Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 366 posts

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#141

Post by I_am_tiberius »

sensanaty wrote: post #99
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #85

I know I'm likely alone in this opinion, but corporate income tax seems like a poorly designed tax to me. Why should companies pay taxes in a year with high profits, even if they face losses for the next ten years? Why should I pay corporate income tax when dividends and income are taxed anyway? Corporate income tax also seems to heavily influence business strategies as a consequence, which wasn't its intended purpos…

Why shouldn't companies pay taxes? Especially since income is taxed already and your average Joe gets screwed way more than the poor downtrodden billion dollar companies.

Because a company just invests the money. You can't take out money from a company as an owner without taxing it anyway (because you anyway have to pay capital gains tax / personal income tax). My point was that I don't see a point in having corporate income tax (that's just an additional tax that prevents companies from investing in the business and employees).

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#142

Post by kube-system »

SirMaster wrote: post #87
diggan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Grab the drives from the cloud? Isn't most data in the cloud heavily distributed and broken into shards across many racks and drives and such? And encrypted so is useless outside of the custom block storage system employed by the cloud provider? They would need to decrypt and assemble the shards to get usable data out. I have no clue how they would even know which drives out the tens of thousands to grab, and they wo…

They'll just get a warrant to search the live system as it is powered on rather than take a cold drive.

https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/executing-sea...

Or in China, just take the entire data center. https://www.theregister.com/2018/01/11/icloud_china_goes_to_...

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#143

Post by spellbaker »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #121
stuaxo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds so illegal, it's crazy there aren't consequences for that. EDIT: Article on the kills switch https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-bosses-tol...

If you are a little person in the USA, I believe that would be spoliation of evidence.

Ok I'll bite... wtf

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#144

Post by Forgeties79 »

_bin_ wrote: post #117
LunaSea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be destruction of evidence, which is illegal.

Denying access to data that could still be specifically subpoenaed isn't destruction of evidence, it's a normal security measure. They still have the warrant to search everything in the office , but not the right to use those computers to access uber's entire worldwide infrastructure. I have no idea what french law says about it but I think it's morally fine and don't care that uber did it.

I just have a hard time believing that any of us could get away with that.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#145

Post by wang_li »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #128
golemotron wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative, giving them a password that gives them read/write access to sensitive systems, would be insane. Subpoena for particular data.

Yeah it's hard to see how any French official would have authority to conduct searches 10 meters beyond French borders, let alone over all of Uber's computers located in dozens of other countries.

Hard to see how a company can imagine it can do business in a country and not follow that country’s record keeping laws and be subject to criminal and civil statutes in that country.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#146

Post by pyrale »

golemotron wrote: post #120
stuaxo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds so illegal, it's crazy there aren't consequences for that. EDIT: Article on the kills switch https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-bosses-tol...

The alternative, giving them a password that gives them read/write access to sensitive systems, would be insane. Subpoena for particular data.

Uber has a history of serving falsified data to the justice, though. Their offices are raided because they can’t be trusted with a subpoena.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#147

Post by croes »

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.

They just demand the data per warrant and if you don’t deliver you go to jail for obstruction of justice

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#148

Post by thrw42A8N »

lm28469 wrote: post #116
thrw42A8N wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter - you can't make any judgement without knowing these numbers. They may have actually paid a higher tax rate than previously - we don't know.

Funny how it works, they lose money everywhere but one of the smallest country they operate in banks 50% of their worldwide revenues, it probably is just a coincidence that this is a tax heaven... we just don't know I guess The French branch made 160k of profit while the Irish branch made more than all the other EU countries combined FYI: france is the second market for airbnb after the US... do you really think they…

I don't know why you're telling me this, I know it - and it's not relevant at all without knowing the numbers.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#149

Post by _bin_ »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #144
_bin_ wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denying access to data that could still be specifically subpoenaed isn't destruction of evidence, it's a normal security measure. They still have the warrant to search everything in the office , but not the right to use those computers to access uber's entire worldwide infrastructure. I have no idea what french law says about it but I think it's morally fine and don't care that uber did it.

I just have a hard time believing that any of us could get away with that.

Wasn't half of the concern with the arrest of Ross Ulbricht figuring when they could get him with his computer unlocked, without time to lock/wipe it? They'd have a pretty hard time proving destruction of evidence if 1. they didn't know for sure evidence was on that specific computer and 2. it was destroyed rather than just that the decryption key was removed from memory.

Regardless, the government violating an individual's rights doesn't mean we should yell at uber, it means we should yell at the government.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#150

Post by red_trumpet »

croes wrote: post #147
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.

They just demand the data per warrant and if you don’t deliver you go to jail for obstruction of justice

Is that true? I'm not a lawyer but AFAIU, you don't have to provide incriminating evidence against yourself?
Post reply on HN