tax evasion and avoidance are 2 different things
yeah i'm pretty sure that figure is a load of rubbish. HMRC is useless you can assume most of their figures are also useless. I'd wager everything I own that the reality is a higher value and they're understating it. Also Ruben Barajas says they are two different things, i'm reasonably confident that tax evasion makes up more than 1% of lost income. Especially considering that this is the one large corporations are going to use
My standpoint on tax avoidance is pretty simple to be honest.
By Amazon not paying taxes, and settling in a country where there's very little political will to change that, means that a lot of other companies, such as the royal mail, enjoys growth according to the presentor.
I beg the differ. I think, if Amazon wasn't as dominant as they are, another book market would take over. It's basic demand and supply. He makes it sound like ONLY Royal Mail benefits from Amazon, but that's not the truth. Amazon benefits from having a mail service as well.
And here's the truth about tax avoidance: If it wasn't possible for so many global companies to avoid taxes, Africa wouldn't have the huge economic problems the continent has. It doesn't benefit anyone besides the stock holders - or at least, it's not really compareable when the difference is as huge as it is.
Global fight against tax avoidance would ensure a new golden age and shared wealth across the world. The rich doesn't need to get any richer.
Zel The Viking agreed ... but until there is a global fight against tax avoidance what do we do? There will always be some countries who won't play ball (maybe the uk is one of them) ... its an impossible dream .
Agreed
Who cares....their employees pay taxes. In fact, as soon as any of Apple's profits are paid out to an individual, they must pay taxes.
Many people care actually. As more wealth passes to companies and the wealthy who pay less taxes surely the overall taxed amount will fall. With lower taxes public services will suffer. This will not bother the wealthy as they pay for everything privately. So although many members of the public don't care, they should.
You might start to care when all of the real estate in the world is owned by corporations because they are allowed to buy it with pretax dollars...while "real" individuals aren't.
@@GeordieHalma As soon as any corporation pays a person (either in income or whatever), it is now taxable. The government should be drawing their water at the individual.
Very interesting talk!
There are corporate finance companies that employ very few and pay almost no tax.
Like Walter E. Williams said: "Corporations are not taxpayers, but tax collectors"
At the end the consumer pays for the products they sell and the higher the tax rate, the higher the price, the more VAT you pay
Great job on the presentation!
Apple adds jobs the job holders pay payroll taxes . The better tax policy is to lower taxes for corporations based on how many people they employ rather than corporations who employ few people and use these same corporate loop holes . So I think you should focus on corporations that dont employ many people. Amazon employs a lot of tax payers so does Apple .
I'm getting the feeling that if 1000 people watched it, they would all have 1000 different opinions and would selectively interpret some small parts of the talk depending on their political affiliations.
I got the idea that actively pursuing corporations does not solve the issue of tax avoidance but on the contrary makes it worse..What did you guys get from it?
Emma Jaquier I got that, but I'd add that he gives little to justify this. His argument 1) notes how Amazon's tax avoidance allows them to post 200,000 parcels everyday, thus benefitting Royal Mail etc.. Objection) Amazon's tax avoidance surely makes little difference to people using the Amazon platform to buy and sale? Ok, more activity may require more hardware to run the purchases, but so much to justify tax avoidance? No! Alexandre is assuming Amazon need to avoid tax in order to run like they do, or at-least run so that their tax avoidance is dwarfed by that reinvested into the economy.
Making them pay the proper tax rate does not make it worse, we are desperate for money {so the conservatives have said for 10 years} they pay of they leave {I bet they dont leave}, they pay so little for what they sell si it is almost all profit anyway. IF they want to leave then fine, a company will instantly leap into their empty units to get a bit of that profit
He does not know what he's talking about.
What an amazing delivery ! Controversial yet economically relevant. It's a shame the audio is that bad tough !
