On Fri, Oct 02, 2020 at 09:10:53AM +0100, Michael Meeks wrote: > On 30/09/2020 09:40, Andreas Mantke wrote:
>>> c) form sub-group to work out and publish business entity proposals >>> URL: https://redmine.documentfoundation.org/issues/3294 >>> Status: Criteria list (Lothar) Draft proposal for Luxemburg entity >>> (Paolo), next meeting orga(Thorsten) ->> >>> https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/NeBWm25cd2LHyoq >> it's not a really appropriate behavior of a German charity to >> create a business entity in a country, which is known as a legal >> tax shelter. > I'm sure no-one would want us to search the world for a > jurisdiction that is maximally burdensome to incorporate and run in > =) I'm aware that (some) German (and French, and Belgian) politicians like to deflect from domestic problems by blaming Luxembourg, and that they have some success doing that, but that doesn't make their dreams true. They like to announce big sweeping "we will investigate this-and-this behaviour by Luxembourg"... the press echoes the big announcement, but when the investigation silently peters out, nobody reads about it. Recent examples include the Belgian "investigation" of Luxembourg tax rulings (the Belgian tax office probably "reminded" the minister that they issue far more...). Some press, e.g. https://www.icij.org/investigations/luxembourg-leaks/luxembourg-falls-further-behind-eu-aml-rules-as-companies-fail-to-disclose-ownership/ like to announce when Luxembourg faces delays in the nitty gritty implementation of a particular transparency measure required by EU legislation, but is mum when France flat out refuses to implement it fully (with some help of its top courts, which seem to think it is not obviously wentirely compatible with fundamental human rights), or Poland has (at the time of the article) not even begun a draft law to implement it (Poland has since have not only drafted that law, but passed it). >From the times of Francis Bacon and before, "calomniez, calomniez, il en restera toujours quelque chose" (I wish I knew the English original, not only the canonical French translation) has been a principle of statehood. Bullying small Luxembourg is obviously easier, and safer, than even small but somewhat bigger neighbours, like the Netherlands (ever heard about the "Dutch Sandwich"?), Belgium ("tax shelter" for many French or Dutch "rich people"... no taxation of "capital income", as long as it is not a professional activity) or France (where whole city/town districts are tax-exempt... how's that for a "tax shelter"?), or small jurisdictions under the protection of e.g. the United Kingdom. If you want to take the discussion on the moral level, you have to decide whether it is "proper" for "a German charity" to join in this bullying, or whether it should stand as a beam of light and virtue in refusing to do so. If you want to have the discussion on factual bases of where and how it would work best, like Michael seems to try to do, then we can forget about this whole subdiscussion. -- Lionel -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
