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Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

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Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#161

Post by curiousgal »

adventured wrote: post #152
curiousgal wrote: post #139

>Several have been accused of using legal methods to minimise their tax bills. What a terrible accusation. Good to know the whole world needs some serious tax reform.

I find this rather unusual. The exact same comment, quoting the exact same text, on HN and Reddit. With the Reddit comment in question being among the highest scoring in the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4ktdm2/google_hq_raid...

Is it unusual to be a user of both Reddit and HN? I didn't think the two were mutually exclusive.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#162

Post by SEJeff »

ersii wrote: post #4

"Several have been accused of using legal methods to minimise their tax bills." Since when is it illegal to follow the law? Sure, we all have different opinions on the legal gray areas and of whether certain or all laws are legitimate and to what extent - but come on, that quote is just ridiculous.

Also, remember that they have a legally binding fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize shareholder value. If they know they can pay (made up numbers) 5% effective tax instead of 20% tax, they are obligated to. The proper solution instead of raiding these firms, is to fix the tax laws that make this possible in the first place.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#163

Post by kbenson »

allendoerfer wrote: post #148
allendoerfer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Class actions have a very important place in the law, and they are a thing in parts of Europe[1], and are becoming more so, because they serve a very important need[2]. It gets abused, but so does everything in the legal system, that doesn't mean it's inherently a bad idea. My view on it is a way for lawyers to make big money by recruiting clients not the other way around. It gives the impression, that it is all abo…

Thread limit reached: >It started out as a way to hold companies responsible for small amounts of harm that are spread out to many individuals. Is it worth it for any one individual to sue a company for a $5 product that purposefully misleads consumers? Is it okay for a company to take advantage of consumers in this way purely because they are unlikely to be called upon to account for their misbehavior? That's the re…

> Thread limit reached:

Clicking on the perma-link to the comment in question will generally allow replying. It's a soft limitation.

> I think ideally you would have as little regulation as possible and inspectors + fines for highly critical stuff, so courts and consumers will not have to deal with this at all.

I agree that that as little regulation as possible would be better, simply because regulation generally seems to also create perverse incentives, so when you can incentivize the behavior you want without it you are probably better off. Unfortunately, fine and inspectors are regulation. They make sense in some areas (such as food and building inspection), but I don't think it's feasible to expect that to work for every type of problem, for every type of industry, when we don't even know everywhere they would be useful now, much less the future. So, we have class-actions as a fail-safe.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#164

Post by tyrust »

curiousgal wrote: post #161
adventured wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this rather unusual. The exact same comment, quoting the exact same text, on HN and Reddit. With the Reddit comment in question being among the highest scoring in the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4ktdm2/google_hq_raid...

Is it unusual to be a user of both Reddit and HN? I didn't think the two were mutually exclusive.

No, but it is unusual to simply copy-paste comments from one forum to another. Especially a post that contains (what one would assume is) your opinion.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#165

Post by DannyBee »

lukeschlather wrote: post #114
DannyBee wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they've had a business office, that precisely noone cares about :) "You might think they made it to please politicians" This is not even a secret. The original office existed because of certain folks not wanting to relocate, but it was only ever grown to please politicians. It was even made into a media event with eric schmidt and the president of france. "but I think the real reasons is for recruitment" This is…

Have you worked in a software company like Google (Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon... ) ? I have. I'd be surprised if any software company of that size gave up even a single qualified engineer to avoid legal trouble (legal trouble that is entirely Google's fault and not the engineer's.) That's just not the way the market works right now.

These days i'm an engineering director at Google, so, yeah, i have :)

I also worked at RedHat, IBM, and Microsoft, all of which would qualify.

I actually don't know if Google has closed offices to avoid legal trouble. But definitely, other large companies i've worked at have, in the past, decided it's not worth the hassle to have those offices when the government started pressing interesting claims (i'll just use that phrase to try to avoid taking something someone will see as a position, because i'm not the place i work for, and haven't really thought hard enough about this to have a position).

Your claim "that's just not the way the market works right now" is honestly, not something that has been a consideration at any of those companies. The pools of engineering talent in the world are too large, and most people relocate if you pay them well. The considerations were all political and strategic.

(Like I said, i haven't been involved in office closings for Google. I do have a bit of trouble seeing why they wouldn't have mostly the same considerations)

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#166

Post by EdHominem »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #12
logicchains wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>while contributing nothing themselves They contribute a service, in this case a search engine that's miles ahead of its closest competitor, Bing. They don't "take" anything, they offer something that you're free not to use. Unlike nation states, which are happy to take whatever they want (claiming they're owed it for providing you things you may never have asked for, which are paid for by other people potentially ag…

Except Google was heavily dependent on funding from various branches of the USG in its early stages. Search for it. > case a search engine that's miles ahead of its closest competitor, Bing Thats debatable. Any blind studies?