So essentially he is advocating a race to the bottom, instead of a global mimimum floor. The answer is not to for us to compete for the 'honour' of hosting multinationals by lowering their tax rate and to convolute the tax code to allow for tax evasion to take place, it is for all countries to agree on a mimimum floor and to institute regulations such as automatic exchange of controls. Check out the Tax Justice Network for more details. He forgets to mention that Amazon uses the roads that taxpayers built, takes advantage of the school and university education of its employees, pumps carbon emissions into our atmosphere without effective penalty. Tax dodging rich, who can afford 'creative accountants' operating from secrecy jurisdictions and tax havens, have entailed the tax burden falling on the middle class and poor, and the decimation of public services over the decades. Multinationals are not living up to the bargain: we let you own and profit from scarce resources, and in turn you pay your fair share of tax and let our democratically elected officials regulate you appropriately, without trying to influence them.
You’ll never be able to create a floor. There will always be at least one poor nation that will facilitate tax avoidance to save its own economy
@@spencerphillips5023 aren’t such tax haven nations some of the richest?
Good job. Jeff and Mark love you.
These examples only concern countries individually preventing tax avoidance, thus corporations move away or decide to invest in another country. Tax avoidance should be fixed with international rules that globally encompass every countries, in that case, on which planet are the corporations gonna be flying to?
So you don't tax companies so they settle in your country and create more jobs? Don't those companies leave another country and people are left on the street? Sounds kind of selfish.
Also, I remember that movie in which (british) female workers protested because they wanted equal wages, and the great Ford argument was 'if we pay them that much, it's not profitable anymore and we are leaving this country'... I guess this guy would have said 'Hey, just pay women less than you pay men'.
Corporate Tax Avoidance is not illegal but it is anti-social and immoral. I would like to live in a world where everyone and every company paid there fair share of tax. A substantial revenue that would hopefully be used to improve the NHS, Education, Housing and infrastructure we all rely on. Clearly this is not going to happen without persuasion so what do we do? As each company is identified as one that does not want to make a fare financial contribution to the society in which they operate and make their Billions we should have the courage to boycott that companies products. Now before I get too many people telling me that I must live in cloud cuckoo land let me tell you in advance that I do realise that I am pissing in the wind by making such a suggestion but the continued purchase of their products is the only green light these companies need to continue with their anti-social behaviour.
why should anybody pay such high taxes in the first place, for the government to blow off ?
You can always get rid of a government. Either you agree we should all play our part in developing the society in which we live or you don't. Clearly the corporate world has decided it has better things to do with it's profits. We live in the world we deserve.
the problem is that government makes a bad robin hood its spends 99% on it bureaucracy and wars and 1% on development of society
As I said, governments can be removed but you are probably right and it is so much easier and less challenging to maintain the present status quo.
Let corporations build the infrastructure, make them pay 2.5% of their revenue for human development only.
Well done Alexandre - finally a good look at the economic realities - these corporations actually contribute to the economy !!
Everyone who is taxed contributes to the economy. The key point here, is that these companies benefit from a 0 taxation scheme, and most mortals dont. So if big companies are exempted from taxes, then individuals should too. Either we allow that possibility for everyone or we tax companies like we are supposed to.
Intriguing and captivating subject elaborated by a brilliant mind. Well done!!
nice presentation
This was helpful and educative
Countries having a lower tax rate to attract legitimate investment is not a tax haven. A tax haven is trillions of dollars of profit from a PO box in the Cayman Islands.
Although I understand you are saying that it is okay they use tax havens because they create jobs, pay dividends etc. The problem with this argument is that it gives an unfair economic advantage to larger corporations, therefore, distorting a competitive market.
Exactly, if anyone advocates exempting the rich from taxes then the same or better treatment should be applied to the common man. Otherwise it's seems we are backtracking to the Middle Ages. The whole point of a tax system is to redistribute wealth, why would anyone in their mind tax the poorer and exempt the ultrarich? XD
lol im glad somebody understands, from any political perspective outside of the boot lickers, this is an absolutely ridiculous plan
And if that money were collected, people would be employed elsewhere. Their powers are getting too great
Except the government just doesn't create jobs even remotely as well as these private companies because people prefer to buy from the companies since they are more efficient. See where I'm getting at?
