Ecuador Tax Agency Closes Microsoft Branch Offices

An anonymous reader writes "The Ecuador Tax Agency (SRI) has closed Microsoft branch offices for seven days. 'We have twice requested balances, payment reports and complete tax information, but the company hasn't given it to us, so in accordance with our laws we have proceeded with the closure,' the SRI official in charge of the proceeding said. Microsoft said it was a human mistake."

Comments

Ecuador moving to free software

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

Don't know if it's related, but maybe Ecuador isn't too afraid of MS nowadays since they're moving to free software:

http://rudd-o.com/archives/2006/12/13/%C2%A1success-for-free-software-in-latin-america/

Not really-- this is significant

[einhverfr]

Basically, the argument is that Microsoft didn't cooperate with an audit, so the government doesn't know if they paid taxes or not.

This is a very interesting though as it relates to regional politics. Rafael Correa won his election partly on the promise to clean up corruption in foreign corporate entities (in particular tax evasion and the like). It also has other ramifications for open source, business, economics, etc. in Ecuador. I will be watching this closely.