Former Soviet Republic of Georgia To Become IT Tax Haven 153
A few days ago we noted how Ukraine is driving out its software freelancers with the threat of onerous taxation. Now comes news that another former Soviet republic, Georgia, will become a tax-free zone for IT companies. It might be the Google translation, but it seems that officials there are somewhat worried about how to categorize the IT segment: "[T]he main difficulty ... is to determine which organization is the IT company, and what is not: 'While from a formal point of view it is impossible to distinguish between software developers from the oil.'"
Does this mean Georgia will be invaded again? (Score:1)
Re:Does this mean Georgia will be invaded again? (Score:5, Funny)
They do control a large percentage of our Peach reserves......oh you mean the other Georgia? Fuck who knows.
So now our jobs go to Georgia? (Score:2)
So now our jobs go to Georgia?
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You'll just have to move to Georgia to keep it.
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Pity about the neighbors.
Re:So now our jobs go to Georgia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So now our jobs go to Georgia? (Score:5, Insightful)
if we're charging higher taxes, higher labor costs, for essentially the same service why not move elsewhere?
The key there is 'same service'. All too many companies will decide that something IS the same service without taking into account factors which impact the company and the customers, all for the sake of lower taxes. Outsourcing to another country which may have another language, incompatible customs, and different labor practices and, in the case of IT, different development paradigms, may be far more costly in the long run than a lower tax rate. But that would require an understanding of IT, which most business people simply do not have, and aren't interested in learning about.
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Labor is a bigger cost than tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you have lower quality work, but in many cases it is easily offset by taxes.
Taxes are a big deal but I've worked pretty closely with a lot of global sourcing and taxes are usually pretty far down the list of why companies outsource. Labor cost is by FAR the biggest reason in most cases. Labor for most companies greatly outweighs any tax burden no matter how profitable the company becomes. Some companies locate their headquarters outside the US for tax reasons (Tyco for example) but this is getting harder.
The main thing about taxes is it punishes you for being successful. The more successful you are the higher you have to pay in taxes.
The "main thing"? Taxes are nothing more than a punishment for success? Seriously? I don't think you've ever tried to start or run a company because the REAL punishment is a company that loses money. Having to pay tax because my company is successful is a problem I welcome with open arms.
The foreign workforce is usually decently educated, cheap and willing to work long hours because the standard of living is lower.
Educated? Generally yes. Cheap? Sometimes if it can be managed efficiently (not always possible) from a long distance. Long hours? Not in the top 20 and apparently not as long as those in the US.
Someone being paid US minimum wage in the US can hardly even afford rent, the same pay gives a person "middle class" status in third-world or developing countries.
Technically true but you need to learn about purchasing price parity [wikipedia.org]. Goods don't cost the same everywhere. Also there are people who are equivalently poor in any country you care to name.
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Labor cost is by FAR the biggest reason in most cases. Labor for most companies greatly outweighs any tax burden no matter how profitable the company becomes
Don't underestimate the role taxes play in labor costs: payroll taxes alone can be an extra 10% on the top. In IT, employees often pay 1/3 to 1/2 of their income in taxes. Taxes aren't the biggest expense, but you can't ignore them either because they figure into labor costs.
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As an IT employee making in the top 10% (apparently I was just inside so I'll just claim 10%), I paid less than 1/10 of my salary in federal income taxes. When you count all directly paid taxes (federal income tax, state/local income, sales and property tax, including a house and a separate piece of investment property) I still paid less than 1/5 of my income in taxes. So I don't see what the problem is. Are all those people renting, so the
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> payroll taxes alone can be an extra 10% on the top
I have no idea where you live but 10% on the top as tax is a sweet deal. For example, in Estonia, for every dollar you pay as salary, you have to pay additional 69 cents for taxes. No wonder, this country can’t compete any more. Oh, I they have a 20% sales tax too.
So, you waste 16 900 to pay someone 10 000 and they will pay additional 2000 for sales tax on everything they buy (food included).
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In IT, employees often pay 1/3 to 1/2 of their income in taxes.
