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True, I think the HN moderators have an anti-crypto mandate.

Which is odd considering Coinbase was a YC unicorn. Besides AirBNB how many unicorns did YC finance throughout the years?


Quite a few brand names

https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies

It's the community frowning upon crypto. The moderators are largely hands off.


What you wrote is an invention. Code is law came from, let's say, "techno utopians" that really believed you can programatically organize this way. See the concept of DAO for example.

So, code is law came from programmers that thought code is law. It's not a misunderstanding.

The ETH fork was caused about the difference wrt code is law.


Oh, he is. But it's good PR to make positive statements while doing whatever you want.


He literally did ban the practice, though, and the quoted line is after the reporting saying he did so?


No he did not. He gave a "direction". Which, legally, means almost nothing.

> “Going forward, consistent with the President’s direction, this Department of Justice – in a change to its longstanding practice – will not seek compulsory legal process in leak investigations to obtain source information from members of the news media doing their jobs,” Anthony Coley, Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement.

They are changing a "practice".

One uses laws to prevent practices one does not like, not "directions".


> One uses laws to prevent practices one does not like, not "directions".

If you want a law to prevent this I'm not sure why you're criticizing Biden. He is the President, no the Legislature.

If you think there should be a law, then your complaint should be for congress.


Is there a written order from the President saying this. Is it public somewhere? If not, it's just PR.


Well, considering the DOJ is under his control, it’s not a “direction”, but a “law” of sorts. Actual laws come from Congress, which Biden doesn’t control.


Same question to you: is there a written order from the President saying this? Is it public somewhere? If not, it's just PR.


You are downvoted but I can confirm the only time I was almost assaulted as a tourist was in the Paris metro. Then I came outside and it looked like a Mad Max scenario with somebody casually selling corn baked in a barrel fire.


[flagged]


Go away troll.


The US can tax US corporations anyway it sees fit.

What do other countries have to do with it?

Read the subtitle:

>The Biden administration wants other countries to back a minimum tax as part of its plan to raise the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent.

This makes no sense. Is the IRS a global institution now?


> Is the IRS a global institution now?

In their own minds, they always have been.

I also find it funny that a country that can't even level-set taxation within it's own 50 territories wants to dictate taxation for the world now.


> I also find it funny that a country that can't even level-set taxation within it's own 50 territories wants to dictate taxation for the world now.

Historically that proposal was pushed by EU states and the US wasn't onboard. It's recent development that the US agrees to it.


The US can tax the US company. The US will have a hard time taxing the Luxembourg subsidiary of the US company especially if the parent owns less than 100% of the subsidiary.


> This makes no sense. Is the IRS a global institution now?

It makes perfect sense if you take them as separate concepts.

1. Joe Biden wants other countries to work with the US and set a tax floor for corporate taxation.

2. The US Congress can pass a law that brings corporate foreign taxation in line with how real people (not just fictional ones) are taxed on foreign profits. This doesn't make the IRS any more global than they have been for 100 years.


will there be any penalties for countries that do not agree to this? Say if a country wants to set a lower tax rate than this 15% global minimum in order to attract businesses. Or this country could offer lower taxes in general because they don't want to collect that much tax. After all, how much tax to collect is a structural and public spending issue, and a ideological issue. It is specific to a country, and taxation policies and methods are supposed be the sovereignty of a specific country. I also assume this 15% tax is a tax on company profits. But some countries may want to have lower income tax, but a higher value added tax.

But in the future, when this is established, US and other participants in this scheme might view countries offering significant lower tax as anti-competitive, disruption of the market, disruption of established "international order". Using these talking points, the next logical step is to enact penalties. For example, levy extra taxes on that country businesses' operations and transactions in the judications of all of the participants. Would this be a valid concern?


> Would this be a valid concern?

I wouldn't call it a concern, at least not for me. It's certainly a valid prediction based on historical priors. The US has the scale to make that type of decision for the rest of the world.


Last I checked the US tax code does this already. If the US tax rate is higher you pay the difference!


For individuals, not for corporations. Corps can keep their profits oversees, which operates like a 401k that you never need to withdraw from.


But aren't corporations in another country corporations of that country? They follow all the laws and rules of that country, not US ones.

When a European has dealings with Google they aren't dealing with Google Inc, they're dealing with Google Ireland Ltd.


