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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

#91

Post by allendoerfer »

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…

>Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a growing problem in Europe. It makes the EU look like fools

Not trying to start a flamewar here, but the common German/European perspective on the US legal system consists of corporations owning it (because of huge costs), consumers abusing it ("cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster", unreasonable compensations, class action lawsuits) and agencies outright ignoring it.

Edit: Remembered one more: Juries deciding whether murderers are guilty or not. Simply unthinkable over here. Ironically the horror of this scenario is fuelled by the US/Hollywood itself.

Edit 2: War on drugs / world's highest prison population / racial profiling / death sentence. The longer I think about it, the worse it gets. I think I made my point. The image is really, really bad.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#92

Post by batmansmk »

derekp7 wrote: post #13
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."

In other words, they found a bug in the way the law is written, and they are exploiting that flaw to their benefit.

Yes, and it is forbidden, as in France what matters is the spirit of the law and not the way it is expressed. It helps keeping common sense upfront; keeping readable and compact text laws.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#94

Post by JBReefer »

nametakenobv wrote: post #61
mike_hearn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that doing business is a "privilege" granted by the state is exactly why France's economy is famously bad, with unemployment double that of the UK.

This idea is in place for every government, everywhere in world, at any point in history.

Can you cite that? That's certainly not the opinion of ~50% of Americans

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#95

Post by wl »

omni wrote: post #85
mike_hearn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have any other examples which you think are bad? The $19,999 example seems pretty reasonable to me.

The example he gives is of someone clearly trying to evade the reporting requirements. People get caught up in these laws even when they don't intend to avoid them by virtue of doing business in cash with daily deposits just under the reporting limit[1].

[1] http://reason.com/blog/2016/02/04/after-finally-returning-th...

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#96

Post by Xylakant »

mike_hearn wrote: post #41
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.

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…

> Getting the VAT rules for online businesses altered so now instead of paying VAT where the sale takes place, you have to pay to the country of the buyer ... woebetide you if you don't speak Hungarian or Croatian. You're gonna have to find someone who does and get them to file a tax return for you.

This is a consequence of amazon and apple (and probably others) all "shipping" their digital goods from Luxembourg or Ireland and paying basically no tax at all - the Luxembourg government is accused of actually helping companies to exploit that loophole. This worked for Luxembourg or Ireland because they leverage that a little tax on many sales translates to still fairly high earnings per capita if you just have a small enough population. Basically both countries were siphoning off taxes from the higher population countries (france, germany, poland, GB, ...) in the EU. This used to be legal, but was clearly a loophole - and one that unfairly was only available to larger companies. So that one was closed - rightfully so - by stating that the sale for digital-only goods takes place in the country of the buyer. (as it's always been for services rendered to companies btw, look up reverse charge).

Things are now a bit harder for everybody that sells digital goods to Hungary obviously, but there's no need to speak Hungarian or pay somebody that does. Any company will have some sort of tax accountant and cross border tax affairs are their bread and butter. Small-scale businesses can register their foreign tax at their home tax/revenue service. It's certainly a nuisance, but please blame the ones that are responsible: The larger corporations that try and exploit every possible angle to save money.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#97

Post by DrJokepu »

eloisant wrote: post #63
rahimnathwani wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can only French companies open offices in the centre of Paris? Couldn't an Irish company rent office space just as easily?

An Irish company could probably rent office space, but to have employees under a French contract you need a French company. Not only workers hired in France wouldn't want an Irish contract, but you can only have "posted workers" for a temporary period. http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=471&langId=en

Actually, an EU company can employ workers in other EU member states without local subsidiaries, but will need to register with the government of the country where the employment will take place; the actual process varies by member state, e.g. in the UK the employer would have to register with HMRC and set up PAYE.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#98

Post by Nadya »

allendoerfer wrote: post #91
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…

>Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a growing problem in Europe. It makes the EU look like fools Not trying to start a flamewar here, but the common German/European perspective on the US legal system consists of corporations owning it (because of huge costs), consumers abusing it ("cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster", unreasonable compensations, class action lawsuit…

>cat in microwave

How oddly specific....were you referencing this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMH8Tof69SE

I do agree the U.S has a problem with rather frivulious lawsuits over "not following the letter of the law" or "wasn't mentioned in the safety manual to not do this thing that should have been common sense".

It seems when people think "American legal system" things like this come to mind: http://i.imgur.com/D7aP2bT.png

If I remember correctly though, the silliness of the above is actually due to a law about packaging must contain allergen information for certain common allergies. This means even peanuts must contain the label in order to comply with the law. Rather than list exceptions and complicate the law, it applies broadly to everything.

IANAL, I may not be remembering this fact 100% correctly.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#99

Post by evgen »

mike_hearn wrote: post #72
eropple wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not exactly. You have to look no further than the right's cherished paragon of literalism Antonin Scalia to see a judge contorting himself into knots to try to present his interpretive opinion on the law and meaning of the text as though it was clearly spelled out in either. There are no literalists, especially when their pet political ideals are threatened in some way. If you think the split is literalist/interpretive then you have not been paying attention.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#100

Post by kbenson »

allendoerfer wrote: post #91
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…

>Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a growing problem in Europe. It makes the EU look like fools Not trying to start a flamewar here, but the common German/European perspective on the US legal system consists of corporations owning it (because of huge costs), consumers abusing it ("cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster", unreasonable compensations, class action lawsuit…

> "cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster"

Okay, I'm curious. What's this supposed to mean? That consumers are putting cats in those devices and getting away with it, or putting cats in those devices to void warranties or something?

The best I can come up with is that you are thinking of cat in the microwave, which is an urban legend. I'm not sure how that's affecting the view of the US legal system.

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