France Seeking $1.76 Billion In Back Taxes From Google (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader writes: According to a Reuters insider, France is seeking 1.6 billion euros in back taxes from Google, dwarfing what the United Kingdom recently agreed to pay. France apparently has no interest in striking the same 'sweetheart tax' deal that put the UK into a critical light when it revealed that the search giant would pay only 130 million pounds of tax, a $181.18 million settlement, for over 10 years in multi-billion dollar trade in the UK.

Comments

long or short scale?

[turkeydance]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Good for France

[Anonymous Coward]

I really do hope they get their money. These corporations play all manner of shell company games, offshore trickery, you name it just to avoid paying taxes. If you owe it, pay it. Give unto Caesar what is Caesars. I will never again eat at Burger King in large part because of their tax inversion. More and more companies are doing this. I realize companies are beholden to the shareholders (sadly), but pay what you really owe. Stop with the tax tricks which are basically legal fraud.

Re:Good for France

[Austerity Empowers]

avoid .... owe ... legal fraud

If you can avoid it, you do not owe it. It is legal. It is not fraud, however unjust you may think it is.

If you owe it, try to hide it, and do not pay it, it's called "Tax Evasion". That's against the law, you don't pay back taxes you pay back taxes and go to jail.

If there is a dispute between what you think you owe, and what the government thinks you owe, it's called a lawsuit. If France wins, google owes back taxes (presumably with interest). If Google wins they still pay nothing.

France is asserting that Google does in fact owe money that Google does not believe it owes. It's a lawsuit. This distinction is incredibly important in many countries, as what these companies are doing is usually LEGAL. It is our own governments that are screwing up in tax law, and our governments that need to fix the problem. Of course the second you talk about "fixing" tax law, you end up with all sorts of barnyard noises in congress (in the US, but I imagine we don't have the market cornered on this). It's easier in this case to wage a war of public opinion (similar to FBI and keys to the city) than to actually try to get these sorts of laws changed against a hostile congress. But, as a people, we need to understand this: the government is complicit. The only reason these lawsuits even happen is that there is debate, there shouldn't be debate.

Also when you go do lawsuit stuff, you always exaggerate your claims. It's part of the game.

Re:Good for France

[bloodhawk]

avoid .... owe ... legal fraud

If you can avoid it, you do not owe it. It is legal. It is not fraud, however unjust you may think it is.

If you owe it, try to hide it, and do not pay it, it's called "Tax Evasion". That's against the law, you don't pay back taxes you pay back taxes and go to jail.

If there is a dispute between what you think you owe, and what the government thinks you owe, it's called a lawsuit. If France wins, google owes back taxes (presumably with interest). If Google wins they still pay nothing.

France is asserting that Google does in fact owe money that Google does not believe it owes. It's a lawsuit. This distinction is incredibly important in many countries, as what these companies are doing is usually LEGAL. It is our own governments that are screwing up in tax law, and our governments that need to fix the problem. Of course the second you talk about "fixing" tax law, you end up with all sorts of barnyard noises in congress (in the US, but I imagine we don't have the market cornered on this). It's easier in this case to wage a war of public opinion (similar to FBI and keys to the city) than to actually try to get these sorts of laws changed against a hostile congress. But, as a people, we need to understand this: the government is complicit. The only reason these lawsuits even happen is that there is debate, there shouldn't be debate.

Also when you go do lawsuit stuff, you always exaggerate your claims. It's part of the game.

I think the problem here is NOT that it is illegal or legal. They are using tricks to evade the laws or go in areas where the laws haven't explicitly forbidden. Companies are actively seeking loopholes in the wording or in international tax treaties, they are then abusing these holes. It may be legal by the letter of the law (or at least not illegal), but it was certainly not the intention of the law to allow it. It is like someone finding a way to steal or kill someone with some new technology and then finding the law doesn't cover it, it is obvious it is wrong and should be illegal but it hasn't been made explicitly illegal so they get away with it.

Re:Good for France

[shaitand]

"If you can avoid it, you do not owe it. It is legal. It is not fraud, however unjust you may think it is.

