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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."
The EU is changing the rules so that companies part tax on business they do in each state, regardless of where they funnel the profits too. Google tries stuff like claiming that all sales take place in Ireland, but their staff in other countries put things like "sales at Google" on their LinkedIn profiles. France is having none of it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I guess you have to start somewhere, but this is pretty much how every international business in the world dodges taxes.
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.
Funny, my take is exactly the opposite.
Big corporations have been playing a shell game with the tax man for a long time.
The deficit caused by these big corporations using government services but yet skating out on the tax bill, has been handed to the rest of us to settle.
Finally, "The State" figures it out: FOLLOW THE MONEY
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
Perhaps if taxes weren't so high...
I don't think I buy this argument. Companies are ultimately driven by people, people are people, and human nature is human nature. A tiger who is plays shenanigans at a 35% or 28% tax rate does not magically change his stripes if the tax rate drops to 20% or 15%. It's still more than zero, so he will play jurisdictional arbitrage to try and make it so.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
But what constitutes a "cost"?
Is it the lease on your building? Yep
Is it the power to run your shop's lights? Yep
Is it the cost of attending a "widget" conference in Las Vegas for a week? Um...
Is it the cost of the new Porsche you purchased which gets used for business use 5% of the time? Errr...
Is it the boozy lunches you regularly hold for your "friends" in the widget industry? Hmm...
Most of those 15,000 pages are probably to do with defining what constitutes an acceptable expense and what doesn't.
The problem is immensely more complex than you might think -- which is why business gets away with "avoiding" tax so much more effectively than wage-slaves do.
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.