AT&T buys DirecTV for $48.5 Billion

[MoHasanie]

SamuelRSmith said:

MoHasanie said:

Interesting. In the US  the corporate tax is 35% and in the UK its 20%. Switzerland may have lower taxes, but I'm sure there are other costs of operating there that are higher than other places. 

Well, yeah, Switzerland has a ridiculously high cost of living. But moving to Switzerland doesn't actually mean moving to Switzerland, it just means that you say you're from Switzerland and file your taxes there, for all intents and purposes the company would have stayed in UK.

It's like Starbucks in the UK, technically makes losses every year in the UK... because it has to pay huge "license fees" to Starbucks USA/Netherlands/Switzerland.

That's true, but there must be some sort of catch, otherwise every firm would want to be based in Switzerland. I was reading a news article this week that said because costs are so high there, they were voting on increasing the minimum wage to $25 :O . But they decided against it. But imagine, if that's the minimum wage they thought was fair, then I wonder what excecutives or top professionals earn there...

The Starbucks thing is very interesting. I think Google, Amazon and loads of companies that operate in Europe base themselves in Ireland, so they don't have to pay taxes in the countries they are based in.