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Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#241

Post by jedberg »

vertig0h wrote: post #220
riazrizvi wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that lawyers are taught to think logically and to support their arguments, so I would appreciate your analysis on our exchange, which looks to me like this: MY COMMENT: question / observation / speculation / hypothesis-with-circumstantial-evidence-to-support-speculation / expectation / expectation YOUR REPLY: assertion / speculation question / speculation / assertion personal observation question / self-…

>"Especially considering all the other political reprisals and pardons that are in the news" What news are you talking about? Whatever news you're watching is only giving you one perspective on events, so this "observation" is not helpful on its own. The rest of your comment is similarly rooted in assumptions and speculation borne out of a hostile media's interpretation of recent events, so the conclusions you're rea…

The media is supposed to be hostile. They are always hostile to the administration. It is their job as one of the checks on power enshrined in the constitution. Why do you think freedom of the press is in Amendment one?

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#242

Post by pbalau »

mech1234 wrote: post #128
Hamuko wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making someone pay the taxes they owe is not a punishment.

I doubt facebook committed a crime here. The right way to address tax avoidance is to change the law, not to punish companies that comply with the law through arbitrary levels of complexity. Even if everyone in the room is aware that facebook is practicing avoidance, avoidance is still legal and categorically different than evasion. Now- The right way to figure out whether this was a crime seems to be by examining th…

It gets even more complicated than that. Not even close to all FB IP was developed in US. There is a great deal of custom integrations built across the world, in smaller offices dedicated to a particular market. Then you have things built in UK (say, Workplace). Then you have the even more complex case when a piece of tech is first developed in US, makes or not some money, then is taken over by an UK team, which tweaks, extends, rebuilds, whatever and makes some more money, then returns to an US team and so on.

I can't even phantom how hairy a report detailing the above would look like, how long it will take to make and how long it will take to check said report.

You could also argue that is almost impossible to fully check the situation. The people with the skills to check such a report are either working for Facebook, or for a Facebook competitor. Bias either way.

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#243

Post by [deleted] »

riazrizvi wrote: post #119

Surely this is more about political coercion than tax? Amongst all US companies that offshore profits, including the likes of Halliburton, Facebook has been singled out because the US administration wants the company to do it's bidding regarding policy and algorithms for political advertising? Especially considering all the other political reprisals and pardons that are in the news, following the impeachment acquitta…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#244

Post by onetimemanytime »

riazrizvi wrote: post #119

Surely this is more about political coercion than tax? Amongst all US companies that offshore profits, including the likes of Halliburton, Facebook has been singled out because the US administration wants the company to do it's bidding regarding policy and algorithms for political advertising? Especially considering all the other political reprisals and pardons that are in the news, following the impeachment acquitta…

Not sure about your accusation, it might be true, I can't rule it out. After all, agencies can pick and choose who to target, and we are all seeing the political climate today.

BUT, on the other hand, IRS has to win this one case and all others will start negotiating. Once this is declared illegal, it's over for all. So they had to pick one case.

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#245

Post by ejstronge »

vertig0h wrote: post #227
AaronFriel wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some were, and based on the timeline provided by the District Court it was clear that it would be nearly impossible for the matter to be resolved expediently. i.e.: before the next election, which the President was alleged to have abused his power to interfere in. It would rely on Congress trusting that the Supreme Court would deviate extraordinarily from its normal process and decide a matter in a very short time. A…

Congress' unprecedented barrage of subpoenas force the administration's hand here. You may find it "absurd", but unprecedented animus requires unprecedented defensive measures.

> Congress' unprecedented barrage of subpoenas force the administration's hand here. You may find it "absurd", but unprecedented animus requires unprecedented defensive measures.

Not sure where in the Constitution this appears...

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#246

Post by LegitShady »

monadic2 wrote: post #237
CodeSheikh wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say this but a lot of unfounded speculation in your comment as well. "Secondly, have you done your research? Surely Facebook is not the only company being targeted by the government right now. I can assure you that, surely there are more." Can you back this up with some factual information? Would love to know more about other companies. Thanks.

Bud we entered a post fact world, especially when it comes to politics, decades ago.

This is not true and just more political talking points. You're contributing to the problem you describe.

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#248

Post by Mirioron »

iguy wrote: post #216
rtkwe wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the tough bit for sure in trying to tell up front if an IP transfer is just a setup for tax avoidance. You can tell after the fact though just by seeing how much the company claims it's worth to use. A VAT style tax probably solves that right? It doesn't care how much money you actually make so you can't slip profits out the back door as costs.

How well would VAT work for services like this? If facebook.fr sells adverts to (say) local realtors, and spends a lot of that on its own people, servers, etc, is VAT collected on the entire sales price? (I'm really asking, I don't know how this works.) Completely agree that for physical goods, collecting tax where they are physically sold to end-users sounds like a great way of avoiding this game of deciding which b…

VAT is charged on the consumer of the product. It is as the name says: a value-added tax. Let's look at an example of a physical good. Let's say the VAT rate is 25% and you buy a graphics card for €500. 25% is added as VAT which makes the total cost €625. Now you resell that graphics card for €1000 and have to add €250 as VAT. However, you get the €125 you paid when buying the product back (realistically you simply pay the government 250 - 125 = €125). Essentially, you added €500 to the value of the product and that's what you pay this tax on.

I assume (don't know for sure) that in the case of FB ads FB just adds on the VAT rate to the cost of ads and that is then paid to the government. In the EU VAT has to be paid to the country where the purchase originates from. So if a French company buys ads then France should get the VAT.

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#249

Post by Mirioron »

pbalau wrote: post #207
Mirioron wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the million/billion/trillion dollar question: how much is a brand worth? Clearly it is worth something. Facebook can do the most inane thing, but if they put their brand on it then it will have some value. To me this is the flaw in corporate taxation. I don't think you can ever work around this as long as you allow free trade. It just makes sense to tax them in other ways instead and perhaps simply get rid of…

> how much is a brand worth? Clearly it is worth something. Facebook can do the most inane thing, but if they put their brand on it then it will have some value. Then, Toyota should only pay taxes in Japan? Or Volkswagen?

Well, no. You simply tax their activities in other ways. Things like VAT and income taxes for employees etc.

Re: Facebook tax court trial begins over Ireland offshore deal

#250

Post by ceejayoz »

nradov wrote: post #225
AaronFriel wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some were, and based on the timeline provided by the District Court it was clear that it would be nearly impossible for the matter to be resolved expediently. i.e.: before the next election, which the President was alleged to have abused his power to interfere in. It would rely on Congress trusting that the Supreme Court would deviate extraordinarily from its normal process and decide a matter in a very short time. A…

The Supreme Court will deviate extraordinarily from its normal process and decide a matter in a very short time when national politics are at stake. For example see Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000). The whole case took only a few weeks, and the court delivered its decision just one day after oral arguments.

"We don't know who's about to be President in a month" is a fairly uniquely urgent scenario that doesn't apply here, though.
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