Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax • Hacker News Board

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#341

Post by HappyDreamer » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 3:41 AM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #303

HappyDreamer wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A super interesting question. If a company attempts to abolish environmental restrictions, in order to, say, get to sell food with carcinogenic substances, and in that way make more money — then one viewpoint can be, that the company attempts to make money by killing people. I.e. attempted murder. Therefore the executives and people at the company, responsible for lobbying / bribing politicians, in order to remove al…

Everything is carcinogenic, or poisonous - it's always only a matter of dose. Defining lobbying as murder in such a broad category as this is silly.

Actually there is a misunderstanding. I didn't write about everything — I had in mind carcinogenic stuff, dangerous enough to make people sick and kill some (in a large population). So when you write "such a broad category" and you have in mind literally everything — then that's not what I meant.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#342

Post by HappyDreamer » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 3:57 AM UTC

smokeyj wrote: post #286

HappyDreamer wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A super interesting question. If a company attempts to abolish environmental restrictions, in order to, say, get to sell food with carcinogenic substances, and in that way make more money — then one viewpoint can be, that the company attempts to make money by killing people. I.e. attempted murder. Therefore the executives and people at the company, responsible for lobbying / bribing politicians, in order to remove al…

So lobbying is the equivalent of murder.. but the party accepting the bribe.. that was entrusted to protect you from murderers.. should not go to prison? Frankly, in this picture you've painted, I'm not sure what the point of this bribe accepting party is. This is like having a body guard that might shoot you if there's a higher bidder. The whole point of the body guard is to protect you from killers, but now he's sh…

Should [a lawmaker accepting a bribe / lobbying-money to remove restrictions meant to prevent people from dying] go to prison? In some cases, yes I would probably want that to happen.

Imagine a company and a few lawmakers that via bribes/lobbying remove regulations around asbestos (which is very carcinogenic) and start building houses with asbestos (because asbestos is inexpensive). Now people are going to die in cancer, almost for sure. The company and lawmakers are, in my opinion, killing people to make money. So, they should go to prison.

So I think I want laws that prevent companies _and_ politicians/lawmakers from suggesting-to-remove and removing important environmental restrictions meant to save people's lives.

Perhaps it sounds weird with laws about what regulations/laws might be canceled. Some kind of "meta laws". One way to think about it, could be a defense-in-depth. Now it gets even harder for some evil company, to make money by destroying the environment & hurting people.

I'm not sure all this would work out well in practice though.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#343

Post by ptaipale » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 4:19 AM UTC

HappyDreamer wrote: post #341

ptaipale wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is carcinogenic, or poisonous - it's always only a matter of dose. Defining lobbying as murder in such a broad category as this is silly.

Actually there is a misunderstanding. I didn't write about everything — I had in mind carcinogenic stuff, dangerous enough to make people sick and kill some (in a large population). So when you write "such a broad category" and you have in mind literally everything — then that's not what I meant.

Yes, but your definition for "carcinogenic stuff" most likely would be interpreted by activists to include e.g. glyphosate - which is now classified as "category 2A possibly causes cancer" and is getting a lot of attention. In reality, category 2A also includes manufacture of art glassware, hairdressers, and shift work, and the more dangerous category 1 includes e.g. beer.

Still you can bet the activists would use our murder charge approach to attack glyphosate manufacturers, not beer manufacturers.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#344

Post by dang » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 4:34 AM UTC

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.

As linkregister points out, there could hardly be a clearer example of the bias I described yesterday, in which people imagine that HN is dominated by their political enemies.

It's also bone-crushingly tedious and off-topic, so please don't do this on HN.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12008984 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#345

Post by ptaipale » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

bobwaycott wrote: post #276

downandout wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" That you cannot think of such an argument doesn't mean much. That such possible arguments wouldn't obtain "legitimacy" in your mind explains far more about your conception of the role of business in society. "

That is not an insult.

It clearly attempts to be.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#346

Post by ptaipale » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:12 AM UTC

kafkaesq wrote: post #292

pipio21 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you miss the small detail that "El Pais" and other Spanish newspapers and media are technically bankrupt because of Google. Google and Facebook grew their profits by advertisements, traditional media (that did not innovate anything) lost all this revenue. So they(traditional media) are terribly biassed against Google and make everything they can to harm the company. They destroyed Google News for example.

If you don't like what the newspapers are saying -- or are suspecting them of severely distorting and/or outright fabricating the reasons behind the raid conducted earlier today -- I'm sure the Hacienda will be putting out their own press releases soon, if they haven't already.

Why would they? If it is not in their interests ("their interests" as in "in the PR interests of politicians who control what the agency does") and there is no legal requirement to do so?

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#347

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 6:18 AM UTC

andrewprock wrote: post #206

george_ciobanu wrote: post #135

This is ridiculous and a form of bullying. If you want multinationals to pay tax, fix the laws. Were they really expecting Google to fake anything? No, they were looking to cause bad press. Form international alliances and create a proper incentive structure if you want to collect.

Google's tax avoidance is likewise ridiculous. Neither the bullying, nor the avoidance are illegal. If you support one, you should support the other.

[deleted]

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#348

Post by bobwaycott » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 7:25 AM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #345

bobwaycott wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not an insult.

It clearly attempts to be.

It absolutely does not.

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#349

Post by karmapolice » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 8:18 AM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #75

josephg wrote: post #16

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.)

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…

Spain's GDP is not falling...

Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax

#350

Post by mhenr18 » Fri, Jul 01, 2016, 10:28 AM UTC

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #322

developer2 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is why capitalism built on "everything to maximize revenue for shareholders" is broken. Maximize revenue by generating more revenue, not by evading - or avoiding - taxes. If your company cannot remain afloat without dodging taxes, your business is not viable and does not deserve to exist. 2. The fact that you can "game the system" and remain squarely in the "legal" column makes the system broken. 3. Consideri…

Although great in theory how do you collect the pay the taxes for revenues collected in every country? A big business like Google can handle this but a smaller business will be crushed by it. Imagine a 1-2 person. Imagine a 1-2 person business selling online. Are they capable of paying taxes in a hundred countries? That burden alone would crush them. Try managing the tax rules for 100 countries as a 1-2 person shop.…

> Try managing the tax rules for 100 countries as a 1-2 person shop. Good luck.

The same justification could be made for accepting international credit card payments online, but companies like Stripe are happy to provide you with a service that takes away the hassle. If they can do that, then I'd say they would be perfectly willing to solve the local tax problem for you.