No they don't. The highest tax bracket in the US is 35%. To be in the 33% or 35% tax brackets you have to make over $100,000 per year. Over $200K if married and filing jointly. No one pays 50% of their income in taxes even in the highest tax brackets. Some but not most IT employees do not make six figure incomes.
Taxes aren't the biggest expense, but you can't ignore them either because they figure into labor costs.
Of course not. But companies don't generally move operations because of tax which was my original point. It might tip them between two otherwise equal options but total cost of labor and logi
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Tax facts (Score:2)
Disclosure: I'm a certified accountant.
Secondly, income taxes of employees have nothing to do with tax burden of the company. Company simply pays the employee's salary and that's a simple expense.
Not true. FICA [wikipedia.org] taxes are shared between the employee and employer. Furthermore the only type of company that pays tax as a company is a C corporation [wikipedia.org]. All other types of corporate tax are actually passed through to the shareholders and are paid as personal income tax. Also don't forget about the administrative cost of withholding and reporting all those taxes. That is a significant cost to the company as well.
Companies pay taxes on *profits*. If they have profits, they pay taxes. If they have loses, they get their taxes back from previous years.
Again, not correct. If a company can declare a capital
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Code is generally code. Lower quality code for a much lower price is many times a decent price to pay.
Unmaintainable code, low performance and shitty product is most likely not worth more or a better investment than good, clean, well-documented code and a product which performs well.
Not that I believe that low-cost / indian / ... code would have less quality for some reason.
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I agree with this assessment, and your post in general: however, it appears that the GP was talking about wages, not the cost of software development to the company.
Re:So now our jobs go to Georgia? (Score:4, Informative)
The additional cost of code review for outsourced work also doesn't cover the cost of giving away your source code for free. That outsourced company also has a free copy of your code that they can now incorporate in other projects and on sell. Plus tech workers are well informed workers, underpaid third world tech workers, know full well they are dramatically underpaid third world tech workers, this does not put them in the right frame of mind for declaring and cleaning up all possibly exploitable security faults.
Georgia as a country, home of the Russians mafia for generations with statues of Joe Stalin at city centres still celebrated as hero to this day, perhaps not the most tech secure consideration. Sometimes cheap just ain't worth it. Outsourcing coding and data input to countries with a bad track record for corruption is really crazy. Alternative tax cheat, set up software company in Gerogia, it out sources all of it's code back to your local headquarters, pays the cost price, then adds in all the mark up before selling it back to you at your zero profit "heh, heh" retail price, if you really desperate to cheat that is about the only safe way to do it with Georgia (any country that doesn't toss out a tie chewing president http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syKMsDS2OzE [youtube.com] on his butt has got to be too cracked to deal with).
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Actually, I think it's pretty safe (depending who you outsource to). Granted, generic apps being outsourced won't have the same benefit of being outsourced there than to anywhere else, but speed intensive, algorithmic optimised kind of stuff (like rendering various file formats to screen - PDF, CAD, SVG, or high performance desktop stuff etc) will be very very good.
In my experience, the high level of maths these people do at high school (probably 1-2 year university stuff for math-idiot westerners) coupled
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"The additional cost of code review for outsourced work also doesn't cover the cost of giving away your source code for free. That outsourced company also has a free copy of your code that they can now incorporate in other projects and on sell."
This usually is not true. I'm the owner of a small outsourcing company in Ukraine. Most of our customers have widely different requirements, so code reuse is fairly small. I don't recall reusing ANY code between outsourced projects (apart from small additions to our
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Ignoring the racist implications of your rant, if you outsource software development to India and pay them a fraction of what you pay 'Westerners', I would definitely expect the quality of code to be low.
Foreign developers who are as good as you or better than you will not do your job for a fraction of the cost. They would simply migrate to a place where they get paid well for their work.
Outsourcing companies are typically cheap and shitty because your managers like cheap shit. If your manager bought shit c
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People always want to focus on foreign programmers not being able to program but miss the point of equivalent exchange. This applies in India, the US, UK, and the North Pole. If Santa outsources his toys to every country, and pays them the same rate in the North Pole currency, and provides the same raw material, I im 99.99% sure that Santa could throw all those stuffed bears in a bag and not know hes giving Timmy a bear from the US and Tommy a bear from Brazil.