If you owe it, try to hide it, and do not pay it, it's called "Tax Evasion". That's against the law, you don't pay back taxes you pay back taxes and go to jail."

In the US where these terms are routinely applied in this manner the difference is in fact what the IRS says it is with individuals who have exploited tax loopholes often categorized as "Tax Evasion" whether in code or not, since most of the code is ambiguous and at the discretion of the auditor. While large corporations tend to be given the benefit of the doubt.

In fact, many things that are perfectly legal for corporations are explicitly outlawed for individuals. For instance, I know of one massive corporation that would silo off portions of it's operation that cost money, incorporate separately, then charge the original company exactly $1 over costs for services each year. Because that business made $1 instead of taking a multi-year loss it would not trigger any kind of review or audit. As an individual you would be hammered in multiple ways for doing this. For starters because you own more than 60% interest, for another because the entire cost center corporation is not actually intended to generate substantial profit and would be declared a "hobby", for another it evades deduction limits.

On the flip side, incorporated entities that are small really get burned with double taxation. You have to pay tax on the corporations income and then turn around and pay again when the corporation pays income to you. This double taxation is the justification for many of the corporate tax write offs that individuals don't get and they make sense or are even too restrictive to avoid double taxation for these small incorporated businesses while allowing billions in dodged taxes for massive public entities.

Re:Good for France

[Austerity Empowers]

I think the problem here is NOT that it is illegal or legal. They are using tricks to evade the laws or go in areas where the laws haven't explicitly forbidden.

And those tricks and gaps, you think they were accidents? That Google, et. al are the only people who scrutinize tax laws?

I don't believe it for a second. That scrutiny is a prerequisite for the laws to have passed to begin with. The only people who cannot afford that scrutiny are the people being hurt. What has happened is that the general public, not just in France but everywhere, has caught on to this and is crying foul. And so we have this charade.

What is lost when people blame Google or Apple or Microsoft for these things is the message: your government sold you out. The outcome of this is, for the continued peace of France, is they're going to find something Google did wrong and Google is going to pay a nominal sum that sounds big to make it go away. The people will be happy that evil Google had to pay the piper but the laws won't change. Google will continue to pay less than what was intended, and a hundred other multinats will continue doing what they've always done.

Re:Good for France

[David_Hart]

avoid .... owe ... legal fraud

If you can avoid it, you do not owe it. It is legal. It is not fraud, however unjust you may think it is.

If you owe it, try to hide it, and do not pay it, it's called "Tax Evasion". That's against the law, you don't pay back taxes you pay back taxes and go to jail.

If there is a dispute between what you think you owe, and what the government thinks you owe, it's called a lawsuit. If France wins, google owes back taxes (presumably with interest). If Google wins they still pay nothing.

France is asserting that Google does in fact owe money that Google does not believe it owes. It's a lawsuit. This distinction is incredibly important in many countries, as what these companies are doing is usually LEGAL. It is our own governments that are screwing up in tax law, and our governments that need to fix the problem. Of course the second you talk about "fixing" tax law, you end up with all sorts of barnyard noises in congress (in the US, but I imagine we don't have the market cornered on this). It's easier in this case to wage a war of public opinion (similar to FBI and keys to the city) than to actually try to get these sorts of laws changed against a hostile congress. But, as a people, we need to understand this: the government is complicit. The only reason these lawsuits even happen is that there is debate, there shouldn't be debate.

Also when you go do lawsuit stuff, you always exaggerate your claims. It's part of the game.

I think the problem here is NOT that it is illegal or legal. They are using tricks to evade the laws or go in areas where the laws haven't explicitly forbidden. Companies are actively seeking loopholes in the wording or in international tax treaties, they are then abusing these holes. It may be legal by the letter of the law (or at least not illegal), but it was certainly not the intention of the law to allow it. It is like someone finding a way to steal or kill someone with some new technology and then finding the law doesn't cover it, it is obvious it is wrong and should be illegal but it hasn't been made explicitly illegal so they get away with it.

No, the problem is EXACTLY whether it is legal or illegal.

The definition of something being illegal is that there is a law that prohibits that behavior. If there isn't a law against it then it is legal. Argue all you want whether loopholes are just or unjust and whether the use of a loophole for non-intended use is moral or immoral but the point is that poorly crafted tax laws results in the legal reduction in tax burden for companies and rich people who can hire smart tax accountants.

