> I read about tax avoidance schemes like corporate inversions or sending all your patents to a company in some tax free haven and licensing your patents from your company for all your profits, and so on, and it makes me really mad. Companies making many billions of dollars paying no taxes.
This used to be a typical loophole but is being closed by the OECD, a lot of tax havens are now taxing royalties differently. 10 years ago after reading up on this, I've decided that it was only fair for me to read up and try the same methods. I didn't see why I should pay high taxes when the richest in my country didn't.
It's not overly difficult to do this completely legally (that's the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion), it's not an issue of the laws being enforced, it's mostly that there are many countries in the world and some have an incentive to compete on tax law. So, you can do a lot while still being completely legal (it's easier though if you are willing to move and live in different countries and if you're not american but still possible otherwise).
In the last 5 years, the OECD has been fighting against this and forced a lot of tax havens to change their laws. From my read of the texts and has someone who has been impacted by this, it doesn't really make avoiding tax impossible just more expensive, meaning it's increasingly difficult and costly for a single person who is middle class like me to do it but still relatively easy for big corporations with an army of accountants to do it. I'm not sure that's really an improvement.
It's insane that a nation delegates its sovereignty to others. There's no reason to allow subjects to shop around for better tax rates, except corruption.
This used to be a typical loophole but is being closed by the OECD, a lot of tax havens are now taxing royalties differently. 10 years ago after reading up on this, I've decided that it was only fair for me to read up and try the same methods. I didn't see why I should pay high taxes when the richest in my country didn't.
It's not overly difficult to do this completely legally (that's the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion), it's not an issue of the laws being enforced, it's mostly that there are many countries in the world and some have an incentive to compete on tax law. So, you can do a lot while still being completely legal (it's easier though if you are willing to move and live in different countries and if you're not american but still possible otherwise).
In the last 5 years, the OECD has been fighting against this and forced a lot of tax havens to change their laws. From my read of the texts and has someone who has been impacted by this, it doesn't really make avoiding tax impossible just more expensive, meaning it's increasingly difficult and costly for a single person who is middle class like me to do it but still relatively easy for big corporations with an army of accountants to do it. I'm not sure that's really an improvement.