Google pays an effective tax rate of 2.4% in America

[thewayne]

Gee, I wish I could get a tax rate like that! I love the "Don't Be Evil" motto, then turn around and emulate every other tech company with dodging taxes.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/10/21/1627220/How-Google-Avoided-Paying-60-Billion-In-Taxes

Comments

[silveradept]

I'd love to have a tax rate like that - and I'd like it to be that I don't have to pay my taxes until after I can calculate that, if you don't mind. I hate having to pay in all my payroll taxes first and then get a refund later.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I heard there's an EU country, perhaps one of the Benelux countries, where you receive a postcard from their tax bureau that shows your taxes. You write a check, send it in, it's over. They have all the info they need, and it's very simple and hopefully relatively painless once you're used to it. Myself, I'd say take 10% of my pay, but then refund 1% after the start of the new year. I don't mind overwithholding and getting a refund as opposed to sending the government a check, thus giving them a free loan, I just hate the insane labrynthian, nay, Gordian mess, that is our tax codes.

And I REALLY HATE mega-corps getting away with playing a shell game to reduce their tax burden!

[silveradept]

Those shell games are a real PITA. Our tax code could do with significant simplification to the point of "scrap it, start again with the basics of the progressive income tax, require referenda when it comes to changing it." I'd rather have the postcard than have to do my own taxes. (Excepting that I'd still probably do them just to make sure our numbers agreed.)