The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions • Hacker News Board

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#221

Post by Confusion » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 7:51 PM UTC

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…

  Maybe it is the lawyer in me, but why wouldn't any
  international business do whatever it could legally do to
  minimize its taxes?

It's the lawyer in you and he's misleading you. It's not a question of doing what they can do. The economist in you should conclude that it is a question of doing what they must do in order to remain competitive. You can't choose to 'do no evil', when all your competitors are doing evil. That road leads only to bankruptcy, as they can undercut your prices, because they pay much lower taxes.

This is one of the examples explaining why capitalism is fundamentally incapable of providing any moral guidelines. It doesn't care about what is right, only about what turns a profit.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#222

Post by marbletiles » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 7:55 PM UTC

tkahn6 wrote: post #218

marbletiles wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By adopting the "Don't be evil" motto Google makes this about ethics. If you say that you are going to hold yourself to an ethical standard, that means you will be judged by your ethics, not by your adherence to the letter of the law. But really, the continuing argument that because you like Google Maps it's therefore better that Google gets to keep all of its tax euros out of the hands of underfunded public services…

But really, the continuing argument that because you like Google Maps it's therefore better that Google gets to keep all of its tax euros out of the hands of underfunded public services is close to incoherent. Unless you can show that those services are in the same sort of existential danger as high-end cancer treatment is in the UK, the argument is specious. a. I did not say that Google shouldn't pay any taxes. b. W…

I still maintain that Google can do more good with more efficiency than any government.

That's fine, but there are plenty of other people who disagree with the assertion. If the money is in the hands of the government, at least those other voices get a say in how it is spent.

The opportunity cost for anything you spend $3bn on is very high. A government could choose to spend it on cancer research or space ships. Google can really only spend it on a very narrow range of products -- and can't combine it with other serious numbers required to do the really heavy lifting, like that required to fix the disastrous public plumbing in the US.

If Google paying its taxes would mean that it couldn't do all the stuff it currently is, that's one thing. But they've got $33bn sitting in the bank. They can more than afford to pay their taxes and continue creating Wave and AdWords.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#223

Post by patrickk » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 8:02 PM UTC

borism wrote: post #161

rmc wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a large bank bailout, due to how much the banks had invested in property. A large percentage of government income (around 25%) came from 'Stamp Duty', the tax you must pay when you buy a house. When the property market collapsed, the government was getting less money that it was used to. i.e. the collapse of the property market increased government spending/debt and decreased government income.

But WHY did Irish banks invest more in property than everyone else?

Irish banks didn't "invest" in property as such, they just lent spectacular amounts of money to both mortgage applicants and property developers. The result was a huge property bubble. Anglo Irish Bank is the most notorious of all the banks, because it financed property developers particularly and got itself into a huge mess and has to be bailed out by the government, or the country's economy will collapse (according to the government.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo_Irish_Bank

Anglo had an arrogant and corrupt board also, which didn't help. (Incidentally, their former CEO, David Drumm, is hiding out in Massachusetts, and has filed for bankruptcy there, due to the far harsher bankruptcy laws in Ireland compared to Massachusetts.)

Irish banks could raise money in Europe (German money for example) and lend it at a higher rate here in Ireland. Because Ireland has such a tiny economy relative to mainland Europe, they could raise, and lend on huge amounts of money relative to the size of the Irish economy. At the peak of the bubble, something like one-in-seven people were employed by the construction industry, either directly or indirectly, which gives you an idea of how important it was to the economy. Now the government is talking nonsense about building a 'knowledge economy' - which makes me shudder as they will try to turn former bricklayers into C++ programmers or something equally daft. The property bubble was Ireland's first taste of real wealth in our recent history and we pretty much blew it on big houses and Range Rovers, like a newly-minted lottery millionaire.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#224

Post by codexon » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 8:02 PM UTC

tkahn6 wrote: post #188

joxenford wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say any of these things have made anyones life better is quite a stretch. Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? Choose your words carefully. Indoor plumbing and electricity made life better. Gmail has not. Your email was fine before Gmail. And Google should pay their F-ing taxes. I do.

Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? The ability to access my email from anywhere, organize, and quickly search through thousands and thousands of emails in seconds has improved my quality of life. Maybe not as much as indoor plumbing, but it has.

Your enthusiasm for gmail has blinded you to the reality. Sure it might be the best thing to you since sliced bread, but in every market estimate, gmail still trails behind hotmail and yahoo mail which means that for most people, gmail is not a radical improvement.

http://www.quantcast.com/profile/trafficGraph?wunit=wd%3Acom...

http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/gmailvs-hotm...

Of course, since you are only a college freshman, I don't blame you for not knowing that there were dozens of serviceable webmail clients long before the existence of gmail.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#225

Post by cvg » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 8:04 PM UTC

captain_obv wrote: post #171

tkahn6 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it's equally a stretch to suggest that we're better off because Google pays less tax In absolutely no way is it a stretch to say that and I'm terribly surprised you have any upvotes. Are you aware of how many services Google provides for free that make my life (and probably yours) better? Google Search Google Maps Android Google Navigation (on Android) Google Patent Search Google Book Search (Working with librari…

"If you are not paying for it, you are the product".

Who said this thoughtful quote?

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#226

Post by vermontdevil » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 8:04 PM UTC

nysauhem wrote: post #24

"The setup lowers Google's overseas tax bill, but it also affects U.S. tax revenues as the government struggles to close a projected $1.4 trillion budget gap." It's a ridiculous notion that any single corporation's tax contribution will put even the slightest dent in the budget deficit. Government spending is like gas in a vacuum, it will expand to fill whatever space you give it.

But the US can actually reduce the gap by cutting down on wasteful spending (see Iraq and Afghanistan adventures). This should be a priority but alas our politicians love to spend and that applies to both sides.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#227

Post by zooey » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 8:06 PM UTC

tkahn6 wrote: post #188

joxenford wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say any of these things have made anyones life better is quite a stretch. Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? Choose your words carefully. Indoor plumbing and electricity made life better. Gmail has not. Your email was fine before Gmail. And Google should pay their F-ing taxes. I do.

Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? The ability to access my email from anywhere, organize, and quickly search through thousands and thousands of emails in seconds has improved my quality of life. Maybe not as much as indoor plumbing, but it has.

you know, something like yahoo mail...

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#228

Post by pinchyfingers » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 8:09 PM UTC

Am I the only one who believes that taxes are evil? I can't wait until I can afford lawyers to help me get out of paying taxes. If if I break even I'd rather see my money going to a professional than a government,.

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#229

Post by zooey » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 8:16 PM UTC

known wrote: post #181

Big companies think & act in terms of priorities and not what is right or wrong .

Companies are about money. Countries are about people. Taxes build services that are used by people. "Web Services" doesn't count too much as a service. I would live without google search no matter what people say. But what about hospital, street, public transportation, cheap houses for poor people, and on and on and on...our society is based on taxes. The reason why people have to pay taxes is to build a better society. Look at what is happening in Britain with Cameron: no money to fix the deficit. Poor people take it all over their a@@#@.

And, to put that simple, we are not talking about a couple of thousands dollar a software engineer is not paying: we are talking about millions (billions?). Greed is bad, is fucking bad. And all this talking about disruptive innovation is usually a bunch of stupid Internet Services to play with. I think the hacking community is overestimating its value.

No cancer cure. No cheap energy. No cleaner air. Just some web app, iPhone app, something app.

Google taxes would fix a lot of problems, just letting millionaires a bit more poor. I can live with that, why you can't?

Re: The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions

#230

Post by Aegean » Thu, Oct 21, 2010, 8:19 PM UTC

Aegean wrote: post #78

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.

funny, I seem to be downvoted by the minister's men.