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Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#11

Post by yunohn »

diggan wrote: post #4

The meat: > Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that until 2021, Netflix in France minimised its tax payments by declaring its turnover generated in France to the Netherlands. > investigators are trying to determine whether Netflix continued to attempt to minimise its profits after 2021. Wasn't Uber or some other US company found doing something similar? First they were found to be in violation of some…

Literally every single company that can afford to setup things like tax transfer schemes, are actively evading taxes.

It’s mind boggling how widespread it is, how accepted (legal) it is, and how it will seemingly never be fixed.

https://www.somo.nl/the-netherlands-still-a-tax-haven/

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#12

Post by spwa4 »

crest wrote: post #9
seiferteric wrote: post #5

I wonder how these "office raids" would work for remote first companies that don't have much of an office presence and with little or no physical documents and everything being stored in the cloud somewhere.

If everything is synchronised to third party could storage an "office raid" can be as easy as getting a court order telling the cloud provider to make a snapshot of everything stored available to the police.

Is there a product allowing for client-side encrypted mounts? Or just use a SAAS outside of the country that doesn't allow for exporting any data under any circumstances?

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#13

Post by diggan »

yunohn wrote: post #11
diggan wrote: post #4

The meat: > Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that until 2021, Netflix in France minimised its tax payments by declaring its turnover generated in France to the Netherlands. > investigators are trying to determine whether Netflix continued to attempt to minimise its profits after 2021. Wasn't Uber or some other US company found doing something similar? First they were found to be in violation of some…

Literally every single company that can afford to setup things like tax transfer schemes, are actively evading taxes. It’s mind boggling how widespread it is, how accepted (legal) it is, and how it will seemingly never be fixed. https://www.somo.nl/the-netherlands-still-a-tax-haven/

> Literally every single company that can afford to setup these tax transfer schemes, are actively evading taxes.

Yeah, but I think that's different than what happened in this case with Netflix. Declaring earnings from one country in another country is not just "tax optimizations" but straight up illegal. It's not using/abusing legal loopholes like most larger companies do, but going against the law.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#14

Post by s_dev »

seiferteric wrote: post #5

I wonder how these "office raids" would work for remote first companies that don't have much of an office presence and with little or no physical documents and everything being stored in the cloud somewhere.

I'd imagine you'd get done for not being tax compliant. At least in Ireland you have to able to show all tax accounting for the last four years on request by Revenue. If you can't produce this and all the files 'have gone missing' or 'we can't find the cloud keys' I'd would expect to be fined out of existence and ordered to cease trading immediately. So that would be worse that getting dragged through the courts while you pay lawyers to figure out to mitigate any fines or sentences passed down. I think it can even result in prison time for the CEO and other company officers.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#15

Post by diggan »

seiferteric wrote: post #5

I wonder how these "office raids" would work for remote first companies that don't have much of an office presence and with little or no physical documents and everything being stored in the cloud somewhere.

> everything being stored in the cloud somewhere

Sounds like it would make it easier for law enforcement. They no longer need a warrant against/for the company they're investigating, just the place where their data is stored. Get the warrant, raid the place and grab the drives, then continue the investigation. Done the right way, the company under investigation wouldn't even notice it.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#16

Post by salawat »

diggan wrote: post #4

The meat: > Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that until 2021, Netflix in France minimised its tax payments by declaring its turnover generated in France to the Netherlands. > investigators are trying to determine whether Netflix continued to attempt to minimise its profits after 2021. Wasn't Uber or some other US company found doing something similar? First they were found to be in violation of some…

It isn't really accepted anywhere, but there is a group of people who will make it their goal in life to get up to any shady practice to try to shortchange or dodge their local host polity to their ultimate advantage. The tax dodge, if you will, becomes something of a pass time and point of pride for them.

This becomes more difficult as more tax authorities better integrate with one another, which admittedly, is something many in in the U.S. fidget over, even if it is realized that the need for it is almost entirely a byproduct of these types of people's actions that necessitate that happening.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#17

Post by yunohn »

diggan wrote: post #13
yunohn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally every single company that can afford to setup things like tax transfer schemes, are actively evading taxes. It’s mind boggling how widespread it is, how accepted (legal) it is, and how it will seemingly never be fixed. https://www.somo.nl/the-netherlands-still-a-tax-haven/

> Literally every single company that can afford to setup these tax transfer schemes, are actively evading taxes. Yeah, but I think that's different than what happened in this case with Netflix. Declaring earnings from one country in another country is not just "tax optimizations" but straight up illegal. It's not using/abusing legal loopholes like most larger companies do, but going against the law.

Honestly, I’m not sure. I find the premise of such tax laws to be illogical at a basic level. There are apparently always multiple ways to create legal loopholes.

If we consider the Irish sandwich mechanism that was recently “stopped”, somehow that hasn’t materially affected any of the innumerable companies that were using it. As we saw in the Apple vs EU case, most practices might’ve never been actually legal either.

So my personal opinion is that (almost) all tax “optimization” is at the minimum immoral, but most likely illegal too.

Edit: This reminds me of the idea of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Your personal optimization is not what I’m talking about - corporations have legal teams the size of SMBs lobbying/creating/looking for secret loopholes, and people are talking about public self service methods.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#18

Post by marcinzm »

diggan wrote: post #4

The meat: > Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that until 2021, Netflix in France minimised its tax payments by declaring its turnover generated in France to the Netherlands. > investigators are trying to determine whether Netflix continued to attempt to minimise its profits after 2021. Wasn't Uber or some other US company found doing something similar? First they were found to be in violation of some…

Given Wirecard I wouldn’t assume the EU equally prosecutes or tracks crimes for EU and non-EU companies.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#19

Post by lm28469 »

diggan wrote: post #4

The meat: > Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that until 2021, Netflix in France minimised its tax payments by declaring its turnover generated in France to the Netherlands. > investigators are trying to determine whether Netflix continued to attempt to minimise its profits after 2021. Wasn't Uber or some other US company found doing something similar? First they were found to be in violation of some…

> Wasn't Uber or some other US company found doing something similar?

Airbnb, they had to pay like 70k of tax a few years ago. There are employees who pay as much tax as single filers lol

They paid 18% less tax in 2016 than in 2013 while the number of flats available on the site went from 30k to 300k

https://www.lesechos.fr/2016/08/airbnb-na-paye-que-69168-eur...

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#20

Post by marcinzm »

yunohn wrote: post #17
diggan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally every single company that can afford to setup these tax transfer schemes, are actively evading taxes. Yeah, but I think that's different than what happened in this case with Netflix. Declaring earnings from one country in another country is not just "tax optimizations" but straight up illegal. It's not using/abusing legal loopholes like most larger companies do, but going against the law.

Honestly, I’m not sure. I find the premise of such tax laws to be illogical at a basic level. There are apparently always multiple ways to create legal loopholes. If we consider the Irish sandwich mechanism that was recently “stopped”, somehow that hasn’t materially affected any of the innumerable companies that were using it. As we saw in the Apple vs EU case, most practices might’ve never been actually legal either…

If a government says do X and I will cut your takes by Y then is doing X immoral?
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