Their powers are only great because YOU the consumer/s gave them that power because they showed you they could handle that power better than the public sector. Don't fight it. Embrace it.
So because these companies contribution to society now makes their not paying taxes ethical? Not an impressive argument.
So what's Your Opinion??
I mean like there is a stronger correlation on:
More companies' profit = Incentive to create more jobs & deliver better quantity/quality products/services,
than on:
More money on Gov't = Better Infrastructure & services.
But yeah, scales matter. We can't compare for instance Singapore and the US. The larger the government is, the more loopholes there are.
Be careful with your words- they do pay taxes, just some people want them to pay more.
If members of the public have to pay their taxes then corporation should as well.
The point about the jobs created by amazon would be true if amazon paid it's employees a living wage but it's doesn't. The UK has a corporation tax rate of 20% and that's the amount corporations should pay. Just to be clear, I think it should higher then 20%.
Some add jobs others not so much.
How does he only focus on the negatives of taxing the corporations without coming up with a single solution?? The way he us presenting it every country should just completely abolish corporate tax to draw more companies in. I think a minimum tax rate in european countries is the only solution.
Dont like and agree with the notion that we corporations more than they need us. Off the back of those workers they make billions of pounds they are certainly not a charity. Yes we get the jobs and yes they help with unemployment but they would shift up and ship off if they found a better place to do business. This person is too navie. NEXT!
As if we did not already know this base stuff.
So actually he is getting something wrong... He’s not talking about tax avoidance measures like the Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich or so on. He’s just taking about the effects, high taxes have on cooperations and they are not really participating in tax avoidance. If u are based in France and avoid there to pay tax with accounts overseas or something like that, that’d be tax avoidance. Well of course you avoid paying higher taxes but these comps who moved to London didn’t participate in tax avoidance. Otherwise they even wouldn’t pay taxes in France and so they wouldn’t care about a tax that is 20 or 35% because they wouldn’t pay it either
This brilliant young man will soon make it in a very high position in the UK government, not bad for somebody in his twenty's .
Brexit means Brexit and it ain't good.
Sorry but I just found him arrogant, he is more than a little condescending, we are not children. It is absolutely dishonest, every one of us HAS to pay and so should they.
A different point of view? Not, er, the same point of view you'll get from every corporate spokesman and apologist on the planet? This is incredibly stupid.
we all know u will do better - where is your innovative speech ???
Why exactly if I may ask?
Amazon creates jobs yes but is this guy aware of the conditions of this type of work environment?
Doesn’t matters because without amazon they wouldn’t have a job
Albert is a genius you should listen
this tax the rich stuff needs to stop because if the rich leaves America the country will become a third world country
Interesting how this guy selects his information. The actual cost to the British taxpayer of tax avoidance is unknown, but estimates from economists put it at £19billion. The reason for the variance between this figure and the one from HMRC, is that HMRC completely ignores the shadow economy in it's calculations, plus it would hardly admit it had failed to collect £19billion of tax revenue.
At a time where Britain, the sixth richest economy in the world has 13.7million people living in poverty and 4million of those are children, our NHS is on a cliff edge due to chronic underfunding, our government is driving an ideological and counter productive program of austerity on the poorest, disabled and most vulnerable in our society, promoting that our government should not crack down on tax avoidance is both selfish and naive at best.
The speaker does not mention that even if a corporation moves it's registered office to a low tax jurisdiction, it will not stop trading in it's low original home country and tax legislation could be introduced to apply to the nation where the profits are made, one of the ways this can be done is through country by country reporting. The fact is that even when a corporation does move it's registered office to a low tax jurisdiction, this is only on paper and all that exists in the new jurisdiction is a shared office, with multiple corporations registered there and just a handful of staff.
Even if a company based in Britain could move lock, stock and barrel to a lower tax jurisdiction, the sheer costs associated with such a move would in all likelihood outweigh any tax saved. But even if there were savings to be made and corporations did move, this would create a void and enable smaller companies who do pay their taxes in full and on time to fill that void.