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Foreign developers who are as good as you or better than you will not do your job for a fraction of the cost. They would simply migrate to a place where they get paid well for their work.
That's ok in theory, but it assumes that they can migrate - and if there's no shortage of programmers there, because all the work's been outsourced to where they come from, they probably won't get a visa.
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What have pencils got to do with it?
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its because management can leverage the move to get the share value to jump, getting a bonus back from the board.
then they leave the company once the long term effects of the move becomes noticeable, leaving the workers with ties to the location in the rut and the shareholder cutting their losses.
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Re:So now our jobs go to Georgia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Taxation is merely one small variable in a big formula.
Among others are:
1. Infrastructure
2. Workforce availability
3. Culture of working
4. Political stability
5. Religious stability
6. Social stability
7. Corruption
8. Legal system
etc.
If you really believe that taxation is the biggest issue, I have a zero-taxation location for you in Somalia.
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Thats basically what happens when countries lower their taxes corporations go there. It seems to be something that the current administration doesn't seem to understand, if we're charging higher taxes, higher labor costs, for essentially the same service why not move elsewhere? Most businesses would want to stay in the US but when the US seems to be raising taxes for successful businesses, is there any reason not to move?
Whether we like it or not we live in a global economy. We know that When other countries give breaks like that, in the current system, it is at the expense of one or many countries. And is especially egregious to the employees.
Countries develop embryonic industries by giving them extraordinary breaks, they all do it. When other countries respond with equal or better breaks, we get trade wars.
Regrettably, as important as IT is, it is but one of thousands of industries. It gets lost in the cloud, while ot
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I think salaries is a bigger factor, but productivity is most likely the biggest one.
We usually have social democratic leadership over here in Sweden and some of the highest income and vat taxes in the world. Now the last time the other side won and have lowered income taxes, but I doubt much more companies came back/stayed because of that (if they still pay the same salaries maybe it doesn't even matter to them.) Some small companies complain and atleast over here bigger companies like Volvo and such got w
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Perhaps we should tariff countries with pathetic labour laws. Might halt the exploitation race to the bottom.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)#2008_military_conflict_with_Russia [wikipedia.org]
But people who want to trade peace to save tax money are free to go there, sure...
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Tax breaks for companies shipping operations (jobs) off-shore began in earnest during the Regan years. NAFTA pretty much sealed the deal. Force companies that want to do business (sell their stuff) in the U.S. to compete on an even playing field and the superior productivity (no, really) of the U.S. worker becomes a winner. Allowing the Wal-Marts of the world to buy from China and sell here, this siphoning dollars directly out of the U.S. economy, and all the while enjoying generous tax breaks fo
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Tax breaks for companies shipping operations (jobs) off-shore began in earnest during the Regan years. NAFTA pretty much sealed the deal.
Allowing the Wal-Marts of the world to buy from China and sell here, this siphoning dollars directly out of the U.S. economy, and all the while enjoying generous tax breaks for doing so, is the problem.
I'm sure you know this and just got carried away with a rant, but just to make sure... NAFTA has NO effect on companies purchasing from China. China's artificially ho
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Like we've seen time and time again with India, no, they cannot write software as well as Americans, Europeans, the Japanese, and Australians can.
Your nationality has little to do with the quality of code you can write.
I guess you also believe that the Chinese cannot manufacture products as well as Americans can. I'd argue that they definitely can, but if they did that, then your kids wouldn't have fewer toys to play with because they would cost you more. As long as you buy cheap, poorly manufactured goods from China, they will sell it to you.
Similarly, when you are willing to pay what you would pay an Australian, European or a Japanese programmer, l
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your kids wouldn't have fewer toys
The should be "would have fewer".
Cheers!
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I definitely acknowledge the effect of culture on an individual's output. And I'd also say that from observation, Indians certainly are more hesitant than Americans are to question authority. However, I doubt that that changes whether they are competent or not.
