It’s just silly to criticize a company for minimizing their tax burden. Everybody does this. If the corporate structure is legal then it’s the law that needs to be fixed and the company will follow.

So many reasons to be jealous of those tax-avoiding Ikeans!

Ingvar Kamprad himself now resides in Switzerland, precisely to avoid tax.

Just to give some balance to the general view, I’d like to add my 2 cents:
1st cent: The foundation did try to expand their charity goals recently, to be able to give away more money, but the charter change was rejected in a Dutch court
2nd cent: The money given to the Kamprads is sometimes used also for the development of IKEA. Regarding IKEAs expansion into Russia, I’ve read that Ingvar Kamprad financed it mostly himself, it was sort of a pet project.

Anyway, my view is that if their shenanigans are legal, then it is ok. Better to fix loopholes than to ask companies to be nice.

Hey! I’ll race you to the bottom!

Essentially, one could view IKEA as a company that exists for the sole purpose of existing. I’m not sure why that would be inherently worse than quarterly-report driven corporations that exist to increase the value of their stocks.

And I speak as an avid shopper, who can visit furniture shops for fun.

#12 GARMT; Interesting way to make clear the analogy to darwinian ecosystems. (And I think my lamp might be called “Garmt” ;] ).

#13 QuickBrownFox and #5 JPW; How can people think that Ikea instructions are complicated? I am always amazed at how well the instructions do at making it clear which fastener is which, which side (of parts that are always almost symmetric but not quite!) is which, and how to put it all together. Anyone who thinks that Ikea instructions are complicated must not have spent their childhood building Lego.

As for me, if Ikea is not doing anything illegal, then I don’t blame them. If Ikea is doing something unethical but not illegal, then people should make it illegal or stop complaining about it or at least stop shopping there. Which is how I feel about Wal-Mart, too. Practically all my furniture is from Ikea (in part because it’s the only furniture I can easily take home in an Accord), although when it comes to Wal-Mart I usually prefer to vote with my wallet and go elsewhere.

Nearest Ikea store is 124 miles away, a bit out of the way for me. Do they sell a Ikea store kit?

You mess up in this realm of existence you lose. IKEA you just lost.

Back on topic, does IKEA’s Euro-tax dodging extend to their stores here in the USA? I won’t pretend to know the vagaries of the tax code, but I would find it amazing (but not necessarily surprising) if Uncle Sam wasn’t getting its arguably fair share of IKEA’s profits.

Tax avoidance (as distinct from evasion) is a time honored tradition amongst all citizens, whether individual or corporate. I’m not sure scale alone is enough to make it evil.

The way most large companies get tax breaks and sweetheart deals anyway, you’d have to stop buying electronics, automobiles, houses, and food! Besides, noone stopping the Swedish gov from fixing the loophole (ie. auditing the charity, establishing minimum charitable goals before you can claim charity status, etc).

It seems the argument is that this violates the “spirit” of Sweden’s tax laws, but not the letter of the law. Seems to me Sweden needs to simplify it’s tax code, maybe adding something like “If claiming status as a not for profit, the vast majority of all monies received need to be directed to either documented charity work or known non-profits.”

Simplifying the tax code will shake out alot of these kinds of “loopholes,” and either increase tax revenues OR force the money to go underground.

Ingvar Kamprad himself now resides in Switzerland, precisely to avoid tax.

Rich people avoiding taxes, unheard of!

Thank goodness George Soros doesn’t (as just one of many high-profile examples) scheme to avoid paying taxes…

A few bullet points (to synthesise what would normally be a long rave)
• I am interested in the context and meaning behind the term “capitalists”. WTF is a capitalist anyway?
• I run my own business, and am about to launch my site in a niche that surprisingly noone is doing, but is likely to be successful. This will bring a good deal of money into my hands. A few years ago, my dad died leaving a good deal of money. I have yet to own a Ferrari, Yacht and other emotionally-appealing but ultimately unsatisfying positional goods. So money hasn’t done anything to me (I imagine like a brain surgeon cuts your head open with his scalpel, so too money turns me into a zombie eating brains for entreés)
• I have found that money doesn’t ‘make’ you greedy (or me) because that wasn’t conditioned much into me in my early years. I find greediness with energy in relationships, at work, with appliances that ultimately should be dismantled and helped made into a 10-seater HPV van. Money comes into the piece, what, age 15 really. There’s 15 years of learning to be selfish, greedy, vain and other upbringings by negatively-unconscious people. So when these kapitaliztz end up running a company, they are well versed in being sheißeköpfe.
• A lot of lefties I hung around were terrible at relationships, let along critiquing the world accurately. They wanted to remake the entire system, but pissed on each other and couldn’t keep the house in a sense of balance. Great.

My main point is:
• with the (likely) money to be made soon, I have big plans that will fulfil me with greater joy than investing in the sharemarket (really, why would you?). One plan is to buy denuded land here in Aus (cheaply), and hire permaculture people to restore it, then move onto the next bit of land. That means I have been able to move from being a poor greenie to a rich businessperson and keep my dreams. No idea when or how this will come about, but with some good money, I can do something that will give BACK to the planet I live on.

Here’s a self-made quote that totally makes sense, that came to me recently:
“The money will come if all the pieces are in place, and one piece is that the money and profit doesn’t matter, and other piece is allow full gigantic profits to come in their own way without impediment (and within certain ethical boundaries pertanent to the business)”

Ok, enough ernestness for now.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/31198