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The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

businessweek.com

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Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#71

Post by Anechoic »

lionhearted wrote: post #16
grellas wrote: post #13

Google is "flying a banner of doing no evil, and then they're perpetrating evil under our noses," says Abraham J. Briloff, a professor emeritus of accounting at Baruch College who has examined Google's tax disclosures. Maybe it is the lawyer in me, but why wouldn't any international business do whatever it could legally do to minimize its taxes? I understand that governments might want to consider these as loopholes…

> That seems absurd by free enterprise standards and I am genuinely curious to know why refusing to do this would be called "evil." When taxes come up, it tends not to be a well-thought, cohesive, pros-and-cons thing. It tends to be an emotional/identity thing. Some people think and almost always argue it'd be a good thing if companies gave more money over to governments. Me, I think it's very good for the world on e…

run amazing free services (search, Gmail, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Finance, Google News, Google Voice, Google Reader, Feedburner, many many others). Also, they're internally investing in energy and robotics like the auto-driven cars thing

None of those products/services would be possible but for the government spending taxpayer money to develop the infrastructure behind those services (the internet, roads, GPS, etc).

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#72

Post by jonpaul »

dh wrote: post #29

As entrepreneurs in the US are trying to create jobs and companies we pay 30%+, just not fair.

I would hope most entrepreneurs don't have the attitude of "it's not fair." Maybe it isn't fair. But as we all know life isn't fair. Meta-discussion aside, any entrepreneur worth his salt won't be thinking like this.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#73

Post by hugh3 »

Anechoic wrote: post #71
lionhearted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems absurd by free enterprise standards and I am genuinely curious to know why refusing to do this would be called "evil." When taxes come up, it tends not to be a well-thought, cohesive, pros-and-cons thing. It tends to be an emotional/identity thing. Some people think and almost always argue it'd be a good thing if companies gave more money over to governments. Me, I think it's very good for the world on e…

run amazing free services (search, Gmail, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Finance, Google News, Google Voice, Google Reader, Feedburner, many many others). Also, they're internally investing in energy and robotics like the auto-driven cars thing None of those products/services would be possible but for the government spending taxpayer money to develop the infrastructure behind those services (the internet, roads, G…

Personally, I think that if infrastructure (rather than wealth redistribution) were really the main business of government then I wouldn't have any objection to paying taxes.

I'm sure that GOOG pays enough taxes in one way or another to pay for its fair share of the world's roads. This is more than I can say for the bum sitting on the street corner.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#74

Post by jonpaul »

Am I one of the few who doesn't see a problem with this? If our tax structure is so f'd up that it allows for this, we need to change it. In the meantime, why wouldn't Google minimize its tax liability?

If you're an entrepreneur and are against this, I hope you voluntarily don't take the tax breaks afforded to you, or else you're a hypocrite. Lunch with business partners? Better not write that off. Your internet or cell-phone? Don't write that off either. Part of your apartment where you code for 5 hours a day? Don't write that off either.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#75

Post by tyn »

pg wrote: post #17
dtf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Google have a public image of behaving ethically. Everyone expects banks and evil multinationals to do this kind of thing. Is it ethical to avoid paying tax as an individual? Many would say no. But when a company does it, they lay their blame on the shareholders and the market. So the more outrage about this subject, the better. Our governments can either raise taxes or lower taxes. But they shouldn't let ind…

Is it ethical to avoid paying tax as an individual? Many would say no. Do you mean avoid (by legal means) or evade (by illegal means)? Any government that uses tax incentives to affect citizens' behavior is saying it's ok to avoid taxes. If they promise your taxes will be lower if you do x rather than y, they're counting on your desire to avoid taxes to motivate you to do x.

Using tax havens is certainly not one of these cases.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#76

Post by Retric »

lionhearted wrote: post #45
dbingham wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if my income is $250 million? It still evil for the government to claim a percentage of that to provide services?

