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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

#21

Post by yunohn »

marcinzm wrote: post #20
yunohn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If a government “says”? These large companies actively campaign, draft, and lobby for the legal frameworks and loopholes that they exploit. The government and the companies are the same and are fighting for the same pot of tax money.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#22

Post by seiferteric »

diggan wrote: post #15
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.

That's why I wonder if these raids are really more for show, can't they do this pretty much already?

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#24

Post by rty32 »

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 don't know how it works in other countries, but in the US you likely still need to provide a real address for many purposes (tax, immigration if applicable, etc)

The police could just find the correct targets and raid their home instead.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#25

Post by kranke155 »

kbolino wrote: post #10
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's hard to accurately measure secretive crimes like this, but the estimates seem to put corporate tax evasion by percentage of GDP at either similar levels between the EU and US or actually higher in the EU.

The EU is just as corporatist as the US. The corporations just aren’t as big, but they control their local/national politics effectively.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#26

Post by DrillShopper »

marcinzm wrote: post #20
yunohn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It depends on what X is.

If X is "install solar panels" or "provide affordable housing" or "reduce greenhouse gas emissions" then X is very likely moral.

If X is "lie to us about where your revenue came from" then X is very much immoral.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#27

Post by dylan604 »

s_dev wrote: post #14
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 whil…

I'd expect it to something along the lines of "sorry Mario, but the princess is in a different castle" bit of shell game. "no no mister Revenue man, we have that information you want, but it's in a different office".

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#29

Post by seanhunter »

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…

Yeah there's the so called "Dutch Sandwich"[1] which is a well-known tax "planning" methodology that corporates use with the so called "Double Irish" being another one. There's also a slightly less-well known one involving Mauritius and India. They're all ways of moving profits between companies in order to exploit tax treaties that countries put in place. In the case of the Dutch sandwich I think the Netherlands has a treaty with the Netherlands Antilles or something so people have a company in the Netherlands which then shifts things off-shore to the Antilles and avoids tax that way.

It's nonsense of course. Companies should (in my opinion) shoulder their fair share of tax because otherwise that burden falls disproportionately on individual income tax.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich

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