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Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

reuters.com

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Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#121

Post by bleepbloop22 »

wyager wrote: post #114
melenaboija wrote: post #111

I don't think there is a justification for big corporations to do what they do and they have to be pursued. I've been working for a bank in a tax haven in Europe and I've seen that financial engineering powerful people use has been a known and accepted tool for the governments for a while, and now that Europe is living a financial crisis governments start asking. These companies play in an absolutely different league…

Why are you blaming the companies for acting rationally, rather than the governments for creating absurd tax environments? I agree it's unfair, but I can't fault anyone for trying to legally minimize their tax burden. Tax law should just be simple enough that anyone can do it themselves.

Shouldn't blame the companies for lobbying and creating the tax laws either -- they're just acting rationally!

Maybe we can blame people for behaving unethically instead of believing this shlock?

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#122

Post by chimeracoder »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #105
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #98

>Not sure why you're being downvoted. HN is pretty intolerant of anything that isn't the far left, which is a bit ironic for what's supposed to be an entrepreneurial forum. This change seemed to happen a year or two ago. I suspect HN has been fully "redditized" now with college identity politics being the prominent narrative. The drive-by downvotes are just a symptom of that.

(Off-topic meta-conversation.) HN tends to downvote any political comments, especially comments that turn the discussion more political, even in a story that already tangentially touches on politics. The HN guidelines more-or-less document the former; the latter seems like a natural consequence. In general, politics is almost always off-topic here; there are many other places to discuss politics. (Personally, I tend…

> HN tends to downvote any political comments, especially comments that turn the discussion more political, even in a story that already tangentially touches on politics

That's... really not true. Case-in-point: look at any frontpage post that talks about health insurance, wage floors, guaranteed minimum income, etc. There's a clearly dominant opinion, and left-leaning opinions tend to be the most frequently-posted (as well as the most frequently upvoted). This is ignoring tech-politics (ie, net neutrality, digital privacy).

People do use the downvote as a signal of disagreement (which is a problem[0], because it just polarizes discussions even more by driving away constructive, dissenting opinions[1]). But the people who downvote any political sentiment don't outweigh the rest, as evidenced by the end results.

[0] To pre-empt the perennial debate on whether downvoting purely for disagreement is bad, here are dang's thoughts on the matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606517

[1] There are topics on which I have a lot of domain knowledge relative to the typical HN commenter. I used to be more proactive with sharing this information in HN comments when relevant, but I only do this a small fraction of the time compared to a few years ago[2]. There's nothing more discouraging than writing a 500-word comment with multiple footnotes and external citations to primary sources and peer-reviewed articles, only to be downvoted for expressing a contrary opinion, or even simply a more nuanced version of the dominant one.

[2] I won't say whether it's gotten better or worse, but I've certainly learned from those experiences over time, and from my observations, so have other users.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#123

Post by tvanantwerp »

Trombone12 wrote: post #61
adrianN wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that true for almost everything though? The laws are so complex that no normal citizen can understand them. Even lawyers seem to disagree now and then.

No, the laws are complex when dealing with complex situations and ownership graphs of companies can be basically any finite directed graph. But obviously most ownership is a simple two node thing with a single directed edge connecting the nodes. These are simple to decide if they are legal.

Unfortunately, law can still be complex in what seems like a simple situation. Statutes aren't exactly written with strongly-typed languages or run against integration tests before being passed. Laws are often vague and difficult to precisely interpret, and they usually have unintended consequences. This is true regardless of the complexity of the situation to which the law is applied.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#124

Post by Gargoyle »

wyager wrote: post #114
melenaboija wrote: post #111

I don't think there is a justification for big corporations to do what they do and they have to be pursued. I've been working for a bank in a tax haven in Europe and I've seen that financial engineering powerful people use has been a known and accepted tool for the governments for a while, and now that Europe is living a financial crisis governments start asking. These companies play in an absolutely different league…

Why are you blaming the companies for acting rationally, rather than the governments for creating absurd tax environments? I agree it's unfair, but I can't fault anyone for trying to legally minimize their tax burden. Tax law should just be simple enough that anyone can do it themselves.

Yes, those absurd tax environments are in no way created by companies and their money. Not at all.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#125

Post by jonknee »

jernfrost wrote: post #116
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain, and other Euro countries, have "paper" laws. Everything needs to be printed out and stored to make raids like these easier on the government. It also keeps their tax authority from ever having to worry about modernizing and, frankly, makes it easier for the government to manufacture "irregularities." I think the financial crisis in some of these EU countries have reached a point where they are politically para…

You are presenting a completely biased and anti-european view, looking at multinationals with the most rose tinted glasses. Google, like many other multinationals pay absolutely minuscule taxes. They have eradicated large parts of national advertisement companies across Europe, who all have to pay normal tax rates, while Google pays close to zero. You are not a leftwing nutjob just because you want companies to pay t…

> You are not a leftwing nutjob just because you want companies to pay taxes for the money they earn in your country. A free market relies on a level playingfield and when multinationals can exploit loopsholes in this manner it distorts the competition.

How would you decide what money they earn in your country? It's a tricky question for multinationals.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#126

Post by zig »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #108
spacehome wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Google shareholder, I'm quite happy that they optimize everything within the bounds of the law.

Monsters of such scale should be viewed from different points, including social responsibility. BTW why do you bother as a shareholder, do you receive any dividends?

It's very easy to look at Alphabet's financials and see that there are no preferred or common shareholder dividends. Since you haven't done that, I presume you are genuinely curious.

There are probably a lot of reasons that people invest in corporations that don't pay a dividend. The "most obvious" is that you believe the company is growing. The organization will reinvest in itself -- instead of paying you a dividend -- and increase share price to a degree greater than you would have gotten with a quarterly dividend.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#127

Post by Phlarp »

pns wrote: post #97
ForHackernews wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Docs sets browser cookies. If you have a surprise raid with logged-in workstations, you have access to Drive documents as well.

If hard drive is encrypted (and like most companies like Google, almost certain they would be), then you wouldn't be able to get much unless you someone got them to disable screensavers/computer sleep and keep the machines on for awhile

Law enforcement has specific tools that do precisely this. Google "USB mouse jigglers" for more info.

They also have gear that can splice into the power cord of a live machine without interrupting the flow-- the combination of these two devices allows them to seize unlocked computers and keep them accessible while taking custody of the machine.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#128

Post by AnthonyMouse »

uola wrote: post #73
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #37

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…

> 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.

Except that "US companies" incorporated in Ireland aren't US companies. Can't European companies also incorporate in Ireland?

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#130

Post by tim333 »

bleepbloop22 wrote: post #121
wyager wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you blaming the companies for acting rationally, rather than the governments for creating absurd tax environments? I agree it's unfair, but I can't fault anyone for trying to legally minimize their tax burden. Tax law should just be simple enough that anyone can do it themselves.

Shouldn't blame the companies for lobbying and creating the tax laws either -- they're just acting rationally! Maybe we can blame people for behaving unethically instead of believing this shlock?

Blaming is of limited use. What we need is a solution to make things better. Something like a global tax office to deal with global companies might do it.
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