101–110 of 334 posts
Isnt the statute of limitations for collecting taxes 10 years? 2004 is 19 years...
“Many large multinationals use cost-sharing because it reflects the global nature of their business.” A comparable example might be Apple, where sales of my (american) app being sold from (american) servers somehow curiously involves the Republic of Ireland and their low corporate tax rates…
It's simple enough, an Irish company called Apple licenses its very valuable IP to its entities in cheaper countries so they can do things like manufacturing, server farms, customer support. (It also carries on these some of these functions in Ireland, as it happens, and pays a ton of tax at the relatively high income tax rates there.) It's frankly curious to me when a multinational chooses to base itself anywhere le…
Firstly, that's not Apple paying income tax, that's their employees.
Secondly, they don't pay much in the way of corporation or other taxes that usually apply because of a sweetheart deal (Google also has one IIRC), which is why much of the EU is up in arms about the Irish government's behaviour here, that effectively allows these multinationals to operate across the EU without paying the usual expected taxes, giving them an advantage over local businesses and depriving governments of income, and there have been various court cases about it.
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Of course they are, it’s a contractual agreement that is within the law. The fact that you don’t like it could not be less relevant, you don’t matter. If the government doesn’t like the law, they can (try) to change it but that has to go through the actual process. They are welcome to be as mad as they want that their law is poorly written but it is still their law.
As a voter, I’m OK with them not following the process on this one!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's simple enough, an Irish company called Apple licenses its very valuable IP to its entities in cheaper countries so they can do things like manufacturing, server farms, customer support. (It also carries on these some of these functions in Ireland, as it happens, and pays a ton of tax at the relatively high income tax rates there.) It's frankly curious to me when a multinational chooses to base itself anywhere le…
The same applies to all the BS Delaware corporations.
There should never be a gap this big unless fraud or evasion is involved. If the rules are that vague it needs to change.
This spells bad news for "MICROSOFT B.V.", the famous Dutch software company that has reported being responsible for billions of revenue of the Microsoft Corporation over those years.
Is it? These companies and that specific structure involves paying the IRS off in “Advance Pricing Agreements” where they tell the IRS how they won’t pay taxes and the IRS signs off on it All they have to do is find the agreement
Would love to see them
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Apple and others are working to explain how the majority of app and hardware sales have a nexus in Ireland. But wait til you hear of Ugland House ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugland_House ) in the Caymans - 10,000 sq ft, 5 stories... ... and registered offices of 42,000 companies.
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At one point, it wasn’t an Irish company. Now technically the American company sold or transferred its IP to the Irish company. But it did so as a fiction, to avoid taxes, and neither I nor a government I help elect are obligated to honor that fiction.
It's no less fiction than any other contract or legal document.
I'd love to see the government of Bermuda nationalize that piece of intellectial property and claim all of Google's global income. They've made such a careful, vigorous legal argument that it's responsible for 100% of their revenue, surely they would acknowledge the things they've been claiming for years and continue to pay 100% of their profits to Bermuda.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At one point, it wasn’t an Irish company. Now technically the American company sold or transferred its IP to the Irish company. But it did so as a fiction, to avoid taxes, and neither I nor a government I help elect are obligated to honor that fiction.
Of course they are, it’s a contractual agreement that is within the law. The fact that you don’t like it could not be less relevant, you don’t matter. If the government doesn’t like the law, they can (try) to change it but that has to go through the actual process. They are welcome to be as mad as they want that their law is poorly written but it is still their law.