There is only one thing preventing us from collecting the full amount of taxes due in Britain and that is the political will to do so.
We Thepeople "The government should not crack down on tax avoidance" isn't the message I got from his talk. However, what I did get is that going after them in a hostile and aggressive fashion will deter most corporations from complying and settling with local jurisdictions as did Amazon with the United Kingdom. They didn't settle with France, Germany nor the US.
He almost did mention it at the beginning with his Apple (AOI) example. No, Apple did not stop trading in the US, but because Apple moved their HQ, the US can only tax them on a small amount of profit. Country by country reporting is still in its infancy and until every single country in the world complies with international regulations ( which wlil never happen), this solution is unlikely to solve anything...
I think what he's trying to say is basically this: 30% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
Jose Cortez Da Silva I could not disagree with you more. Your suggestions re the treasury receiving 100% of nothing will never happen as no corporation has or ever will pull out completely from trading in Britain just because they are required to pay their way.
In order to work with full effect country by country reporting would ideally need to be incorporated in all jurisdictions and in fact it has already been accepted by OECD, although in a much diluted form to what was originally proposed. A government that is serious about collecting the taxes that are due in full, rather than just 30% as you suggest, could become a world leader and enforce full country by country reporting by making it a requirement of any multi national corporation wishing to trade in Britain.
If you owned a business and I owed you £19billion would you accept 30% of that amount in full and final settlement? I suspect not and nor should either you or our government, particularly in times of need such as now. No one has suggested a hostile and aggressive approach to tax collection, although I do support the use of the full force of the law when needed.
In all probability we will never collect all of the taxes that are due, but that does not mean we should ever give in to the increasing demands of multi national corporations by not making a concerted effort to try.
We Thepeople It was a metaphor.. What isn’t a metaphor is Arthur Laffer’s theory, with whom I’m persuaded you are familiar with.
Secondly, if you’re going to support a statement, don’t use the word “ideally”, besides, you cite the OECD... Both Switzerland and Luxembourg are part of it and yet, secrecy has never been higher.
“A government that is serious about collecting the taxes”. North Korea is pretty serious about it, yet world leader would not really define them. The US, UK, HK or Germany aren’t too bothered about collecting the full tax rate.. yet one could hardly challenge their status.
According to that chap, Holland’s strategy wasn’t too clever and it was hostile enough to make Depardieu leave for Mother Russia ! haha
Well, yes and no, it’s not about telling them what to do, it’s about finding suitable agreements that will last for more than a presidency.
We Thepeople I don't disagree with you, the assessment is somewhat correct. I wouldn't use the £19billion figure though. Just as HMRC is obviously biased, the £19billion figure comes from a report from Richard Murphy and granted, although he's a great charted accountant .. he is also openly against The Conservatives. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong.. but it's one man's research with little empiric credibility.
That being said, what's happening in the UK at the moment isn't right.. for a leading economy having so many people living in poverty is appalling...
Chris Stevenson I agree with you that Richard Murphy is a great chartered accountant and everybody is openly against at least one party or other. The £19billion figure does come from Richard and as I clearly stated it is an estimate. Richard has himself always made this clear and at least he was willing to have a go at making a realistic estimate.
The difficulty with calculating tax avoidance & evasion in particular is the lack of available data. Therefore I suggest to you, as I do to everyone criticising Richard's figures, rather than criticise the work of others, produce your own version of the report and estimates.
Imagine working your whole life and reaching such a high level only to hace most of your money taken in taxes that aremt even used for the benefit of the people
The moral of the story here is that government meddling (in anything) always makes things worse.
Funny how someone who has no background in Economics and/or Finance and much less Taxation talks about taxation. 🙃
Bit style over substance ain't it.
Companies shouldnt pay taxes....just employees.
This guy sounds like an A level college student.
I have never heard so much nonsense from a person in a TED talk!
But I see what he means. And why they move.
But I will just combat the tax avoidance by changing the rules of the game, you see Politicians can do that its one of the powers.
We need to get them under control
Wow. That was idiotic.