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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

What's more common is that the large multinationals get a targeted carve-out only usable by large multinationals, with the tax burden shifted to individuals and small businesses. A small business cannot practically take advantage of arrangements like "double Irish with a Dutch sandwich".

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The corporate tax rate is not as important because taxes will still be paid on payroll and other uses of the money. The effective tax rate is not going to change much as the corporate tax rate changes because so much of the companies expenses are going to payroll and bonuses.

The goal of corporate taxes is to collect revenue from profits when a foreign entity own the company. Taxing people only works when the owners live in your country. Worse, high personal tax rates can encourage wealthy people to leave your country either on paper or directly.

PS: If your corporate tax rate is zero, then your country is often better off discouraging foreign investment.

In the UK at least, you can use umbrella trusts to legally dodge corporate tax as a small/medium business or self-employed if you're earning a decent amount.

That's tax avoidance, HMRC will come knocking and you'll end up having to pay 5 years tax in one chunk. Oh, plus penalties for not declaring you were avoiding tax!

Here is the HMRC specifically warning against this exact scheme and telling you they will tax all your money later and fine you:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spotlight-26-cont...

So definitely not in the UK.

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