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Google France Being Raided For Unpaid Taxes (reuters.com)
jones_supa writes: Investigators in France have raided Google's Paris headquarters amid a probe over the company's tax payments, Reuters reports. The French Finance Ministry is investigating $1.8 billion in back taxes. According to a report in French daily Le Parisien, at least 100 investigators are part of the raid at Google's offices. A source close to the finance ministry said that the raid at Google's offices has been ongoing on Tuesday since 03:00 GMT. In February, a source at the French Finance Ministry told Reuters that the government was seeking the $1.8 billion from Google. At the time, official spokespeople for Google France and the Finance Ministry refused to comment on the situation. Google could face up to a $11.14 million fine if it is found guilty, or a fine of half of the value of the laundered amount involved. In April, the EU revealed plans to force multinationals such as Google, Amazon and Facebook to disclose exactly where and how much tax they pay across the continent. A new clause was added since the Panama Papers leak requiring the companies to report how much money they make in so-called "tax havens."
Is there some reason the EU and its constituent governments are asking Google how much it paid in taxes throughout the continent rather than checking their own records?
I guess you have to start somewhere, but this is pretty much how every international business in the world dodges taxes.
How much of this is due to Google not bowing to French demands to censor the internet for the entire world I have to wonder.
The State with a capital "S" has just run out of other people's money. Which means they will now go get money from anyone they can, screw legality or morals.
If you have anything of value the state can reach, it will reach for it now. A small amount at first but you would be surprised how quickly it can snowball (ask the people of Venezuela or Argentina). Not quite time to make a run on the banks, but keep a weather eye on the availability of cash and perhaps start buying more durable goods with lasting value that are not so easily seized.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What if the data the investigators want is sitting on US servers and all there is in the Paris office are computers with the users logged out?
I can't be the only one who read the title, went to Google, and searched for "France Being Raided For Unpaid Taxes".
Absolutely. Not paying every euro in taxes that some bureaucrat somewhere thinks you ought to pay (regardless of the law) is twice as evil as Hitler.
With France right to be forgotten and this, why stay in France?
Google France Being Raided For Unpaid Taxes
That makes it sound like debt collectors are checking down the back of the couches in the lobby and repossessing luxury office items to pay the bill.
They're not being raided for unpaid taxes. They're being raided for information relating to the possibility of unpaid taxes.
Google could face up to a $11.14 million fine if it is found guilty.
There you go. Not yet found guilty.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It is a well know stereotype that tax authorities around the world are employing certain type of people. They are know for (or are requited to have) intimidation.
However French tax authorities met a formidable oponent.
Companies like Google have enough funds to hire very good specialists. Logical thinking and knowledge of the tax laws is one of the criteria.
Eventually it will be the fight between the two: intimidation vs legal logic.
I am betting that Google will win. All french authorities are doing, are sending armed masked swat as if google was some sort of illegal business. Imagination is not their thing...
This is World vs Multinationals. All countries, including the US, are slowly getting smart about taxing large companies.
Everyone is realizing that countries competing on tax conditions for large companies does not benefit anyone, except the large companies.
Expect to see much more counties to demand corporations pay tax on gains obtained in their specific country, regardless of the corporations internal financial structure and organization and tax deals with other countries.
Cue the shills saying that Google doesn't need to pay any tax, that they are not doing anything illegal, that this is some conspiracy from the state to steal money from "wealth creators". How much are you being paid to repeat this nonsense?
And to those that say these companies are not doing anything illegal: try claiming to the tax man that you have to pay no income tax because you have no income, because all you earn you have to pay to a company based in Panama called John Doe, inc., as this company owns your name and lets you use it for the exact amount of taxable income that you earn each month.
The tax man will skin you alive if you try this. But this is exactly the kind of shit Google, Apple, Amazon, and your favourite megacorp get away with.
entropy happens
or shall I say
Gooooooooooooood!