As a counterexample, I'd claim that (again, from observation) that Koreans show a much greater tendency to defer to authority than Indians do. However, from a technology standpoint, that does not affect their productivity or quality of work.
Suits will
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You're a moron.
The reason outsourcing development has little to do with whether or not people in third world countries 'can' write good code, and everything to do with the fact that paying someone for each line of code, without any relationship to if the code actually works or solves the problem, is just incredibly stupid.
It results in companies hiring people to code straight out of a book, and producing nonsense. It's cookie cutter shit, the sort of stuff you'd get if you kidnapped a bunch of freshmen CS
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Does anyone know what special benefits Georgia offers beyond this abscence of tax? Is there a friendly judicial system? How's the IP protection? Do they have a significant body of skilled workers? Whats the infrastructure like? Is there a
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Is there a lot of access to the European market
With the internet, the world is your market. A small software developer in Kansas could access European, Asian, African, etc. markets. Someone in Georgia could access every market also (unless Russia has an embargo or something on them).
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It's not how much you make; it's how much you keep.
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Re:So now our jobs go to Georgia? (Score:4, Informative)
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Georgia also has an abundance of English speakers, unlike most of Asia. It has a large population of computer scientists and engineers, unlike Africa.
You are speaking about a country of four million people. The capital has a population of less than 1.5 million, and the regions outside the capital are largely uninteresting for IT investment. The abundance of English speakers and large population of engineers need to be seen in relation to that.
English in Georgia is largely limited to the young generation, people over 35 are more likely to speak Russian than English, even though they probably won't like to. I guess you could find more English speakers in m
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That's silly. It's not about the number, it's about the percentage. If you walk into a store, what's the chance that the guy behind the counter speaks English? If you hire a programmer without specifying a specific language to speak, what's the chance they speak English? The raw numbers are useless, as you stated it's a small country.
By your statement, New Zealand is a bad p
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I guess you could find more English speakers in many Asian cities than in Georgia, depending on what constitutes "Asia" for you.
That's silly. It's not about the number, it's about the percentage.
Actually it's about both. China probably has a lower percentage of English speakers than Georgia, but if you have more people enrolled into universities than Georgia has citizens, the raw number probably does make a difference.
Not to mention that there is a fair number of countries in Asia where the percentage is higher, too.
If you walk into a store, what's the chance that the guy behind the counter speaks English?
In Georgia, somewhat OK if you look at banks and tech stores, not great if you look at grocery stores or bus drivers.
If you hire a programmer without specifying a specific language to speak, what's the chance they speak English?
Better than the guy in the store, and probably better than in Turkm
Re:So now our jobs go to Georgia? (Score:4, Informative)
Does anyone know what special benefits Georgia offers beyond this abscence of tax?
Georgia went through a couple of civil wars (and a few presidents) since the USSR dissolved. Georgia initiated another war recently, and successfully lost territory this way. The president of Georgia is believed to be insane [spiegel.de]; some say that he personally killed [georgiatimes.info] one of his political opponents. He is currently the black sheep among presidents in the region. Russian officials won't tell him the time of the day. There are frequent demonstrations for and against the president. The country is poor (but that's pretty easy to conclude by now.) The local language is pretty unique. The country is split into several tribes who aren't particularly in love with each other (that's what caused the loss of territories in the recent war.) Many people live in mountain villages, with minimum communications. Georgia was best known in the USSR for its agricultural goods - wine, peaches and other stuff that requires warm climate. There are probably quite a few programmers in cities, though.
Re:So now our jobs go to Georgia? (Score:5, Informative)
Georgia is #11 in the "Ease of Doing Business Index" [doingbusiness.org], and generally has very lax economic regulation across the board. There have been some sweeping social and political reforms since 2004, and the guys at helm are die-hard economic liberals, with all that implies - very little bureaucracy, and tendency of government to keep its nose out of business affairs for as long as all taxes are paid.
I'd say that, if you're looking for a libertarian paradise, it's one of the places closest to that. How long that will last is a good question, though - there have been some claims recently that Georgian economic growth has all signs of an investment bubble, and it's about to burst.
