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Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

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Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#31

Post by charlesdm »

ciaranm wrote: post #19
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution: Get rid of tax law as one of the major sub-industries of the legal profession. When I no longer need a lawyer to submit my taxes, I'll start caring about corporate tax loopholes.

Most people in Europe don't need Lawyers to submit their taxes. In fact, until I started my own company (UK) - I didn't 'submit' taxes. It was calculated (and taken) automatically based on my salary and otherwise declared income.

This depends a lot on the country. For example: I'd say most self employed people in Belgium use an accountant to file their taxes. Some (a subset) of those also have a tax lawyer who helps them optimise certain things.

Self employed people (i.e. entrepreneurs) who make decent money will have a tax lawyer, because inevitably, you'll bump into an unfriendly tax collector somewhere down the road.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#32

Post by newjersey »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #15
hrnnnnnn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the most eloquent phrasing. I think what they're trying to say is "People find legalistic tax-dodging unethical, and they're sick of rich people and big companies getting away with it."

Solution: Get rid of tax law as one of the major sub-industries of the legal profession. When I no longer need a lawyer to submit my taxes, I'll start caring about corporate tax loopholes.

Yes, that is a great idea but imagine writing unit tests for your code. Imagine someone is reading the tests as you write them (and has people whispering in your ears to influence what you write). Now, these people are trying to find edge cases. Remember that they just need one good edge case to pwn your code.

Will you start writing more unit tests? Will your tests get more elaborate?

My abstraction is bad because it doesn't cover another issue: public policy through taxation. We encourage things we consider "good" using taxes and we discourage things we consider "bad" using taxes as well. A lot of people support tax "relief" for things like mortgage loans, education loans, dependents and so on. If we want to simplify the tax code, these deductions must go away.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#33

Post by nametakenobv »

logicchains wrote: post #7
te_chris wrote: post #5

Good. The way multinationals are allowed to take the resources of the various nation states they operate in while contributing nothing themselves, yet still claiming to be 'people' and demanding all sorts of rights, is beyond the joke. Before anyone says it, yes I'm aware they pay GST/VAT/PAYE etc, but if I have to pay company tax, why don't they?

>while contributing nothing themselves They contribute a service, in this case a search engine that's miles ahead of its closest competitor, Bing. They don't "take" anything, they offer something that you're free not to use. Unlike nation states, which are happy to take whatever they want (claiming they're owed it for providing you things you may never have asked for, which are paid for by other people potentially ag…

Google makes money in France. Given France's economy size, it's probably billions. They need to pay taxes to the french government for the privilege of doing business there, so the government can sped it on schools and other infrastructure, so the french citizens can be prosperous.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#34

Post by bambax »

mike_hearn wrote: post #25
bambax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know about American law, but in French the notion exists and is called "abus de droit"; just because you can do something "in general", you can't do it with the specific purpose of circumventing another legal obligation. For example, as an Irish company, you can open a subsidiary in France to do business in France. That's a right. But if you're doing business in France essentially, you can't make the French com…

For example, as an Irish company, you can open a subsidiary in France to do business in France. The whole point of the EU single market is that you do not have to do that. You can set up shop in Ireland and sell to the French market until the cows come home. You only owe Irish taxes (modulo the recent completely crazy VAT changes). Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a gro…

You don't have to but you can; and apparently it's good politics too. Google made a big deal of its new office space in the center of Paris when they opened two years ago.

Edit: of course, the right for an Irish company to do business anywhere in Europe is also one that can be abused. Separate companies are not needed for rights to be abused and offices to be raided.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#35

Post by unlinker »

0xFFC wrote: post #26

Idk, but I feel Google is under tremendous pressure right now.Oracle likely going to win (they have best legal team in whole industry). Europe will hit Google with antitrust and now this.Microsot is coming for them, and they(Microsoft) positioned themselves very well. Maybe I don't realize correctly, but it seems Google is going to have hard time with all of this.

I understand Microsoft is making progress, but I can't see how the are positioning themselves very well against Google in the markets they compete on.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#37

Post by Bartweiss »

bambax wrote: post #20
ersii wrote: post #4

"Several have been accused of using legal methods to minimise their tax bills." Since when is it illegal to follow the law? Sure, we all have different opinions on the legal gray areas and of whether certain or all laws are legitimate and to what extent - but come on, that quote is just ridiculous.

Don't know about American law, but in French the notion exists and is called "abus de droit"; just because you can do something "in general", you can't do it with the specific purpose of circumventing another legal obligation. For example, as an Irish company, you can open a subsidiary in France to do business in France. That's a right. But if you're doing business in France essentially, you can't make the French com…

In America, there's at least one clear example of this - laws against "structuring". Basically, they say that it's criminal to arrange financial transactions with the purpose of avoiding laws about financial transactions.

As an example, banks are required to report all deposits of $20,000. It's a right to deposit $19,999 into a bank account, nothing wrong there. But to deposit $19,999 five times in a row, rather than than $100,000 all at once? That's structuring, and it's illegal.

I'm not aware of a general "law against circumventing laws" but there are certainly specific ones banning classes of behavior that exist to avoid other regulations.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#38

Post by raverbashing »

mike_hearn wrote: post #25
bambax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know about American law, but in French the notion exists and is called "abus de droit"; just because you can do something "in general", you can't do it with the specific purpose of circumventing another legal obligation. For example, as an Irish company, you can open a subsidiary in France to do business in France. That's a right. But if you're doing business in France essentially, you can't make the French com…

For example, as an Irish company, you can open a subsidiary in France to do business in France. The whole point of the EU single market is that you do not have to do that. You can set up shop in Ireland and sell to the French market until the cows come home. You only owe Irish taxes (modulo the recent completely crazy VAT changes). Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a gro…

Hummm not really. Or better saying, as much as the US look like with some judicial decisions of theirs

Like password vs fingerprint

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#39

Post by robbiemitchell »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #15
hrnnnnnn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the most eloquent phrasing. I think what they're trying to say is "People find legalistic tax-dodging unethical, and they're sick of rich people and big companies getting away with it."

Solution: Get rid of tax law as one of the major sub-industries of the legal profession. When I no longer need a lawyer to submit my taxes, I'll start caring about corporate tax loopholes.

The people with the most to lose in taxes have no problem paying specialists to handle it for them.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#40

Post by [deleted] »

hrnnnnnn wrote: post #6
ersii wrote: post #4

"Several have been accused of using legal methods to minimise their tax bills." Since when is it illegal to follow the law? Sure, we all have different opinions on the legal gray areas and of whether certain or all laws are legitimate and to what extent - but come on, that quote is just ridiculous.

It's not the most eloquent phrasing. I think what they're trying to say is "People find legalistic tax-dodging unethical, and they're sick of rich people and big companies getting away with it."

[deleted]
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