Post
"For example, I think Google [NZ] pays out about 95-97% of all the revenue that it earns [in "service fees" to the parent company] ... and FaceBook would be very similar, Uber would be. The percentages vary, but it's most of it, in all cases."
#NickMiller, Tax Justice Aotearoa, 2025
https://www.1of200.nz/podcast/1200-s2e160-big-tech-better-taxes
#podcasts #1of200 #TaxJusticeAotearoa #DataFarms #TaxAvoidance #Google #FaceBook #Uber
BTW whenever someone sings the song of "overseas investment", this is the kind of thing it leads to.
Whether we're talking about setting up a service or building infrastructure, things are set up and run by people working in Aotearoa, using our resources. Then transnational parent companies use opaque, legally-grey accounting tricks to move huge wads of revenue offshore, untaxed.
"Overseas investors" is a corporatist euphemism for what are really overseas extractors.
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But don't take my word for it. Academic economists have studied the relative costs to Aotearoa of borrowing money for infrastructure, vs. having overseas extractors "invest" in it. Borrowing is much cheaper when comparing the overall inflows and outflows of money.
Which means that people who complain about public debt and promote "private investment" are either economically illiterate, or fucking liars.
"Investment" is a euphemism for the economic face of colonisation.
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How about preventing investors and in general private commercial banks from printing money and lending it to governments or use it to build roads?
How about the government adopts bitcoin and uses tax money to pay for roads, keeping all the benefits but finally getting rid of capitalists?
I know this needs some unpacking, but also you probably anyway arent interested, but reading your post i kinda felt its so extremely relevant that i at least mention it. 🤷
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