Live data from Hacker News

‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

bloomberg.com

21–30 of 52 posts

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#21
post #3

The last paragraph in the article is a real kicker: they're going to have to parse millions of documents to build their case. That's going to take an enormous amount of time and staffing costs. It'll be interesting to see this play out in the courts or if a settlement is reached before trial.

> That's going to take an enormous amount of time and staffing costs. Is it? Can't they scan all of those docs in, OCR them (or process the electronic docs if they're already in that format), and use e-discovery? I hear so often on HN that legal firms no longer need junior associates or paralegals for that work, as the software can do the heavy lifting.

I think automated discovery software for tax law is still probably very limited in capability.

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#22

Is France hitting the other big companies with tax shelters or singling out Google for some reason? I'm not sure.

It's not just Google. McDonald's, too.

http://nytimes.com/2016/05/27/business/french-tax-officials-...

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#23

we worked with computers, but pretty much only with word processing The article title sounds like a sensational excuse for an otherwise technologically unsavvy group of tax agency workers.

I don't know about that. Do you think they were going to use Google Docs?

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#24

> "It's pretty much a fight between David and Goliath", [the prosecutor] said. Really? France, a sovereign G8 nation, calling Google Goliath? How are they measuring size? Google's market capitalization is $500 billion, is this more valuable than the country of France?

Do you think the French Tax office has 500 billion in resources? Or 5? Likely to have a relatively tiny budget and teams compared to even just the legal teams at Google.

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin

I'm running uBlock Origin and still getting the notification about adblocker. They seem to be running some sort of detection mechanism. I was running standard uBlock and didn't realize it. Origin seems to bypass the detection.

Hrmmmm, running uBlock Origin 1.7.2, and got hit by it.

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#26

Is France hitting the other big companies with tax shelters or singling out Google for some reason? I'm not sure.

It's not just Google. McDonald's, too. http://nytimes.com/2016/05/27/business/french-tax-officials-...

Any other tech companies like Microsoft or Apple? Apple also uses Irish dodge plus its stored profits are always in the news. I'd be surprised if they didn't go after them.

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#27
post #24

> "It's pretty much a fight between David and Goliath", [the prosecutor] said. Really? France, a sovereign G8 nation, calling Google Goliath? How are they measuring size? Google's market capitalization is $500 billion, is this more valuable than the country of France?

Do you think the French Tax office has 500 billion in resources? Or 5? Likely to have a relatively tiny budget and teams compared to even just the legal teams at Google.

Do you think Google has the ability to send armed men to engage in violence against the French tax office?

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's going to take an enormous amount of time and staffing costs. Is it? Can't they scan all of those docs in, OCR them (or process the electronic docs if they're already in that format), and use e-discovery? I hear so often on HN that legal firms no longer need junior associates or paralegals for that work, as the software can do the heavy lifting.

Yes, software can make discovery a lot more efficient. Apparently they're not willing to pay for it. > Investigators have “limited” technological means and would need “extremely efficient software” worth about 200,000 euros to speed up their work.

Maybe Google has a solution... err, wait...

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#29

The fact that French authorities feel they are weaker than Google, well that's a deep concern to me.

Of course they would say that when they're looking for a budget increase of €200k to purchase this new “extremely efficient software”. Whether it's actually true that they feel weaker than Google can't determined from reading their PR.

  - There is to be a departmental reorganisation. A real reshuffle. We may get extra
    responsibilities.
  - Do we want them?
  - We want all responsibilities, Minister, if they mean extra staff and bigger
    budgets. It's the breadth of our responsibilities that makes us important,
    makes YOU important, Minister. When you see vast buildings, huge staff
    and massive budgets, what do you conclude?
  - Bureaucracy?
  - No, Minister, you conclude that at the summit there are men of great stature
    and dignity who hold the world in their hands and tread the earth like princes.
  - Yes, I see.
  - So each new responsibility must be seized eagerly and each old one guarded
    jealously. Entirely in your interests, of course, Minister.

Re: ‘Operation Tulip’ Takes Prosecutors Offline for Google Tax Raid

#30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the French Tax office has 500 billion in resources? Or 5? Likely to have a relatively tiny budget and teams compared to even just the legal teams at Google.

Do you think Google has the ability to send armed men to engage in violence against the French tax office?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_militar...

Technically, yes they could. And if the private sector really is more efficient, they shouldn't need the whole 50 billion. I guess what I'm saying is it would be an interesting novel that I hope never happens in real life.

Post reply on HN