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I'd say that, if you're looking for a libertarian paradise, it's one of the places closest to that.
I think that comment wins the 'inadvertently funny' prize for today.
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Thank you for sharing that link with us. I find the results very surprising and fascinating.
1 thing that I love about slashdot is the way that we share information that I would have never thought to even look up.
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I think the concern would be that the Russian government and army keeps its nose out of business affairs.
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I spent two of the best weeks of my life in Georgia last summer. Fabulous people, great food, beautiful country. The only real problem I could identify is that whole "being repeatedly blown up and slowly hacked away at by the Russians" thing.
They're still repairing parts of Gori.
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I spent two of the best weeks of my life in Georgia last summer. Fabulous people, great food, beautiful country. The only real problem I could identify is that whole "being repeatedly blown up and slowly hacked away at by the Russians" thing.
They're still repairing parts of Gori.
Well, yes, that sort of thing tends to happen when you do [wikipedia.org] a targeted shelling of a UN-mandate peacekeeper mission - alongside a larger one of a town full of civilians...
It's a good thing that you've been to Gori, but did you visit Tskhinvali while you were at it?
Anyway, the war was silly on both sides, but it looks like Georgia is willing to let Abkhazia and South Ossetia go away as a price for peace... which Russia is content with. I would expect the political relations between two countries to remain chil
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The Georgians are certainly not without blame in the situation, but I do give a bit of credence to their claims that the Russians are instigating the entire affair given that neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia actually want "independence" any more than Nagorno-Karbakh wants it. Throw in Transnistria and I think Russia has a pretty established track record that can either be seen as "aiding
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The Georgians are certainly not without blame in the situation, but I do give a bit of credence to their claims that the Russians are instigating the entire affair given that neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia actually want "independence" any more than Nagorno-Karbakh wants it.
"Instigating" is a very vague word. There are specific facts which can be blamed on Russia, such as handing out Russian passports to South Ossetians on request with no questions asked, but I don't think that can be a reasonable justification for a full-scale armed invasion of the region, at least from a sane perspective. Then also, "aiding independence movements" is not a bad thing in and of itself, if they are legitimate, and in this case it seems to be pretty clear-cut - a national-identity-centric indepe
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If they can avoid being bombed long enough to get themselves off of the state department warning lists I see a fairly positive future for them.
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btw, there's no technical inspection on privately held cars in georgia. none.
supposedly that's because level of corruption in the inspection process was so extremely high, so it was decided to abandon it completely, at least until overall level of corruption can be brought down.
so if it moves - you can drive. and sometimes also if it doesn't move.
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I used to have a Georgian girlfriend who was a pc game developer at that time (6 years ago). She told me that it was quite difficult to work when there is no electricity for hours every day. In the capital, that is. IP protection was non-existant, skilled workers were scarse and the judical system was as friendly as money could buy.
Difference (Score:2)
While from a formal point of view it is impossible to distinguish between software developers from the oil.
When software developers screw up, they don't leave a billion barrels of their product on the shores of Louisiana.
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When software developers screw up, they don't leave a billion barrels of their product on the shores of Louisiana.
I take it that you have never heard of the Video Professor...
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when software developers screw up. people from the wild arise and exploit it leaving thousands or millions (depending on software or even OS) gwt infected and/or damaged.
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Uhhh, I don't think it has the power to do that. (Score:2, Funny)
At least with federal taxes. Georgia's limited state's rights can't usurp federal institutions like the IRS, so I don't think this will even work.
Translation (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps it would be less confusing if translated into Swedish Chef.
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Yeah, and Grumpy is pretty damn tall for a dwarf.
I could barely tell what the target language was supposed to be.
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The correct translation is:
"My hovercraft is full of eels."
Is my source code safe in a third-world nation? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm well aware that most outsourcing projects end up being huge disasters. It's obvious why that happens.
But even assuming it was possible for these third-worlders to develop software well (which, of course, it isn't), how can I be sure they'll respect the privacy of my source code? Will a contract alone really be enough to ensure that they don't deliver the code to me, and then turn around the deliver it to my competitors, for a fee?