I believe that's on personal income tax, not on global corporations.


Thank God the US is taking charge of the GLOBAL finances. What could go wrong!?

This is ladder pulling. Who needs smaller countries competing on fiscal rates when all tech should be registered in Dellaware?

Note how it's a small 15% to start with. If this goes through and all the treaties are in place moving it to 25% should be much easier.

Maybe the US should investigate all the creative ways US corporations pay so little tax anywhere. It's a problem caused by US and US corporation and now they come to provide a solution.


“It's a problem caused by US and US corporation and now they come to provide a solution”

Shouldn’t the responsibility for US corporate problems be (presumably) addressed by the US government? I’m not understanding your point here.


Precisely. But instead of solving this problem inside US they want to re-engineer the whole globe.

Most countries are mad about multinationals, most of them rich US multinationals. If the US would do a proper job of taxing their own corporations none of this would be necessary.

Interesting how this is just in time for the Dutch sandwich scheme to expire. Clearly something else was missing!


Yes, the US knows the exact amount their corporations are NOT paying taxes on. Just apply a tax and be done. Instead, they want to define what other countries will do, in order to fix the US tax leaks. I see this more as another attempt to control other countries than a real tax proposal.


How else do you solve this in the US?

Company A sells all of its IP to Ireland. They have the Irish company charge them 100% of the profits for IP. Poof. No US taxable income.

What's your magic beans solution for this beside what the IRS plans to do?


Why not just cut the corporate rate to 0 and raise the necessary funds through a VAT? No amount of fancy accounting tricks will eliminate companies' dependence on the US consumer market.


Because the Federal government doesn't have a sales tax?

This system is easier than getting all 3 branches of the government to impose a VAT.

And also, that doesn't solve the problem.

If you're Apple - you have only pay taxes on your sales in the US.

If you're a smaller company, you pay taxes on all your profits, plus a VAT on your sales in the US.


What's stopping the federal government from implementing a VAT? I realize there's a ton of legal and political inertia, but theoretically it seems like it would be an improvement.

In an ideal system everyone would charge a VAT rather than a corporate tax, resulting in a level playing field for foreign profits as well.


It is very simple: just make corporate profits for US corporations (or more sensibly, the difference in taxes) taxable on the US, wherever it is made. This is already the rule for individuals.


"Wherever it is made" is simple when it comes to tech.

And, anyway, almost nothing tech is made in the US.

The IRS has a (separate?) issue to deal with this - that countries will pay tax primarily based on the country where the sales take place.


Could you walk us through your proposed solution? Like what the United States could be doing that would be a proper job of taxing its own corporations?


Set guaranteed tax rates that make keeping money in the US attractive instead of trying to punish those who find the business practices of other sovereign nations offering better treatment.


Does this mean reducing taxes to 0%, so that corporations don't need to jump through hoops to get the same effect in other jurisdictions?


What does a proper job of taxing US corporations look like?

Currently, US corporations have a minimum tax of 10% on global income or 20% on US income; sounds like the numbers are proposed to change to 15% and 28% (or something; NYT paywall is loading too fast today, and it's a proposed law so the details aren't set and not worth fighting over); and the US is saying hey, these guys are going to pay 15% on income from your country, you may as well have them pay it to you instead.

The AMT on global income was part of the Trump tax changes, and is a departure from the full corporate rate on global income, but only due when/if money made it back to the US.

I imagine a next step would be charging multinationals headquartered elsewhere but operating in the US the AMT on their global income. That's kind of far reaching though, so if they can get a few major countries on board instead, that's better.


It is overly simplistic to think of a global company, such as Oracle, or Coca Cola, as a single monolithic US corporation. They have literally hundreds of subsidiary companies all over the world, manufacturing and selling into different markets.


Meh, aren't cross-Atlantic flights potentially re-routed through US soil?

Isn't it common that flights to Canada need to make an emergency landing which conveniently allows US customs to filter passengers?

Diverting planes seems something that states just do.

This time it's a smaller state that uses big boy tools.


> flights to Canada need to make an emergency landing which conveniently allows US customs to filter passengers?

Link?


It's not paranoia if you are right.


Not sure how this is a problem since I assumed most cloud providers severely control and throttle IO.


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