As for your comparison, it's completely stupid. We have laws against murder and theft, full stop. Doesn't matter how you do it or if you use a proxy. The laws even cover being a party or conspiracy to murder. The only loophole, if you want to call it that, for murder is self-defense.

There is no law that says that you have to pay a specific amount of taxes. For example, if there was a law that all companies must pay a minimum of 10% in taxes with no qualifications and Google used loopholes as justification to pay less then your argument would make sense. There is no such law as far as I know.

I agree with you that in a just world corporations would shoulder more of the tax and infrastructure burden than they do. But it's up to us to vote in and lobby people who can change the laws.

Re:Good for France

[Anonymous Coward]

The English heritage of following letter of law rather than spirit is not followed in all jurisdictions. Fortunately.

In particular, continental Europeans following Roman/civil/whatever-you-wanna-call-it systems will take a very different approach to writing and interpreting rules that make it much harder to say, "But if you think carefully about it, it the words could be construed to mean THIS rather than THAT!" If THAT is obviously what was intended, THIS is you trying to be a smartarse to evade the social contract you entered into when deciding to do business in the country, and nobody gives a fuck.

This is quite confusing to Englishmen and Americans, who regard laws as disconnected from lawmakers - a thoroughly intellectually dishonest position.

Re:France should try innovating...

[bloodhawk]

in this case silicon valley has been a leech on many of the world's societies. Perhaps silicon valley should actually try paying what it legitimately owes instead of trying to use tax havens to leech off society.

Re:"the United Kingdom recently agreed to pay"

[rossdee]

"France demanded reparations for all their soldiers killed by English bowmen."

England lost more soldiers fighting for France in one day on the Somme (WWI) than the English killed in the whole hundred years war

Confusing first sentence.

[seven of five]

France is seeking 1.6 billion euros in back taxes from Google, dwarfing what the United Kingdom recently agreed to pay.

The UK owed France taxes? What's that got to do with Google?

Re:American's future entrepreneurs are watching

[Harlequin80]

Please tell me you are joking.

2025, boardroom of a start-up company looking on where to invest, where to find customers, and where to set up offices:

Chris: Hey Jo, I've been looking at our European customer base. We haven't really been targeting them but there seems to be a lot of interest. You think we should look into setting up offices there?

Jo: Really, we should have been doing it earlier. If we don't get a significant percentage of the worlds population using our system we can be too easily displaced.

Chris: You know tax rates are higher there don't you?

Jo: Yeah they are. But if we don't try to avoid taxes in those regions we can easily budget for them. Of course we could do what Google did and walk the grey line and then negotiate hard when they come after us.

Chris: Hmmmm I'll give that some thought. It could be good to have the extra cash early but we will need to budget for settlements and the risk associated with that.

There is NO WAY that an international company will ignore the second largest consumer population block in the world. None. Not a chance. Christ companies bend over backwards to operate in China and the Eurozone is bigger financially in total.

Re:"the United Kingdom recently agreed to pay"

[KGIII]

They war almost certainly wouldn't have been lost if you're father had been captured. The war wouldn't have even been lost if *all* of them had been captured. They were the ground soldiers. I guess you could say that the captured wouldn't have been in N. Africa but there were still plenty of troops if you look at the numbers.

To put N. Africa into scale and WWII numbers, the surrendering Germans were something like 225,000 - in pretty much one go. Would it have been tougher? Maybe, but probably not a hell of a lot. The folks from Dunkirk only made up something like 1/8 of the N. African soldiers.

Also, any American who holds such views about France is an idiot. We have our country because of France and some might say that gift cost the leader's heads. If they hold those views, they have no idea about WWII. If they hold those views, they sure as hell know nothing of the French Foreign Legion. I am American, by the way.

Re:pump your brakes, slashdotters.

[Anonymous Coward]

How much does Google rake in in France per quarter? Not $17 billion. The US accounts for about half of that; French revenue not likely to be a big chunk. Why should Google be taxed by the French on the money they make in the US or elsewhere?