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Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

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Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#41

Post by Shivetya »

prawn wrote: post #19

Anyone got any ideas on how governments could effectively clamp down on this? In Australia, IKEA paid 1%* tax over the last 12 years, even as sales surged 500%: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/06/luxembourg-tax-... (The Guardian article has since removed the 1% reference, though it was in there when I first read the article.)

Tax the sale of the item to the end buyer and do away with all corporate taxes? That would be easiest method but psychologically it may cause angst amount the populace when they realize just how much tax they pay on everyday purchases.

going back to other stories, if and when space tourism takes off, whats to stop someone from relocating to orbit and avoiding excessive and at times abusive taxation?

Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#42

Post by roel_v »

vidarh wrote: post #20
jgrahamc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The image you are talking about appears to be: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25012939@N03/4196459317 on that image it says: "Some rights reserved" and when you click through you are taken to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ So, it appears you have the photograph available on the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license. The original story using your picture is attributing it to you. S…

It's not necessarily that simple. The European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 grants a right to privacy. It is not clear whether or not the right under copyright law to copy an image is always sufficient to give you a right to publish the image. That depends on jurisdiction. In the UK, for example, it does not, as a result of the way ECHR has been implemented in local law through the Human Rights Act 1998, tho…

It was more difficult than I thought it would be to counter your argument, as there hasn't been a judgement on the exact same circumstances, so I think downvoting you is unjustified. But I still think your legal reasoning is flawed.

First, "It is not clear whether or not the right under copyright law to copy an image is always sufficient to give you a right to publish the image" is misleading - yes copyright does cover the right to publish, what you're getting at is the special protection of the publication of people's images.

Secondly, looking at it from this angle, the Von Hannover judgements of the ECHR provide a number of criteria for judging the lawfullness of publication. One of them is the earlier behaviour of the person in consideration, from which (given the circumstances of him publishing the picture himself) it is easily derived that this publishing cannot reasonably be considered unlawful. Also the other criteria (is the publication harmful, circumstances the picture were taken etc) don't point at anything that would indicate that whoever published this picture, did so unlawfully. When you look at previous judgements of the ECHR, it is highly unlikely that a case would even be admitted because it seems self-evident that the person depicted didn't think through the effects of putting his picture online and/or doesn't like who is re-publishing his picture. Which is not a valid legal argument.

FWIW yes I have a law degree but have never practiced.

Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#43

Post by vidarh »

tomp wrote: post #22
vidarh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily that simple. The European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 grants a right to privacy. It is not clear whether or not the right under copyright law to copy an image is always sufficient to give you a right to publish the image. That depends on jurisdiction. In the UK, for example, it does not, as a result of the way ECHR has been implemented in local law through the Human Rights Act 1998, tho…

He published the image online, publicly, himself. It's kind-a hard for him to claim it's violating his privacy.

EU privacy laws does not work that way.

EDIT: To expand slightly: That you have published something yourself, in one context, does not automatically imply that publication in others contexts is ok. It may be sufficient in this case, because the article is hardly all that controversial, but you can not automatically assume that publication implies consent for publication elsewhere.

Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#45

Post by honeybooboo123 »

vidarh wrote: post #20
jgrahamc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The image you are talking about appears to be: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25012939@N03/4196459317 on that image it says: "Some rights reserved" and when you click through you are taken to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ So, it appears you have the photograph available on the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license. The original story using your picture is attributing it to you. S…

It's not necessarily that simple. The European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 grants a right to privacy. It is not clear whether or not the right under copyright law to copy an image is always sufficient to give you a right to publish the image. That depends on jurisdiction. In the UK, for example, it does not, as a result of the way ECHR has been implemented in local law through the Human Rights Act 1998, tho…

> The European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 grants a right to privacy.

The Fourth Amendment grants "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures", except that it doesn't, as evidenced by "Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes": http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/st...

The moral of the story here is that laws don't actually grant any rights. The rights we have are not bestowed upon us by governments, but are inherent to all of us by virtue of being human.

Laws don't apply to the ruling class and their cronies and enforcers. You need to see that there's no room for doubting that claim anymore. Not after zero Wall Street bigwigs have gone to jail for wrecking the world's economy, and not when police officers are actively just plain looting people.

Words on a piece of paper somewhere don't magically prevent people with political power from abusing you in the here and now.

EDIT: Downvoters? Care to tell me how I'm wrong?

Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#46

Post by gutnor »

return0 wrote: post #28
JetSpiegel wrote: post #3

This is common knowledge for ages, good to see it properly proven. However, it seems there's something else at play here when you realize Juncker has just started his term as European Comission president, and the TTIP deals going on. It seems fishy that this only appears now and with such fanfare.

Well, now is the best time then. It's good to see on what ground the modern european leaders are built. Dont forget that germany officially punished Cyprus for doing similar things. And lets not forget he is not an elected President

European Union is a union in a UN sense rather than USA sense. There is no European value or identity to defend, so neither Cyprus nor Luxembourg is doing anything wrong really, just playing their card and do the best for their citizen first and foremost.

Cyprus found itself in a hole with no good geopolitical bargaining chips so they got screwed. All the argumentation that followed was to make the pill easier to swallow for other EU citizen. Like "Look we are screwing them up and it is scary but they are bad guys, so don't worry, that won't happen here."

Nobody is unhappy with Luxembourg right now, so nothing will happen. At best politician in other countries will moan and complain about the various companies involved and maybe build up public outrage to justify extra local taxation.

Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#47

Post by jdimov »

prawn wrote: post #19

Anyone got any ideas on how governments could effectively clamp down on this? In Australia, IKEA paid 1%* tax over the last 12 years, even as sales surged 500%: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/06/luxembourg-tax-... (The Guardian article has since removed the 1% reference, though it was in there when I first read the article.)

There is only one correct solution - abolish all taxation based on profits.

Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#48

Post by vidarh »

roel_v wrote: post #42
vidarh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily that simple. The European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 grants a right to privacy. It is not clear whether or not the right under copyright law to copy an image is always sufficient to give you a right to publish the image. That depends on jurisdiction. In the UK, for example, it does not, as a result of the way ECHR has been implemented in local law through the Human Rights Act 1998, tho…

It was more difficult than I thought it would be to counter your argument, as there hasn't been a judgement on the exact same circumstances, so I think downvoting you is unjustified. But I still think your legal reasoning is flawed. First, "It is not clear whether or not the right under copyright law to copy an image is always sufficient to give you a right to publish the image" is misleading - yes copyright does cov…

> But I still think your legal reasoning is flawed.

I did not make a legal reasoning. I pointed out that the issue is not clear.

> Secondly, looking at it from this angle, the Von Hannover judgements of the ECHR provide a number of criteria for judging the lawfullness of publication.

You can't only look at the ECHR, as the ECHR is not itself law and the national laws implementing it in each state subject to it differ greatly. The ECHR is relevant because it is the source of most of this legislation, but as long as the national laws implementing the principles are not in conflict with the ECHR, the can - and often does - add additional restrictions. Which is why I pointed out that the issue is not clear and that simply pointing to the license is insufficient.

As I pointed out, in the UK (which I used as an example only because I live here) it is clear that copyright is insufficient to control your right to publish. In fact, in addition to the Human Rights Act, the Data Protection Act and the Copyright, Design and Patents Act both add additional restrictions that may prevent or limit publication beyond copyright. I don't know the extent of legal restrictions in the rest of Europe.

Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#49

Post by vidarh »

jgrahamc wrote: post #21
vidarh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily that simple. The European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 grants a right to privacy. It is not clear whether or not the right under copyright law to copy an image is always sufficient to give you a right to publish the image. That depends on jurisdiction. In the UK, for example, it does not, as a result of the way ECHR has been implemented in local law through the Human Rights Act 1998, tho…

You seem to be talking about something totally different.

How am I talking about something totally different?

Your comment implied that simply looking at the license was sufficient to determine whether or not there is a right to publish, and that is not always the case. All I did was point out that other rights also comes into play.

Re: Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg

#50

Post by return0 »

gutnor wrote: post #46
return0 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, now is the best time then. It's good to see on what ground the modern european leaders are built. Dont forget that germany officially punished Cyprus for doing similar things. And lets not forget he is not an elected President

European Union is a union in a UN sense rather than USA sense. There is no European value or identity to defend, so neither Cyprus nor Luxembourg is doing anything wrong really, just playing their card and do the best for their citizen first and foremost. Cyprus found itself in a hole with no good geopolitical bargaining chips so they got screwed. All the argumentation that followed was to make the pill easier to swa…

>European Union is a union in a UN sense rather than USA sense

Are you from the EU? You do know that EU law supersedes national law, right? Or that a number of southern european countries don't have control of their finances for 5+years now?

It's not an inconsequential union.

Also, if they are not doing nothing wrong, then i don't know if the word "wrong" has any uses anymore.

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