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

Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 259 posts

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#211

Post by walshemj »

Retric wrote: post #196
rconti wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what's the alternative to juries deciding whether or not someone is guilty of murder? Having a single judge do it? Seems to me that it's pretty damned important to be sure that someone is guilty before you lock them up for life. But that just might be my american bias showing through.

Do you think random Jury's are more skilled than a small panel of judges? The US uses Juries because as a check on government power. The whole point is jury nullification not factual accuracy.

Nope it descends from magna carta and UK common law

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#212

Post by johansch »

DannyBee wrote: post #23
te_chris wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument makes no sense. They obviously need a presence in the world's 6th largest economy, otherwise why else would they have said presence.

I think you should look closer at the history of the paris office and why it exists. It's tremendously arrogant to think it "needs" to be there. It wasn't there for quite a long time, and i doubt it "needs" to be there.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/08/how-googles-french-ta...

"Google Inc. has a research-and-development contract with Google France. It pays for engineers to do Google work, such as coding for the Chrome browser for Apple’s iOS. In 2013, Google France spent €34.9 million on R&D.

...

More controversial is Google France’s contract with Google Ireland, which generated the bulk of Google France’s 2013 revenue of €231 million."

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#213

Post by Retric »

walshemj wrote: post #211
Retric wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think random Jury's are more skilled than a small panel of judges? The US uses Juries because as a check on government power. The whole point is jury nullification not factual accuracy.

Nope it descends from magna carta and UK common law

Trial by jury showed up around then for land disputes. But, it was trial by ordeal that fell off not Judges in the 1200's. Also, we are talking ~500 years after the fact so there is a lot of back and forth involved.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#214

Post by trhway »

dragonwriter wrote: post #182
allendoerfer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a growing problem in Europe. It makes the EU look like fools Not trying to start a flamewar here, but the common German/European perspective on the US legal system consists of corporations owning it (because of huge costs), consumers abusing it ("cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster", unreasonable compensations, class action lawsuit…

> Juries deciding whether murderers are guilty or not. Simply unthinkable over here. Well, that might be unthinkable in Germany , but its clearly not in Europe as a whole, since we got that from a place in Europe that hasn't abandoned it in the time since their system migrated to North America.

juries are supposed to be juries of peers, to make sure that what one did is really a crime as considered by his peers. Lords judge lords, commoners judge commoners, clergy have its own justice system... For the same reason the jury should come from the vicinity of where things happened. With geographical mobility and everybody becoming a peer to everybody one can see how "jury of peers" got stretched so that a bunch of Texans from some faraway county would be deciding some tech patent case.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#215

Post by charlesdm »

Xylakant wrote: post #101
charlesdm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This depends a lot on the country. For example: I'd say most self employed people in Belgium use an accountant to file their taxes. Some (a subset) of those also have a tax lawyer who helps them optimise certain things. Self employed people (i.e. entrepreneurs) who make decent money will have a tax lawyer, because inevitably, you'll bump into an unfriendly tax collector somewhere down the road.

Taxes for self employed people are much more complicated than taxes for salaried employees. Everywhere that I know, taxes from salaries are automatically withheld by the employer - those taxes have probably been calculated by a tax accountant in the first place. There's practically no way you'd need to pay extra taxes if your only income is your salary, so you can opt out of filing taxes. For self-employed people the…

Add to that that most self employed people tend to have certain types of investment income (that could or could not be taxed at a different rate depending on the country you live in), and that complicates things even further.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#216

Post by thaumasiotes »

rrdharan wrote: post #210
thaumasiotes wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every coffee you've ever had in your life was a lower temperature than what McDonald's was serving up. This is a pretty sketchy assertion. Instant coffee is generally made from water you just boiled yourself.

And yet it's true. https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts "McDonald’s operations manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Coffee at that temperature, if spilled, causes third-degree burns in three to seven seconds." I also highly recommend watching this movie which was a very interesting look at the erosion of consumer rights driven by a coordinate corporate PR campaign/agenda: http…

How do you know it's true? Many, many people routinely prepare coffee for themselves that is hotter than McDonald's provided. ballooney strongly suggests that he is one of those people. That would make the assertion false.

