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

OUTRAGE

[Anonymous Coward]

Ecuador holds dominion over the Galapagos Islands. Who made the Galapagos famous? That's right, Darwin... Which happens to be the name of Apple's OS Kernel. COINCIDENCE?

Ha!

[milo_a_wagner]

All your branches are belong to us!

First Time

[Anonymous Coward]

The first time it may have been a "human" mistake. Second time, I do not think so.

I wonder if this is related to paying for votes on the ISO committee?

Excel

[MK_CSGuy]

Cue in the Excel jokes just about... now!

"closing" a business in an online world

[G4from128k]

I doubt this will have the impact that it would if Microsoft were a traditional bricks-and-mortar company. Does this closure prevent Ecuadorians from activating copies of Windows, or downloading updates, or buying additional Microsoft licenses online?

At what point in time will tax authorities seek the right to seize a company's domain name and DNS entries to truly seize a business for back taxes.

A human mistake

[NJVil]

"Microsoft said it was a human mistake."

Well, it's highly unlikely they'd admit it was a technology mistake. So, a head will roll, a chair will be thrown, and full faith in Microsoft technology will return to normal in Ecuador.

tax evasion

[ClippySay]

/ You look like you're trying to evade \
\ taxes. May I help you?               /
     \
      \
       \     ____
        \   / __ \
         \  O|  |O|
            ||  | |
            ||  | |
            ||    |
             |___/

Celebrity Section for Slashdot?

[Nymz]

This story feels alot like "Is Britney Spears fit?" or "has Linsey Lohan left rehab too soon?" Do we really need 24/7 coverage of every detail of Microsoft? Hmm, what do you think of these stories:

• Steve Jobs drops his iPhone again - video link
• Linus Torvald buys a mac - is this the end of the world?
• Bill Gates gets a fashion makeover - image slideshow

Re:Public Prophet and Private Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but the law is the law. MS forgot to send some papers and the rules had been applied on that case. Many other ecuadorian companies were also closed for seven days, MS was the only multinational branch closed.

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/

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[tomhudson]

As opposed to Soviet Korporate Amerika, where Microsoft taxes YOU!

In such a context,

1. couldn't running linux be considered somewhat equivalent to the Boston Tea Party? Or would that be running a pirated copy of Windows?

2. could running a pirated copy of Windows, in the current "Corporatist" environment, be considered a political statement, and as such, be "protected speech", same as flag burning?

Also

[jeffasselin]

in completely unrelated news, Microsoft announced that every copy of Windows trying to validate with WGA from Ecuador was found to be non-genuine. The affected systems have started zeroing the data on their hard drives.

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.

Actually this is very significant

[einhverfr]

Many Latin American countries have been struggling with corruption for a long time, Ecuador included. Ecuador in particular has been severely destabilized by such corruption (8 presidents in 10 years-- everything from coups to phony impeachments). Correa vowed to change that, and he has been doing a great job of it so far.

If Microsoft is not cooperating with tax audits, this could be due to an issue of management in their branch officies, but it could also be due to a human error. What is significant is that this happened at all. 10 years ago, it would have been unthinkable even if they weren't paying taxes at all. 20 years ago, it would have been avoided for fear of covert retribution from the US (as we saw in Guatamala, and arguably Ecuador as well).

This is significant because it means that Correa is serious about his willingness to stand up to powerful foreign corporations. Its significance is not limited to Microsoft-- this is more significant as to how it affects things like oil exports, foreign-owned banana plantations, and the like.

The rule of law is being asserted strongly in Ecuador which is a good thing.