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Re:Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B ... by colechristensen on Thursday May 13, 2021 @12:01AM (#27138247)
One: this seems to be about uber activities outside the US

Two: the US is actively working on what it is calling a global minimum corporate tax

Three: anonymous shell companies were made illegal in the US in January

It seems your comment is rather uninformed. There is of course much to do but it is hard to look at what is happening and come to the conclusion that it is all nothing

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Re:Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B ... by peter422 on Thursday May 13, 2021 @01:35AM (#27138785)
All the people who have gone to jail for tax evasion are not having good success with the argument that taxes are unconstitutional.
Re:Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B ... by DanBC on Thursday May 13, 2021 @10:02AM (#27142187)
There's a really nice document that lists incoherent tax arguments in the US.

https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/the-truth-about-frivo...

Re:Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B ... by tzs on Thursday May 13, 2021 @08:18AM (#27141250)
Ah, the old classic "the 16th Amendment was never really ratified" argument. A perennial loser when it is brought up in court.

It is such a weak argument that now I'm wondering if that site is as sloppy in their research on the other interesting articles I found there, like the ones about how there were more white slaves than black slaves in the US, or how the Rothschilds control the US, or chemtrails are real and drenching the population with mercury (to accomplish one or more of: make it hard to prove that mercury in vaccines is a source of harm, to reduce the population, or centralize power with the UN), or a bunch of stuff on the Pope, the Freemasons, and the Illuminati that was sufficiently incoherent that I couldn't quite tell what they were claiming.

Are you sure that the site is not meant as on over the top satire of conspiracy theories?

Re:Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B ... by jcranmer on Thursday May 13, 2021 @08:52AM (#27141514)
It even gets the 16th Amendment wrong.

The 16th Amendment was passed in response to SCOTUS's ruling in Pollock. Pollock held that a tax on income derived from property (i.e., rental income) was effectively a property tax, and therefore a direct tax, requiring apportionment to the states. This is why the 16th Amendment says "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived" (emphasis added). There was prior precedent that income taxes per se were constitutional (Springer v US, per Wikipedia). Furthermore, Pollock's reasoning itself is pretty close to bunk--I wouldn't expect SCOTUS to uphold it even without the 16th Amendment.

Oh god, rereading the article, it gets worse:

> Can a law declared unconstitutional in 1895 be constitutional in 1913 and beyond?

Yes, if there is a change in the constitution explicitly done so as to render it constitutional. But it's also not like SCOTUS itself hasn't changed its mind on what's constitutional and unconstitutional in the past (see Commerce Clause jurisprudence for an example of where unconstitutional interpretations have become constitutional).

Re:Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B ... by tptacek on Friday May 14, 2021 @01:43AM (#27151128)
You're citing a site that quotes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Re:Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B ... by speleding on Thursday May 13, 2021 @02:51AM (#27139183)
Uber has its corporate head quarters for the EU in Amsterdam. For a company the size of Uber to have 50 different entities is not particularly special, you will find several other American multinationals there with the same number (for example, one for each jurisdiction they operate in).

The term "shell companies" seems to imply something nefarious, and that may very well be the case, but in itself having 50 entities in The Netherlands is not really a sign of that.

It's also important to point out that they do not chose The Netherlands for low corporate tax rates, they are not the lowest in the EU by far, but because of "tax rulings". Those are agreements they can make with the tax authorities that ascertain them how much tax they will pay this year as long as revenue, costs, etc, stay within a certain bandwidth. In the US it can take over a year for them to get any certainty on what their tax bill would be for the previous year.

Re:Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on $6B ... by ric2b on Thursday May 13, 2021 @06:18AM (#27140497)
> Never gonna happen. The govt's collection of federal taxes within the US is already technically illegal

Your reasoning for why it's not going to happen is that something that shouldn't be happening, actually is?