71–80 of 368 posts
Another PR stunt of the minister, Montoro. No more than that. He also makes public a lost of debtors to the IRS (which should be illegal but he gets away with anything). Edit: Spaniard here.
What exactly is your point? Shaming debtors of the country is not ok?
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Google Docs sets browser cookies. If you have a surprise raid with logged-in workstations, you have access to Drive documents as well.
I would love to see a police force bursting in, and smoke immediately starting to rise from every computer. I mean, you could do it it software too, but it would look cool and send a signal to the officers. :-) Or you could keep the door locked.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Then along came Ireland." This is utter nonsense. The problem is US tax repatriation laws introduced during the Clinton administration that allow US companies to leave their profits offshore in countries such as Bermuda or the Cayman Islands. Since they are only taxable on repatriation to the US, they pay no tax on them. Instead, they pressure Congress to introduce 'one-off' tax amnesties that allow them to repatria…
And if they paid that tax in the US (which would then allow the US rate to be lower for the same revenue), how would that help Spain and France? The US would just be what Ireland currently is.
While I'm sure it can be minimized, the US doesn't have a particularly low corporate income tax rate.
> And if they paid that tax in the US [...] how would that help Spain and France?
Companies like Google not having to pay tax on revenues outside the US is essentially a government subsidy. One that creates a "slush fund" for US companies to acquire their European competition. We're essentially in a trade war, just that Europe hasn't realized it.
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How can this still be possible? Shouldn't all tax legislation be such that if you break the spirit of it by having internal transfers (royalties, fees, interest) to a low-tax area, then you are still taxed based on the business that you had in the country in question, and not based on the net sum (i.e. zero). The current state of tax law is that a billion dollar company pays almost no taxes but a million dollar compa…
> How can this still be possible? Shouldn't all tax legislation be such that if you break the spirit of it by having internal transfers (royalties, fees, interest) to a low-tax area, then you are still taxed based on the business that you had in the country in question, and based on the net sum (i.e. zero). How would that even work? The costs are actually costs. Imagine it was actually a dozen different companies. On…
It kind of is, though, isn't it? The online ad market is theoretically super efficient - if the market clearing price for an ad is $1, and then you add a 10% sales tax, it no longer makes sense to bid / pay $1 for that ad, knowing that you will be out of pocket $1.10. Instead you would bid about 90-91 cents, knowing that it would get marked up to $1 with tax. Net effect is that Google only makes 90 cents on that ad instead of a dollar, even though they aren't directly paying the tax.
I would expect google to keep all financial documents inside Google Drive. In doing so, I wonder what is left in the office for the Spanish authorities to find in a raid? (Google is ruthlessly paperless internally.)
I think the financial crisis in some of these EU countries have reached a point where they are politically paralyzed (can't move to the right due to strong leftism in the electorate) so they'll just find a way to milk multi-nationals to keep the lights on. This isn't a long term strategy and is a sign of some bad stuff coming up. I believe in the long run the welfare state is unaffordable and without a move to the right these countries will suffer, especially as business moves to more tax friendly jurisdictions and leaves these markets over government abuse, low sales, low margins, etc.
Currently, Spain has 25% unemployment and almost 50% for those under 25. The GDP is falling at the same rate it is for France and Italy. The sudden interest in these countries to raid multi-nationals for tax reasons is no coincidence here. France just raided Google's office last month. I suspect Italy is next.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if they paid that tax in the US (which would then allow the US rate to be lower for the same revenue), how would that help Spain and France? The US would just be what Ireland currently is.
> (which would then allow the US rate to be lower for the same revenue) While I'm sure it can be minimized, the US doesn't have a particularly low corporate income tax rate. > And if they paid that tax in the US [...] how would that help Spain and France? Companies like Google not having to pay tax on revenues outside the US is essentially a government subsidy. One that creates a "slush fund" for US companies to acqu…
Another PR stunt of the minister, Montoro. No more than that. He also makes public a lost of debtors to the IRS (which should be illegal but he gets away with anything). Edit: Spaniard here.
"should be illegal" means it is not. What exactly is your point? Shaming debtors of the country is not ok?
Another PR stunt of the minister, Montoro. No more than that. He also makes public a lost of debtors to the IRS (which should be illegal but he gets away with anything). Edit: Spaniard here.
"should be illegal" means it is not. What exactly is your point? Shaming debtors of the country is not ok?
The problem is that the names are being made public while they are "under investigation", which destroys the basic right of presumption of innocence, and (more importantly) they are being released by a Minister who belongs to an embattled and corrupt government, so it absolutely smells like the tax ministry is being used as a political weapon.
Spain shaking down Google, while the US shakes down VW. A trade war by any other name...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to see a police force bursting in, and smoke immediately starting to rise from every computer. I mean, you could do it it software too, but it would look cool and send a signal to the officers. :-) Or you could keep the door locked.
Destruction of evidence?