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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

#71

Post by nametakenobv »

logicchains wrote: post #69
nametakenobv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure why you saying this. Google does not pay its taxes in France. Education, healthcare and law enforcement is what makes people prosperous. How do you propose to have them without taxes? Or are you saying that French government spends enough already and thus Google should avoid paying taxes if they don't feel like it?

>Education, healthcare and law enforcement is what makes people prosperous. How do you propose to have them without taxes? >Or are you saying that French government spends enough already and thus Google should avoid paying taxes if they don't feel like it? I'm saying Google's paid all the taxes it's legally required to pay and has no moral compulsion to pay any extra. But yes, I do believe the French government spend…

>I'm saying Google's paid all the taxes it's legally required

You don't know that. The court will say if this is true or not. How can you make this judgement? Do you have a law degree? Do you have experience in international tax law? Have you seen all the relevant paperwork?

>But yes, I do believe the French government spends enough already

This is not pertinent to the case. If you want the french government to tax less, go and vote for it. Campaign for it. What would happen if everybody disregards any law they don't agree with?

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#72

Post by mike_hearn »

eropple wrote: post #62
tomp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" That's basically how all Anglo-Saxon (including the US) law, i.e. case law, looks like.

Yup. A lot of people, not limited but often expressed in the tech rule, seem to think that laws are strict-matching constructs. But laws are intended to be fuzzily matched, and the judiciary exists to do that fuzzy matching.

Not exactly. The degree to which judges should be allowed to creatively interpret laws is a controversial issue that has long split down left/right lines.

I mean that's basically the entire cause of the split in the Supreme Court between strict literalists and those who believe in a living constitution.

Obviously judges have to apply some degree of common sense because English is inherently vague, but the amount that they do it can still trigger political bun fights.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#73

Post by plandis »

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…

This seems like an intended grey area that just allows the government to go after whoever they feel like while not being required to go after other businesses.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#74

Post by puzzle »

nametakenobv wrote: post #33
logicchains wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Google sells ads through auctions, primarily. Do the auctions take place in France?

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#76

Post by imrehg »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #29
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.

Addendum: make filing taxes a largely automated task where data are shared with the government so the online submission is merely a review of what is already on your W-4 (or what have you). Make it so dead simple it should take no more than 15 minutes for the average citizen with a computer. Anything that is purchased or paid to you should already be built in: if you paid mortgage interest, the deduction is automatic…

This is pretty much how tax filing works in Taiwan (even for me as an expat here). Doing it in software (not great software but in the end result effective) and it's all just a review and crosscheck. Worked like a charm for the last 7 years. And even if you don't use the software, in the tax office it's about 10 mins to get everything done. Pretty much all info is in the central system already.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#77

Post by rayiner »

tomp wrote: post #47
mike_hearn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" That's basically how all Anglo-Saxon (including the US) law, i.e. case law, looks like.

But "unreasonable" means something closer to its literal meaning in U.S. law. It means a conclusion that a rational person would not reach. So "unreasonable" is a pretty strong safeguard. It's hard to reach an "unreasonable" conclusion about your legal obligations by accident.

In the criminal context, we also have the rule of leniety, which holds that ambiguities in criminal laws are resolved in favor of the defendant.

It's unusual to encounter a situation where the law is clear but someone is punished based on vague case law interpretation of the law. I rarely see a situation where I think "the Court just botched interpreting this statute." Almost always, it's "Congress or the agency botched writing this statute or regulation." And in a civil system it's much harder for the courts to fix such problems.

We do have a problem with laws that are themselves unclear, but the Supreme Court has done some weed cleaning in that area. For example, Jeffrey Skilling got a reduced sentence because the Supreme Court found that the honest services fraud statute was unconstitutionally vague unless limited to strict "bribery and kickbacks" theory. In the area of fraud on the government, courts have held that defendants can only be punished for making incorrect statements to the government (for e.g. Medicaire claims) if the falsity of their statements is based on an unreasonable and not merely incorrect interpretation of the underlying regulations.

We also generally have a strong separation between civil suits and criminal suits. People lament that not enough people go to prison in the white collar world, but in my opinion it's a good thing we're not sending people to prison for misunderstanding Treasury or Fed regulations.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#78

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

imrehg wrote: post #76
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addendum: make filing taxes a largely automated task where data are shared with the government so the online submission is merely a review of what is already on your W-4 (or what have you). Make it so dead simple it should take no more than 15 minutes for the average citizen with a computer. Anything that is purchased or paid to you should already be built in: if you paid mortgage interest, the deduction is automatic…

This is pretty much how tax filing works in Taiwan (even for me as an expat here). Doing it in software (not great software but in the end result effective) and it's all just a review and crosscheck. Worked like a charm for the last 7 years. And even if you don't use the software, in the tax office it's about 10 mins to get everything done. Pretty much all info is in the central system already.

It really frustrates me that the US tax system is so complex you need a package like turbotax to get it done right, and the company uses my fees to lobby congress to keep this common sense from becoming reality.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#79

Post by stuaxo »

tomp wrote: post #49
mike_hearn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really about tax loopholes. It's about France being uncompetitive and unwilling to change. Google advertisers sign contracts with a company in Ireland because Ireland decided to effectively not apply corporation taxes (i.e. use a low rate and allow a variety of schemes that reduce the real rate even further). They did this fully knowingly ... the policy has been popular with voters ... because they wanted…

It's completely within the right of Ireland and Irish citizens to promote investment by lowering the tax rates, as it is within the right of France and French citizens to tax companies that earn profits in France according to French tax law. I really don't see a problem.

And yet Ireland has harsh austerity that has pushed many into poverty, so it wouldn't seem to be making much difference to citizens.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/irelands-au...

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#80

Post by Bartweiss »

mike_hearn wrote: post #42
Bartweiss wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Structuring laws are highly controversial and have caused huge amounts of pain for innocent people who were just legitimately trying to reduce their paperwork burden. They're bad laws.

Yeah, I don't mean to endorse them, especially not as-written. Any time you make laws like "it is illegal to circumvent the law" you're inviting exponential amounts of red tape. Add that to laws that were already high-burden on small businesses, and it's a recipe for real trouble (made even worse by the fact that a remarkable amount of banking still isn't digital).

I know that the specific case I mentioned has been fairly useful in fighting money laundering and large-scale drug-dealing, though. There's something to be said for making it hard to move large amounts of money through banks without being observed, but as always there's no good way to do that without interfering with legitimate commerce.

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