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Taxes Lead Angry Birds Maker Rovio To Consider Move To Ireland

Posted by timothy on from the actually-it's-the-delicious-green-weather dept.

jones_supa writes with this news, straight from The Irish Times: "Rovio, the Finnish company behind Angry Birds, is considering moving its headquarters to Ireland, chief executive Mikael Hed has said. Rovio employs approximately 400 people, mostly in Finland, but Rovio is in contact with IDA Ireland about establishing headquarters here. The reason for the move would be corporation tax rate, which in Finland is 24.5%, while Ireland's rate is 12.5%. Companies such as Google and Facebook have also set up European headquarter operations in Dublin for the same reason. Hed said that if the decision was made to move to Ireland, the company would then decide exactly what elements of its operations would move. 'If we did make that decision then it would be a natural thing to do to have some production [in Ireland] also.'"

1 of 626 comments (clear)

  1. Defect after winning by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 1, Troll

    That's right. Defect from the country that provided you with outstanding developers who were the end product of the best k-12 (and 12- 16 AND into adulthood) educational systems in the world

    http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,3343,en_2649_201185_39700732_1_1_1_1,00.html

    and who were willing to work for start-up wages and take risks because they weren't burdened with student loan debt:

    From Wikipedia:

    The Finnish education system is an egalitarian system, with no tuition fees and with free meals served to full-time students.

    The present Finnish education system consists of well-funded and carefully thought out daycare programs (for babies and toddlers) and a one-year "pre-school" (or kindergarten for six-year olds); a nine-year compulsory basic comprehensive school (starting at age seven and ending at the age of sixteen); post-compulsory secondary general academic and vocational education; higher education (University and Polytechnical); and adult (lifelong, continuing) education.

    The Nordic strategy for achieving equality and excellence in education has been based on constructing a publicly funded comprehensive school system without selecting, tracking, or streaming students during their common basic education.[1]

    Part of the strategy has been to spread the school network so that pupils have a school near their homes whenever possible or, if this is not feasible, e.g. in rural areas, to provide free transportation to more widely dispersed schools. Inclusive special education within the classroom and instructional efforts to minimize low achievement are also typical of Nordic educational systems.[1]

    Yes defect from that system you benefited from so you can save a measly 12.5% on taxes :

    FTA:

    The corporation tax rate in Finland is 24.5 per cent, while Ireland's rate is 12.5 per cent.

    Yes do defect . Because that's coke n' whore money you could be putting up your fucking nose instead of giving it to the most effective and civic minded governments the world has ever known and supporting one of the most egalitarian societies the world has ever achieved. .

    In truth, this happens all to time to Finland . Sports stars, recording stars etc etc defect to a low taxation country. They know about it and build in an allowance for it. They STILL like their society better , and as far as the loss of "talent" goes, they know how to print that shit on demand:

    "Finland has reached number 1 or number 2, with very high rankings in reading literacy, mathematics and science. If one could make a calculation of the total, comparing different fields, Finland would be number 1. The country received very high marks in this international comparison of students," Finnish Ambassador to Thailand Sirpa Maenpaa told The Nation recently.

    "Furthermore, the results that come from Finland are uniform. They do not come from some top students, but from the performance of all of the students," she said.

    from:

    http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/09/28/national/national_30113177.php

    For anyone interested in how the Scandinavians think about taxes, this is a great listen from Planet Money:

    Quotable quote- an incredulous interviewer asks a woman "would you like your taxes to be even higher??" to which she replies "...mmmm .. what will I get for my money?"

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/01/podcast_tax_me_please.html