Will I have to perform a complete audit of all code they create, just to e
Re:Is my source code safe in a third-world nation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Take warning from this: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Russian-Plan.aspx [thedailywtf.com]
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If a programmer wasn't smart enough to circumvent your wanky security I wouldn't want to employ him.
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Ask Airbus how that worked out in the USA when they hit some government assisted industrial espionage on behalf of Boeing. The answer as always is don't let your crown jewels stray into a place where you can't contact your local police and get them tried in your local court. It's still a huge undertaking to get justice if it's not in your own country even i
Come to Georgia, IT companies! (Score:4, Funny)
Former Soviet Republic of Georgia To Become I... (Score:2)
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Is it a bad sign for my sanity that, when I read this in the RSS feed as "Former Soviet Republic of Georgia To Become I..." my first thought was "Former Soviet Republic of Georgia To Become Iowa"?
I'm very sorry but you have a brain tumor, and it's terminal so smoke if you got'em...
Summary is wrong (Score:1)
The news article is about Georgia becoming a tax haven for IT and also about taxation problems IT companies in Russia are facing. The quote is from Russian officials speaking about the IT industry in Russia, not in Georgia.
How to distinguish software developers from oil (Score:3, Funny)
Oil floats on water.
What also floats on water? Witches!
Software developers are invariably male (just look at slashdot).
Men are not witches.
Thus software developers do not float.
So, to determine whether to tax it (non-IT) or not tax it (IT), throw it in the ocean (or Black Sea).
If it drowns, it is IT, so don't tax it. If it floats, clean it up and send the bill to BP.
QED.
Invest in georgia (Score:4, Informative)
At first Georgia is fast gworing with economy, out of corruption, ZERO mafia (some in here sad that russian mafia is in georgia, i guess georgian mafia is in russia :) ):
From 2003 to 2010, after rose revolution georgia get:
1. GDP grow from 12%
2. Industry income grow for a 1200%
3. Building industry product grow for a 800%
4. Overall grow of trading 600%
5. Communication sector grow - 400%
6. External turnover grow - 900%
7. Import grow - 900%
8. Export grow - 500%
9. xternal debt rose by only 10%, in 2003 was 600 of common income, now is less
10. Average salary grow - 600%
11. Unempoyment grow - 14% from 12%, even after 2008
12. Corruption ranking - from 133th (near russia) to 58th
Literacy Level - 100% (only one and #1 in ranking)
Ease of doing business Ranking:
2009 rank - 16th
2010 rank - 11th
1. Infrastructure
2. Workforce availability
3. Culture of working
#4. Political stability
5. Religious stability
6. Social stability
7. Corruption
8. Legal system
Georgia is missing only political stability because of attacks of instable neighbours, but according to US military bases establishment - now it should be ok. Regarding others - Georgia is trying to get very close to the EU, so country is changing its legal system and standarts according to EU requests.
Mentality - out of USSR, hating USSR, hating Staling, working, learning, management, clean, literal, educated, traditionally guests are best friends, beer :)
IT/telecom access technology grow (@home result you can feel):
Y2002:
Dial-up, 1 hour = ca. 0,4 USD, 56k
Mobile: 2G, ca. 0,2 USD per minute
Y2010: :)
ADSL/ADSL2+ (one of the first countries implemented, available even in villages) = unlimited, 50 USD per month
Fiber to the home (available almost everywhere in big cities) = unlimited traffic, 100mbps to gbps local connection, 10bmps - 100mbps global, 50 USD per month
4G WiMax Mobile = unlimited traffic & speed, 50 USD per month, closing due other technology evolution
3.75G EV-DO CDMA Mobile = unlimited traffic, up to 3mbps speed, 30 USD per month, ca 70% coverage
3.75G UMTS Mobile = ca 50% coverage, 100% in cities, 0,02-0,3 USD per MB
2.5G GSM EDGE = ca 90% coverage (available everywhere), 0,02-0,3 USD per MB
Dialup - not available
Someone said something for labor cost, ok, if you believe that IT guy cost is big in georgia (actually its both - there is a scaled price range), then you can get additional workers from neighbour countries like armenia and azerbaijan, or even take indian guys in there...
