Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
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Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#2Google uses Bermuda (a British overseas territory) to avoid tax liability in the EU
“Google has paid €8.8 billion in fees to Bermuda,” S&D group MEP Peter Simon complained. [1]
The irony being that the current president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was Prime Minister of Luxembourg when his administration was organising the low tax environment. [2] [3]
And now the EU claims that "the Anti Tax Avoidance Package is part of the Commission's ambitious agenda for fairer, simpler and more effective corporate taxation in the EU." [4]
[1] http://www.euractiv.com/section/public-affairs/news/google-f...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Juncker
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg_Leaks
[4] http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/company_tax/an...
Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#3[deleted]
Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#4Google uses Bermuda (a British overseas territory) to avoid tax liability in the EU “Google has paid €8.8 billion in fees to Bermuda,” S&D group MEP Peter Simon complained. [1] The irony being that the current president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was Prime Minister of Luxembourg when his administration was organising the low tax environment. [2] [3] And now the EU claims that "the Anti Tax Avoid…
Nice research, thanks for sharing!
Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#5Remember that Google was also raided in Paris almost exactly one month ago [1].
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/24/google-of...
Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#6I wonder what they expect to find? Or whether it is just a display of force.
Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#7Google uses Bermuda (a British overseas territory) to avoid tax liability in the EU “Google has paid €8.8 billion in fees to Bermuda,” S&D group MEP Peter Simon complained. [1] The irony being that the current president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was Prime Minister of Luxembourg when his administration was organising the low tax environment. [2] [3] And now the EU claims that "the Anti Tax Avoid…
If Google paid €8.8b in fees to avoid paying taxes, just how much taxes are we talking about?
Also seconding vmateixeira: Thanks for your research!
Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#8I heard someone related to the Paris office raid comment when that happened. She was saying that multinational corporations always say that their organization and tax schemes are legal but that in reality it's so complex and spread in multiple countries that nobody really knows for sure and so it's only legal by default.
Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#9I wonder what they expect to find? Or whether it is just a display of force.
"The Paris raid aimed to establish whether Google Ireland has a permanent base there, and whether the firm was meeting its tax obligations. It was part of a probe into aggravated tax fraud and organized laundering of the proceeds."
Re: Spanish authorities raid Google offices over tax
#10Google uses Bermuda (a British overseas territory) to avoid tax liability in the EU “Google has paid €8.8 billion in fees to Bermuda,” S&D group MEP Peter Simon complained. [1] The irony being that the current president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was Prime Minister of Luxembourg when his administration was organising the low tax environment. [2] [3] And now the EU claims that "the Anti Tax Avoid…
How can this still be possible? Shouldn't all tax legislation be such that if you break the spirit of it by having internal transfers (royalties, fees, interest) to a low-tax area, then you are still taxed based on the business that you had in the country in question, and not based on the net sum (i.e. zero).
The current state of tax law is that a billion dollar company pays almost no taxes but a million dollar company pays a lot. That can't be good for anyone (apart from the $1B company).
Are countries, simply put, afraid to put an end to tax schemes like this, because it would just mean that Ikea or Google would pack up and leave?