"Don't get busted". You heard it here first.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
If Google had any sense, they'd close down all French operations, quit serving searches/email/youtube or ANYthing they do to any french IP address.. Then watch how damn fast those fuckin' frogs would beg Google to come back.
Funny, my take is exactly the opposite.
I think you misspelled "tragic".
Big corporations have been playing a shell game with the tax man for a long time.
You mean playing by the rules the states have set in place for taxes, and now being robbed by way of thanks for complying.
The deficit caused by these big corporations using government services
Is nothing compared to the vast windfall the governments are about to take for themselves.
What "government services" are these companies stealing exactly? They already pay shipping companies who in turn pay taxes for roads. They already pay employment taxes for all of the workers they employ, and those employees in turn pay income tax and VAT and so on.
The only question on taxes involving large companies is if the LAWS THE COMPANIES ARE FOLLOWING LEGALLY collect "too little" in sales tax (last year for example Apple paid Australia 193 million in taxes), but sales tax has zilch to do with "government services", it just says how much off the top the government gets to skim from your earnings for which the government has not put forth the slightest effort beyond existing.
Why should the government get larger and larger sums just to grow organizations that exist mostly to hamper productive people?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
More of this, less of the IP-protectionist and search-censoring bullshit.
Maybe your willingness to take these behemoths to task on their tax dodges will give US legislators some balls (yeah right...)
I love how France raids American businesses, but ignores French and European Businesses.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Google does all their sales for all of their European operations out of the Google Office in Northern Ireland, which is kind of a tax haven. The Paris office is a technical one and does not do sales.
If it did, France could get significant tax revenue. France were hoping to justify their 1.3 billion tax bill it levied against Google but have yet to prove those sales originated in France. They did not, so the French Finance minister tried to find some. It didn't.
C'est la vie!
I guess you have to start somewhere, but this is pretty much how every international business in the world dodges taxes.
Indeed - and Google isn't the first corporation to be put through the EU wringer either; remember Microsoft? It is the right thing to do, and once they are on a roll, more and more countries will follow suit.
I guess you have to start somewhere
If you don't have a solid case then you go mafia style after the small guys who can't afford to defend themselves.
If you do have a solid case then you go straight after the biggest fish to prove the point and set the precedence. The idea is if they go after Google they won't need to go after anyone else, just send them the bill.
. . . this has segued from international taxation to SJWs to guns. Although, I would argue that apparently the original SJW comment was aimed at a specific user.
But the jump to guns, where did THAT come from ??
I realize this is /., but geeze, people , at least TRY to stay on topic. . . .
Huh. I stated the exact same sentiment in a story yesterday about off-shored US corporate lucre avoiding taxes... and got rated down to a zero.
this is a case of laws designed to fail. Instead of a fine of 50% of the laundered sums why woulds any government not always fine much more than the violation harvested? For example if a company cheats and steals $1,000 dollars why not fine them $10,000 ? I would love a situation where I could go out and rob banks and be punished by paying back one half of my loot. Microsoft has created so many violations over the last 20 years that a RICCO Act could be used to seize the entire corporation. I believe that Microsoft has paid at least two billion in fines for various violations. They probably made 20 billion by those violations. Sometimes corruption can be built into a law.
I see we have completely derailed.
If I rush out quickly and find a sig, could we roast me next?
Cheers.
FYI, precedent, not precedence.
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...
Not meaning to be an ass, just hoping to help you improve your language usage. I would expect the same when I make a mistake.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Coren22 you made big mistakes against apk and you acted like an ass(hole) as he tore your incompetent ass up https://slashdot.org/comments....
See subject & this regarding his bullshit giving you guff on spelling/grammar (courtesy of "yours truly") https://slashdot.org/comments....
APK
P.S.=> Then there's my other post in reply to that scumbag weasel Coren22 putting him in his place on computing technicals (of which he's NOTHING more than a punk playing 'expert' in, yet he's so LIMITED he has to depend on coders like myself to make his tools he merely 'uses' - creating NOTHING of his own...)