Some ad videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynihqPoG0Wk [youtube.com]
Capital:
http://www.tbilisi.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=1 [tbilisi.gov.ge]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5xPZ5BZOA [youtube.com]
Batumi (second growing city), was in communistic ruines, now growing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HOa15Inzr0 [youtube.com]
Banking grow - oh, don't tell me about that, you can even compare to EU, especially in social needs like searching for ATM, absolutely no problem
Mathematical equations and stuff (Score:2)
I'm always wary of figures for growth. Start from fuck all and growth is infinite.
I've seen the adverts for Georgia[1] on BBC World (or maybe it was CNN), and they go on about being "most improved" in some measures of honesty. All that means is that quite recently they were even worse.
[1] Yes, countries advertise on those channels. Don't get me started about "Malaysia, truly Asia!".
One question (Score:2)
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Another question: have they closed the obvious loophole?
(Create two companies, A LLC and B LLC. A LLC performs any random trade you want, and hires B LLC to design an IT system for it. Arrange the accounts such that B's fees are at least as high as A's profit. Extract profit as dividend from B, tax free.)
Yahoo Oil Inc. (Score:2)
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Sorry, but I couldn't let this pass because it's just entirely wrong. Successful companies are the ones who get tax breaks when deciding where to move or stay. They are the ones that grease the wheels in government to make sure they don't pay taxes, while less successful companies often still have to.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/20/business/study-finds-that-many-large-companies-pay-no-taxes.html [nytimes.com]
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=712ae8a2-20d2-4334-abef-3191dd63fb59 [senate.gov]
http://www.actwv.org/press/Fir [actwv.org]
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True, probably not good news for IT workers in the US.
But (and I may be modded troll for this), we have it too fat and easy in the US. Whine about $3/gallon gas when we should pay what it really costs, which is much more. Most of Europe pays double that, or more. Higher oil prices won't wreck our economy, any more than piracy threatens art. Quite the contrary. Do us good. Maybe we'd never have drilled in the deep areas of the Gulf of Mexico. Recall how US tastes in vehicles shifted dramatically whe
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That's mostly because of taxes, not because it's for some noble green goal. In a way it's somewhat beneficial since some of that money flows back to improving or creating infrastructure where needed and people take mileage into account more than sheer size and weight, but the number of BMW X5s and other steel "compensation" fortresses I see on a daily basis is still pretty depressing, and it's not clear that the money for gas goes towards that goal.
On the other
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Also depends on where in the US you are. We're in a smaller college town and we can pay developers about 2/3 rd's as much as the nearest "big city" and developers still make pretty good lives because cost of living is relatively cheap.
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He speaks perfect russian with no accent
Yes, but can he speak French... in Russian? [youtube.com]
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That doesn't explain how you can speak Russian with no accent. It's impossible to speak any language without an accent. It doesn't matter what language you're speaking, the only people who think you haven't got an accent are the ones who speak with the same accent.
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When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth.
No it mustn't. Whatever remains must just be possible - which isn't the same thing as "the truth" at all!
Since you know "no accent" is impossible, but "no foreign accent" is possible, then why assume the impossible and ridicule it, rather than taking the reasonable reading of it where "foreign" is assumed?
Because "no accent" is what was said, not "no foreign accent". If we're not discussing what's actually written, why not why not assume it meant "no Russian accent"?
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If there is only one past and you can eliminate all impossible pasts you end up with one and only one option; what actually happened.
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So?
If we're not discussing what's actually written, why not why not assume it meant "no Russian accent"?
Because that would be stupid. You are purposefully taking the absolute worst possible interpretation of the words possible, then asserting it to be the only one. "No accent" is impossible. So, what's the most likely meaning of that? "No foreign accent." If you have another plausible meaning, share it.
Just because someone says someth
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No, you're thinking of the airport in the south of the US.
This is over in Europe. Or Asia. Or, possibly, both, or neither.