Fortune, what are you smoking, 1st edition?

Megacorps are by definition unable to pay taxes to anyone else. That's what Extraterritoriality means. They are their own governments unto themselves; those chunks of land in which they operate are their national territory, and they do not pay taxes to anyone.

They may have ongoing monetary arrangements with national governments, but that's just a matter of convienance. Megacorps are the new Superpowers, and any given one, save maybe Horizon, could easily destroy the UCAS if they so desired.

That's not strictly true, as even megas have some amount of non-extraterritorial holdings according to canon thus far.

~J

A Megacorporation is not extraterritorial in and of itself. Property or land can be extraterritorial, and AAA Corporations are the entities that are eligible to own said property (with all accompanying rights, privileges, and responsibilities).

These threads might be of assistance, paying particular attention to the posts of Nath and Synner ...

Records of Extraterritoriality

Corporate Law

Corporate Taxation

Extraterritoriality: How far does it go?

I'm pretty sure corps pay taxes. Otherwise, how could you possibly justify extraterritoriality in the first place? The government won't just give away its land and say 'well, before we made taxes on this land, but now we don't, and that's just dandy by us!' Uncle Sam (or whatever the UCAS version is) wants his cut. Now whether that cut requires they declare how many employees they have and what their SINs are or not is a different question, but I'm pretty sure Renraku paid big bucks to Seattle (and her many public officials) in one form or another in order to get the land required to build the SCIRE.

No doubt. However, you're assuming that Uncle Sam-And-Maple-Leaf has the power to take a cut, at least a recurring one.

~J

Only the UCAS is now a second-rate power in a world where the only first-rate powers have heavy megacorporate backing.

~J

If Uncle Dunkie was still alive, the UCAS would be a first-rate power and the Megacorps would be paying taxes.

When the Shiawise decision was settled, Shiawise was almost certainly still paying taxes on their nuclear facility, even as they had their own standing army and ability to defend themselves. The 'rights' of the corporations to self-manage has increased over time, and I'm sure there are cases where say Renraku has said they'd rather pay taxes on all 'exports' rather than on the value of the land they're sitting on and the UCAS has agreed. However, I've not seen anything in the timeline to indicate the UCAS completely gave up the right to tax extraterritorial countries.

I am willing to guess however that, as the UCAS dropped its military spending, eliminated all or most welfare spending, and has mostly shifted to the most basic functions (of protecting trade and providing enforcement of federal laws and statutes), their expenditures have dropped to a shadow of their current rate. A lot of the current debt is owned by corporations, and the new spending is very slight. The UCAS has no need to tax at the same rates it does now, although deficit spending is still just as popular I'm sure, so the corporations can still make buddies by buying that up. Plus of course, special deals are made as individual officials get 'samples' and so on from the corps in question.

So I would not be surprised if the SCIRE paid taxes on either land or exports. On the flip side, I expect that tax rate was no more than a million nuyen a year, probably less, which is hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the benefits of it (namely, terrorizing the populace).

The extra territoriality means that governments cannot interfere with the corps on their own home ground. But they are not sovereign nations. their employees still hold citizenship in nations. You do not give up UCAS citizenship when you start at Ares.

The corps still wish to interact with the nations in general. They have to report something and pay taxes for something. Otherwise the governments might create a situation where they tax everything that come into or out of a corp enclave. Imagine paying an import fee when you ship materials from factory 1 to Warehouse X. Then when it goes from Warehouse x to store 5.

I suspect the corps help people hide money from the government, like in a corp run 401K, so it does not get reported, but employees would still pay taxes.

Ummm... No. You're not.

You can be a Citizen of Ares Macrotechnology. In fact, if you're joining the company 'for good', I expect part of your contract is an expeditated emigration clause - IE, you do give up your UCAS citizenship in exchange for your Ares citizenship.

I cannot imagine that, given the existence of extraterritoriality, the UCAS would not allow dual citizenship. There are too many 'nations' in too small an area to say you're a citizen and you're a not. Failing that, if they do restrict you to one citizenship, it's clear then that the benefits and restrictions afforded to citizens and non-citizens are much less than they are now.

You 'can' have a dual-citizenship... But I imagine many if not most Megas would make you a very sweet deal to give up your UCAS citizenship, if you have one to start; those born in a corp enclave are corp-only citizens.

Basically, they want to own your ass fully, and leave you with absoloutely no chance anybody will be willing to help you.

Sprawl Survival Guide p37 says dual citizenship is rare but possible, but "some corps and countries" yank your citizenship if you gain it anywhere else. SoNA says that the PCC bans it. SR4 has the text from SSG copied and pasted directly into it if that's how you swing.

~J

And that is how I swing...

the PCC is it's own country but otherwise I'd say it's 'dual citizenship. You can lose your job at a corp. Then what happens? You don't hear of a dismissed Wuxing manger suddenly being stateless.

Why not?

~J

Dual citizenship often means double taxes, which is certainly reason enough voluntarily renounce unused citizenships. The United States today, for example, taxes the incomes of all citizens without regard to where they live and work. Worse, most countries often tax the incomes of people who reside but who are not citizens. Meaning that a Sixth World character with dual UCAS/Mitsuhama citizenship working at a British bakery would have to pay US taxes, Mitsuhama taxes, and British taxes, each in regards to his gross wages. If you add up enough citizenships, in fact, one can end up paying taxes which are greater than 100% of one's wages.

I would think that a person would only have a Megacorp SIN (as opposed to a national SIN) if they actually reside on extraterritorial property.

Actually, you get to deduct taxes paid to other governments. And reasonable amounts of money earned outside the US are tax free.

The first $80k.

All information below from Wikipedia, take with your usual grain of salt (both for the facts themselves, and my interpretation of them while rephrasing).

Japanese naturalization requires, among other things, statelessness or willingness to renounce other citizenships. Children with multiple citizenships by birth (one of them Japanese) are required to renounce or attempt to renounce either their Japanese citizenship or all other citizenships by the age of 21—the "attempt" clause is apparently in there for nations which do not permit one to renounce citizenship until a later minimum age (Wikipedia gives the example of 25 in Iran). Voluntary acquisition of another citizenship is considered renunciation of Japanese citizenship. Involuntary acquisition is permitted, but exercising the rights of any other citizenship while in Japan is considered renunciation of Japanese citizenship.

In Singapore, voluntarily acquiring another citizenship after age 18 is considered to be a renunciation of Singaporean citizenship, as is failure to renounce other citizenships acquired before the age of 18 by the age of 22.

In Iran, dual citizenship is not recognized, and possession of another country's passport (while a citizen) is a criminal offense—it does not appear, however, to be considered a renunciation of citizenship.

I can't find any list of countries which do or do not tax based on citizenship, or which do or do not discount taxes paid to other countries, but I doubt the UCAS in particular would go for that sort of exception. Likewise, corporations (with the exception of Japanese/Japanacorp, Aztlaner/Aztechnology, and possibly Quebecois/CATCo) would probably not offer any such exclusions, and the Big Eight/Ten would probably ban dual citizenship in general.

~J

I'm not sure that Citizenship and SINs are all that similar. To quote some old movies: