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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

#251

Post by betaby »

binary_slinger wrote: post #118
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…

Because governments need money to fund services. They would put a tax on making HN comments if they could get away with it.

Link tax is a thing in some countries. HN is just to small to be taxed.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#252

Post by arccy »

gruez wrote: post #222
croes wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

yes? that's why countries require human presence

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#253

Post by izacus »

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.

You mean the auto-deletion that DOJ considered as deliberate destruction of evidence in Google case? [0]

Or are you talking about deliberate destruction of accounting records, which are required to be held by the relevant law of the governments?

[0]:https://www.legaldive.com/news/doj-google-spoliation-hangout...

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#254

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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:…

> if they lie to the state when filing taxes

In general this is not what they do. What they do is read the tax code carefully and structure their operations in such a way as to minimize taxes, e.g. because tax is paid on "profits" (revenues minus expenses) so they shift more expenses into jurisdictions with high tax rates etc., causing "profits" to go down in those jurisdictions and up somewhere else.

Then they don't pay any taxes in the jurisdictions with higher tax rates and politicians go on TV and complain about the companies following the laws that the politicians enacted. Because if they actually fixed the laws, the taxes would be paid based on the extent to which the company does business in that jurisdiction, and then companies could only avoid taxes by not doing business there (costing the country jobs) or, for taxes associated with local sales, by raising prices there. Neither of which the politicians actually want to do, so instead they pass laws that allow companies to avoid taxes and then complain about it when the companies do it.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#255

Post by izacus »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #158
telotortium wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think any of these kill switches involved deleting data, just temporarily removing access of systems in the affected office.

Not a lawyer, but let’s say the cops were searching my house. If I threw the keys to my unbreakable safe out the window, such that they could never be found, I doubt a judge would care for the distinction. That the evidence exists but cannot be accessed is still going to find you in contempt.

This theorycrafting is cute, but in reality you've mixed up corporate entities and yourself as a person in a criminal case.

And if a corporate entity finds a way to openly defy a national government, it tends to happen that those governments find a way to change the law (they're the ones making it, right? :P) for that defiance to become punishable by other parts of those governments which can sanction the corporation, prevent their operations within the country or even throw people in jail.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#256

Post by izacus »

Onavo wrote: post #243
tonygiorgio wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were keys to a safe that existed outside of the warrant requirements (in another country in fact), then it would likely not be illegal. The regulators would unlikely be able to legally access that safe anyways without extra due process, so it’s mostly about protecting against unwarranted access.

Do the folks at Brussels have the concept of "fruit of the poisoned tree" and parallel construction?

[flagged]

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#257

Post by mianos »

sapphire42 wrote: post #185
lacy_tinpot wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this explains why the US is out ahead in GDP, income, and is doing much better pre and post covid than Europe. It's not so much breaking laws, but unnecessary restrictions and harassment by Europeans states. The US is business friendly. It's industry friendly. We don't needlessly harass the business of sovereign individuals, and the state apparatus isn't being used as an excuse as to exert power or influence ov…

You call a tax fraud investigation "needlessly harassing the business of sovereign individuals?" You're right, the U.S. is very business and industry friendly, which explains why the American people have been getting poorer and poorer while corporations and their shareholders get richer and richer.

Americans have been getting richer and richer according to most recent studies. At the same time, other socialist countries are getting, on average, poorer. I think you may be confusing social inequality with overall wealth.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#258

Post by krisoft »

Algent wrote: post #124
staticautomatic wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it wasn’t destroyed, in which case it might be interring with an investigation, which is probably also illegal in France.

It's definitely interference/obstruction at least of the raid itself yeah, but looking at the text and not being a lawyer I have a feeling it may be extremely hard to prosecute for something more substantial than a fine low enough for a french exec have it a as a guaranteed expense (bn€ in tax fraud vs a few k€ in fine). The law does also mention prison but it's not the kind of stuff that ever end up being applied fo…

> I have a feeling it may be extremely hard to prosecute for something more substantial than a fine low enough for a french exec have it a as a guaranteed expense

I know nothing about French law, but this whole thing gives me “organised crime” vibes. In many jurisdictions the punishment dramatically increases when a crime is commited as an organised group whose purpose is to commit said crime. As i said i know nothing about French law so i don’t know if the same concept is present there, let alone if the letter of the law would fit the situation.

But yeah i agree with you they won’t care unless they are sitting in a cell with the chance of sitting a lot more in a cell.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#259

Post by [deleted] »

lacy_tinpot wrote: post #245
sapphire42 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You call a tax fraud investigation "needlessly harassing the business of sovereign individuals?" You're right, the U.S. is very business and industry friendly, which explains why the American people have been getting poorer and poorer while corporations and their shareholders get richer and richer.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#260

Post by AnthonyMouse »

izacus wrote: post #255
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, but let’s say the cops were searching my house. If I threw the keys to my unbreakable safe out the window, such that they could never be found, I doubt a judge would care for the distinction. That the evidence exists but cannot be accessed is still going to find you in contempt.

This theorycrafting is cute, but in reality you've mixed up corporate entities and yourself as a person in a criminal case. And if a corporate entity finds a way to openly defy a national government, it tends to happen that those governments find a way to change the law (they're the ones making it, right? :P) for that defiance to become punishable by other parts of those governments which can sanction the corporation…

You're conflating two different things here.

One is, what does the law say? Did they violate it? Is it illegal for a foreign subsidiary to temporarily shut off access to a branch office? How would we like this to work? Policy arguments about law enforcement vs. due process and government overreach.

The other is, politics. If the local government is captured by a cartel of taxi medallion holders who don't like Uber, the government is going to find a way to screw Uber, regardless of whether Uber is complying with existing law. But then it's politics and Uber is a multi-billion dollar corporation, so they have the option to capture the government themselves.

Of course, that leaves the meta argument. Maybe deciding what should happen based on the second method is worse than the first, so how do we prevent that from being what happens?

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