• MapleEngineer@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        So we should allow them to come to Canada to do business, make billions of dollars, take those billions out of Canada, and not pay taxes? Look at what the foreign oil companies are doing in Alberta. They’re extracting resources in Canada, making billions, taking those billions out of Canada, and not even paying to clean up after themselves. Do we really want that kind of foreign investment? Why don’t we require them to keep that money in Canada benefiting Canadians? They’re still making profit, they’re just not avoiding their obligations to Candians.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Sounds like a good way to encourage Canadian entrepreneurship.

        When local business is getting routinely overwhelmed and forced out of business by foreign companies with exceedingly deep pockets (see: the Walmart effect), maybe unfettered foreign “investment” isn’t the best thing for the country and its citizens?

  • Magister@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Perfectly legal, they wrote the laws for themselves, there’s nothing you can do.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I worked at a Canadian company that did this. We were very profitable.

    Got bought by a company in the EU. The EU HQ starts charging us really high consulting fees or something like that to run the business, which wiped out all the profit so it could be paid in the more favorable EU location.

    However it was done was completely legal

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      I have no idea how corporate taxes work.

      Wouldn’t taxes need to be paid on those ridiculously high consultation fees? Or would those tax rates be way lower than taxes on profit?

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I suspect that since it’s the same company, it’s just a line item of how someone spent their time in the EU advising us here, but it’s not paid like hiring an outside consultant who you then have to pay gst/pst on their services. So no tax other than on the other side?

        But i’m just guessing, I don’t know the whole details, maybe it is just lower tax