> What if my income is $250 million? It still evil for the government to claim a percentage of that to provide services? To make $250 million honestly, you'd have to produce value far in excess of $250 million. And yes, taxing people for producing value with their own labor is wrong to me. This is not an argument that all taxation is bad. You need taxes to run society. But taxing earned income seems wrong to me - the…

Edit: Fixed, sorry had a bad copy and paste.

You sit at home and come up with a great new piece of software that’s worth 250 million and sell it IBM. Why should you pay more taxes than the bum sitting at home next door? After all you did not use land or resources protected by your countries military and police forces. You did not use public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams) or government backed institutions (banks, phone lines), or even workers or customers educated by the public school system.

Ask yourself why would IBM pay for such a thing? Well they have customers that use land and an educated workforce. And what about your bank? How do they keep from being robbed? Heck, what’s to stop your bank or IBM from simply shooting you vs. letting you keep the money?

Face it, without a government service there is no way to generate extract and keep 250 million in value. Because even Drug Lords depend on governments banning their drugs.

PS: If you disagree you can always leave and renounce citizenship.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#77

Post by charlief »

grellas wrote: post #13

Google is "flying a banner of doing no evil, and then they're perpetrating evil under our noses," says Abraham J. Briloff, a professor emeritus of accounting at Baruch College who has examined Google's tax disclosures. Maybe it is the lawyer in me, but why wouldn't any international business do whatever it could legally do to minimize its taxes? I understand that governments might want to consider these as loopholes…

The characterization of "evil" is too strong. The focus should not be on Google, but on the world's corporate tax system because it doesn't accomplish what it was set out to do. In terms of the level of fairness and for the purposes of generating domestic revenue, it is broken. A specific tax revenue distribution was intended, and that is why the particular tax levels were set, but instead the levels change dramatically for the most sophisticated participants.

Maybe the answer is to make these tax management/arbitrage services more accessible to everyone and every business to allow the democratic/political/capital system put pressure on the issue. I imagine the overhead is great, but there should be a way consolidate or ease it, I am sure some innovative minds out there will find a way.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#78

Post by Aegean »

this is one reason youtube is banned from Turkey, the minister claims it is because they make revenue in turkey and don't pay tax. It might be a valid reason.

The second reason though (going off topic) is because they don't have anyone to talk to in turkey for censoring stuff, which is very evil of them.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#79

Post by elai »

fiveo wrote: post #39
rmc wrote: post #22

In Ireland, these kinds of tax breaks are one of the foundations of our economy. They aren't viewed as a way to give a hand out to the big companies, but as a way to create jobs. This article mentions that 2,000 people are employed in Google Dublin. Given Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, IBM and Sun also operate, there's easily 10,000+ people employed thanks to our low tax rate. There are only 1,000,000 people employed in I…

I hope you guys can find other means/ways to create jobs. I live in Vancouver where hi-tech companies receive generous amount of SR&ED (Science Research and Education) grant. Let's just say that it was a good thing for short-term but not-so for long-term.

Could you go into more detail?

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#80

Post by ataggart »

Anechoic wrote: post #71
lionhearted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems absurd by free enterprise standards and I am genuinely curious to know why refusing to do this would be called "evil." When taxes come up, it tends not to be a well-thought, cohesive, pros-and-cons thing. It tends to be an emotional/identity thing. Some people think and almost always argue it'd be a good thing if companies gave more money over to governments. Me, I think it's very good for the world on e…

run amazing free services (search, Gmail, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Finance, Google News, Google Voice, Google Reader, Feedburner, many many others). Also, they're internally investing in energy and robotics like the auto-driven cars thing None of those products/services would be possible but for the government spending taxpayer money to develop the infrastructure behind those services (the internet, roads, G…

>None of those products/services would be possible but for the government spending taxpayer money...

This is sloppy reasoning. Just because A contributed in some measure to B does not imply B could only have come about because of the contributions of A, nor does it imply that more of A will yield more Bs.

Further, absent a parallel world in which such different choices were made, one could just as easily argue on economic grounds that the resources confiscated would have been otherwise put to more effective, productive use in satisfying the wants of the common man.

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