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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

#221

Post by gruez »

spwa4 wrote: post #190
HelloNurse wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being unable/unwilling to produce mandatory records is fraud. Technical measures to be unable to produce records (e.g. offshore and encrypted archival) are evidence of criminal intent and possibly separate crimes.

So why did every company in the world start auto-deleting emails ~10 years ago? I don't believe many people were sued for fraud. These days cloud services have auto-delete based on time functionality? It's called "object lifecycle management", because I guess fraud was too catchy.

Usually tax laws have a cut-off date. You don't need to keep records forever, but you do need to keep them around for a few years.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#222

Post by gruez »

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

How does that work if it's a cloud system and you're denied access because the IT admin from another continent locked you out? Are you going to keep the executive around as a hostage in hopes of getting them to release the files?

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#223

Post by haccount »

atoav wrote: post #137
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.

You are aware of the fact that tax evasion means these companies are freeloading on the tax money the rest of us (including: you) are paying? Especially in the case of uber which is essentially using public infrastructure to make their money having them pay taxes should be normal. I agree that customer data needs to be protected, but it is bold to assume that is the case at all with these powerful corporate entities:…

The law was always there to step on the little man, the VIPs always had it easier. Stop thinking too much about it.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#224

Post by eastbound »

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…

Accounting audits are done by the FISC agency in France. But those are just audits, not raids. This raid was ordered by a judge, which can probably be seized by FISC if they believe that the documents they have are falsified.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#225

Post by reaperman »

ipaddr wrote: post #134
sensanaty wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the French police aren't randomly deciding on a Tuesday for no reason to check the company for proof of them being tax cheats without some court somewhere requesting it, but even if they were, we're talking about a company here, not a person. A person has the right to remain silent, it doesn't make sense for a company to have that same right. And the 2nd half just reads like pure corruption to me, they pai…

[flagged]

I don't understand the Mr. Peanut reference.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#226

Post by jokoon »

Algent wrote: post #69
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.

That's basically what happened when they tried (twice I think ?) to raid Uber offices in France, their boss pressed a kill switch and everything went down in seconds. It completely blocked the investigation. Afterward Uber helped Macron campaign who then ordered National Financial Prosecutor's office to "stop bothering them" so I don't think anything new happened since. Edit: Some sources in below replies for infos o…

do you have a source for the "kill switch"?

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#227

Post by Forgeties79 »

_bin_ wrote: post #149
Forgeties79 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 indiv…

Yeah that doesn’t really shift my opinion lol If I activated a kill switch to wipe my local computers when the FBI entered my house I can’t even imagine the hell I’d reap, let alone that my data would be safe because it’s scattered on servers in other countries.

Also we can claim whatever we want but that doesn’t mean it’ll protect us in court.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#228

Post by _ink_ »

chmod775 wrote: post #162
tenacious_tuna wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's fine! I can handle translating an individual page (or interview) if I've high confidence it's the right/relevant one, just parsing search results is harder cross-language (for me, anyway). thanks much!

Here's a direct link to the transcript if you haven't found it yet: https://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/lnp500-zombiecalypse-im-grune...

Nice!

> Tim Pritlove: Okay, zweiter Bildungsweg. Welches Instrument haben Sie denn gespielt?

> Anne Brohrhilker: Klavierung, Pferdflöte.

Oh, AI transcribed. Nevermind.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#229

Post by vlovich123 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #186
shermantanktop wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my effective tax rate on consumption is indexed on my ability to hide my assets? Maybe my household LLC should buy all my groceries while I work for the LLC which employs me as the sole contractor and live in the house that I rent from the LLC which I am the sole owner of. For major purchases, I can hire a low-income person to do the purchase and then sell the item to me, or maybe they lease it to me. I'm not a ta…

>So my effective tax rate on consumption is indexed on my ability to hide my assets? Where are you getting this from? Sales tax has nothing to do with one's assets. Also, land value taxes make hiding assets moot, since all real assets have to be stored on land. Of course, copyright protections would need to be reformed to be for far shorter durations of time. >Maybe my household LLC should buy all my groceries while…

> Where are you getting this from? Sales tax has nothing to do with one's assets

Earlier you said

> And poorer people are automatically exempted from tax since the power law formula parameters be set to slowly ramp up

I too am very confused on how you envision this sales tax working where it's variable in some way that poor people don't get the tax but rich people do so I understand why OP is asking about asset tracking. If you're talking about it as a tax that increases the more you spend you've still got problems of hiding how much I'm spending through various legal entities. It also has a macro economic problem, at least how the consumer economy is structured, that could slow down the gears of business until society realigns (if it does) because people will be incentivized to consume less. You've got alternative models where you go after specific products and tax more for conspicuous consumption like yachts but that feels like it has all the inefficiencies of central planning a market.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#230

Post by scotty79 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #98
scotty79 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All spending should be taxed instead of income. Income is too easy to move and hide. Spending tax could be unified framework encompassing all financial activity. If you purchase anything, labor, imports, energy, stock, politicians, you should be taxed. Spending is the moment when the money shows its ugly head and does harm.

Isn’t that a hugely regressive tax?

I don't think so. Rich people buy vastly more. Not just food, shelter and entertainment but also real estate, entire companies and financial instruments. They'd end up paying vastly more tax.
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