I've spilled boiling water on myself occasionally. Given the freedom of movement you generally have in your kitchen that you don't have while buckled in to a car, I hope it doesn't surprise you that I wash it off in less than three seconds. It's hot!

I've also touched hot cookie sheets and the like, which obviously go well above 212 fahrenheit. That's common; what's not common is maintaining the contact for longer than your flinch reflex takes to kick in.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#217

Post by CydeWeys »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #187
CydeWeys wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being too European. Not serving scalding-hot coffee is a very reasonable safety precaution. Not only can it cause third-degree burns, but it can cause severe damage to the inside of your mouth. Note that McDonalds was heating up its coffee to be higher a higher temperature than it would be straight from brewing (during which a lot of heat energy is lost). Every coffee you've ever had in your life was a lower…

> Every coffee you've ever had in your life was a lower temperature than what McDonald's was serving up. This is a pretty sketchy assertion. Instant coffee is generally made from water you just boiled yourself.

The following quote from another response to your comment is instructive:

> Liebeck’s case was far from an isolated event. McDonald’s had received more than 700 previous reports of injury from its coffee, including reports of third-degree burns, and had paid settlements in some cases.

And as for the temperature of instant coffee, feel free to use a thermometer and verify it for yourself. It will not be 95C. The temperature is reduced from pouring it into a room temperature cup and also from stirring a room temperature substance into it. And that's still a worst-case scenario; McDonald's coffee, which is not instant, should be less hot than that, not more.

When I make coffee at home, I can immediately take a sip of it within a few seconds of pouring it into a mug, without burning my mouth. If I accidentally poured such a mug all over myself I would likely not sustain extensive third degree burns. Coffee at Starbucks is served at a similar temperature -- it is certainly not kept super-heated at a level that will scald you if touched.

The thing I don't understand is, why are you so anti-safety? Why do you have such an averse reaction to solving a very basic safety problem? Products that you buy should not be pointlessly and unnecessarily unsafe in unexpected ways.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#218

Post by Tomte »

allendoerfer wrote: post #91
mike_hearn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, as an Irish company, you can open a subsidiary in France to do business in France. The whole point of the EU single market is that you do not have to do that. You can set up shop in Ireland and sell to the French market until the cows come home. You only owe Irish taxes (modulo the recent completely crazy VAT changes). Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a gro…

>Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a growing problem in Europe. It makes the EU look like fools Not trying to start a flamewar here, but the common German/European perspective on the US legal system consists of corporations owning it (because of huge costs), consumers abusing it ("cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster", unreasonable compensations, class action lawsuit…

In Germany noone can be convicted of murder (or any other grave crime) without at least one lay judge agreeing.

In the case of murder trials (three professional judges, two lay judges), you need four votes, because three would be less than the required two thirds.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#219

Post by robert_foss »

Kell wrote: post #167
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…

Thank you, that was really helpful.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#220

Post by thaumasiotes »

CydeWeys wrote: post #217
thaumasiotes wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every coffee you've ever had in your life was a lower temperature than what McDonald's was serving up. This is a pretty sketchy assertion. Instant coffee is generally made from water you just boiled yourself.

The following quote from another response to your comment is instructive: > Liebeck’s case was far from an isolated event. McDonald’s had received more than 700 previous reports of injury from its coffee, including reports of third-degree burns, and had paid settlements in some cases. And as for the temperature of instant coffee, feel free to use a thermometer and verify it for yourself. It will not be 95C. The tempe…

> The following quote from another response to your comment is instructive

> The thing I don't understand is, why are you so anti-safety? Why do you have such an averse reaction to solving a very basic safety problem?

You seem to have me confused with someone else. Check the username before you attribute a comment to me. I promise you that I'm only using the one account.

> When I make coffee at home, I can immediately take a sip of it within a few seconds of pouring it into a mug, without burning my mouth. If I accidentally poured such a mug all over myself I would likely not sustain extensive third degree burns.

I don't drink coffee. But when I make tea at home, I can almost immediately take a sip from a spoonful. I can't actually drink it from the mug because it is much too hot. If I poured it all over my lap and then sat in it until it cooled, I would be seriously injured, yes.

Post reply on HN