Do you need blind studies to know that you like Chocolate? To know that it's raining?

Yes, a study could show that Bing's results are x% less useful that Google's, but who would want to keep using Bing long enough to quantify the suck?

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#167

Post by Kell »

ersii wrote: post #4

"Several have been accused of using legal methods to minimise their tax bills." Since when is it illegal to follow the law? Sure, we all have different opinions on the legal gray areas and of whether certain or all laws are legitimate and to what extent - but come on, that quote is just ridiculous.

Disclosure : French law is my field of work but I only have knowledge of this case by the media (which is terrible in legal matters in France, really, worse than the US sometimes).

It seems that the prosecutors are using a small clause in the French Irish tax treaty saying that the taxation rules applying to a corporation officially incorporated in Ireland are different (implying much higher than the Irish 12.5%), if this corporation has a "stable establishment" in France. The prosecutor is arguing that this applies to Google, so that paying only the Irish 12.5% was illegal.

So no, they are not being accused of using legal methods to minimise their tax bills.

The main problem is actually a even more complicated. It rests on the understanding of the wording of the convention relating to the words "Fixed installation of affairs used only for purposes of advertising (...)" (those are exempted from the "stable establishment" exemption).Google argues that their advertising business makes them exempt to it. Meanwhile French prosecutors argue this clause is intended for companies advertising their own products (imagine Tesla having an agency in France advertising the Tesla cars because they intend to open a point of sale in France, but not selling them yet), not the actual sale of advertisement space like Google do.

And frankly when reading the elements of the convention the Prosecutors have made public... they seem to have a pretty solid ground.

PS : Yay at last, being a tech fan with french legal background is useful !

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#168

Post by ballooney »

lavezzi wrote: post #143
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should have cited the woman who spilled hot coffee on her. The legal precedent being set by the court was "if it's hot enough to hurt someone label it that way" and to do that they had to award punitive (you screwed up and we're punishing you) damages. If they just ordered the company to pay based on medical costs it would have basically said "this is your fault and you should pay for her medical care" but by awar…

That coffee wasn't just hot, it was well beyond expected temperature and gave her third degree burns as a result. "Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her actual and anticipated expenses. Her past medical expenses were $10,500; her anticipated future medical expenses were approximately $2,500; and her daughter's loss of income was approximately $5,000 for a total of approximately $18,000. In…

I'd expect it to be up to 100 celcius at sea level pressure, because it had just been boiled. If it's hotter than that it wouldn't be a liquid. How can less-than-boiling be 'well beyond' the expected temperature of just-made tea or coffee? Your accusation is totally absurd.

Maybe I'm just being too European.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#169

Post by ChuckMcM »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #131
ChuckMcM wrote: post #120

As others have pointed out this can happen in France given the way in which laws are prosecuted, my sister lives there part time and really likes this aspect of the country. That said, its really interesting to watch such powerful interests dance around (in a more general sense) shooting each other. The whole scheme which companies like Apple, Google, others use to "legitimately" minimize their tax burden and the fin…

Is this pressure enough to force out "legitimate methods of EU tax avoidance" via legislation? It's really, really hard for me to sympathize with US tech companies given their financial situation: > "Apple, Microsoft and Google Hold 23% Of All US Corporate Cash Outside the Finance Sector > Apple leads the pack with $215.7 billion in cash, followed by Microsoft at $102.6 billion, and Google at $73.1 billion. http://ww…

I agree, back when the UK was complaining about Google I was hoping that would push them into unifying tax policy.

The challenge though is getting everyone on board, without a common vision of how it should work, you won't get progress.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#170

Post by clort »

Natsu wrote: post #155
DanBC wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people are in jail for life without parole because of 3 strikes laws? Thus in prison for life because their 3rd minor crime tips them over 3 strikes?

That's against the letter of the law, rather than some vague interpretation thereof. I know there are problems with the application of three strikes, but it's not terribly unreasonable to say that we have little cause to believe that you will reform after, say, murdering or raping your third victim and therefore little reason to let you out of prison such that you can seek new ones. And it's your third felony that pu…

except that a 'felony' can be essentially a minimal possession of drugs

  http://www.drugtreatment.com/expose/marijuana-felony-amounts-by-state/
all those could be corrected by presidential pardons but I don't expect they will be. Here is one to start the ball rolling:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_L._Tyler
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