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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
Because that is how every government in the world does taxes?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I guess you have to start somewhere, but this is pretty much how every international business in the world dodges taxes.
Because they don't have coordinated tax systems, and doing that is a huge political issue, otherwise yes that is how you do it. This is the reasonably low bureaucratic route where the company reports all income and taxes, and spot checks can be used to make sure companies are telling the truth.
I can't be the only one who read the title, went to Google, and searched for "France Being Raided For Unpaid Taxes".
No kidding....if they set up their branch offices like we do, then Google can then just cut the network connections. Just a bunch of thin clients on the other end that can no longer talk back to home base.
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
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.
so they fire everyone in France, offer the staff lucrative relocation packages - most 'sales' for google is either info share or order taking.... then france doesn't get individual taxes. google isn't doing anything wrong.
considering usual political support i'd suggest some mid tier .gov idiot made this decision - if i was google this would piss me off.
as far as linkedin goes many people can't even choose the correct company they work for....
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
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...
...international treaties mean they'll be abrogating their agreements...
[citation needed]
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
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.
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Why can't we have intelligent discourse on this site, instead of this polarizing nonsense?
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
In France they use those pages to raid first and ask questions later.
"Don't get busted". You heard it here first.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Uhh... just think what happens when France decides that turnabout is fair game and invalidates any and all intellectual property within French borders.
Hint: The internet doesn't give a fuck about borders, and IIRC a certain bay that isn't into selling stuff is interested in finding a place that doesn't give 2 shits about pesky little things like copyright.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because the whole shit has taken up religious proportions. There is no intelligent discourse possible any more.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And if skirts weren't so short fewer women would be raped.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because a Value Added Tax is not as easy to enforce as a retail sales tax. Use Google translate to read the gripes from employees of impots.gouv.fr
227-3517
There's a reason tax laws are so "utterly absurd"... it's called loop holes.. You know when a company says "It doesn't explicitly state that I CAN'T do this.." So you end up with 15000 pages of legalize because companies are ALWAYS trying to get out of taxes. Not that they shouldn't, but what do you expect. Simplifying the tax code is never as easy as it sounds.
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.
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
Hi! First day on the internets? You must be new here.
Probably none of it.
If there is something governments love more than surveillance and censorship, it's money. And Google happens to have a lot of it and do shady stuff with their taxes, that's a good opportunity.
Oh no it doesn't. It is just that it doesn't make it to the news when some local business gets raided.
So make it a 35% flat tax on gross income, no deductions
I sell widgets.
I buy the widgets at a wholesale price of $9 each and I retail them at my shop for $10 each.
My gross income is $10 for each widget that I sell, but I'm really making only $1 less whatever the costs are to keep my shop open and the lights on.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Do you honestly think there would be the same number of tax cheats at a 95% income tax rate, as there would at a 5% income tax rate?
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.
The problem is that the law as written has fuzzy edges and whether they're obeying the law or not can only be decided in a court of law, something else that is fuzzy (look at many Supreme Court decisions where there is a split with some Judges ruling one way and others ruling the other way).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I think the law is quite clear and Google is complying with it: these are well-defined companies engaging in well-defined, legal transactions that happen to greatly reduce tax liability.
If France pushes ahead on this, Google will find other ways of reducing its tax liability, and those are likely going to be economically worse for France than not having collected these taxes in the first place.
The real problem is that taxation is an intrinsically flawed concept: forcing people at gunpoint to give money to the state for goods and services they often don't want in the first place simply is not going to work well, ever. People are going to find ways of avoiding taxes if not for any other reason because they don't want to feel like fools. The only reliable way to pay for goods and services is to engage in voluntary exchanges in a free market.
Free men own guns. Slaves don't.
... would that add me to another category... being a tool?
I'm curious... I've never needed a gun for anything... if I were to buy a gun
What is the obsession with these metal objects which have many applications but are most often owned by people who seem to first buy one and then look for a reason to own one. I did this with a toy robot I have. He can now dance and sing and welcomes me when I walk into the office.
I wonder... would a dildo have the same effect? In other words... if you didn't really need one but you bought one anyway, simply because you have the right to buy one of course. Would you run around wearing one in a holster? Would you fight for legal rights to have a vibrator on display, clipped safely to your belt while at Chuck'E Cheese during a children's birthday? Currently, so far as I know, you can be arrested for this type of behavior, though within the right context it's clear to me that a large enough or odd enough dildo or vibrator could be classified as baring arms.
If you had one which was gigantic and shaped like a fist, I'm positive it would classify as "baring arms". So... would you fight for your legal right to carry a large object capable of stroking, fisting and otherwise just beating the shit out of someone with when used as a club? Would you carry it across your back? In your belt? Or would you insist that you be allowed to keep it "Cocked" at all times?
You could suggest that a large fist shaped vibrating dildo would not be in the same category as a hand gun... I would disagree... I'm 100% convinced that it would have a far higher likelihood of scaring off the bad guys than a gun. If you break out a gun, most bad guys would likely respond violently. Break our a gigantic vibrating dildo and chase a guy with it, it's almost absolutely certain to cause the other guy to panic and run.
I'm also pretty convinced that if you wanted to topple a tyrant... a creative person with such a fantastic dildo would have much more of a chance against armored soldiers with tanks and such than a redneck with a pile of guns. Paint it rainbow and you would conquer half of North Carolina with one swing.
I think we both agree that like your guns, such amazing and versatile fist shaped, vibrating "massage items" are best kept locked away from children in your bedroom than on display for everyone to see. You can take them out when the time is appropriate. You can rub them and touch them and clean them and keep them oiled and shiny. I simply don't need to know your expertise level with such items... it's ok if you keep that to yourself.
I honestly swear, I really really really don't want you using either your gun or your love toy around me even in extreme circumstances. I am perfectly ok with taking my risks and dieing instead.
The Google / Double Irish equivalent for widgets would be making a subsidiary company in another country, that then licenses the design of your widgets to you. You then claim a large business cost and pay taxes on a lower profit, whilst your overseas subsidiary laughs all the way to the bank.
$200k per year in taxes when you make $20k per year? Lol. GTO.
It doesn't matter what you think about the law being clear. I think the 1st Amendment is very clear (and simple) and yet people have been executed (the Rosenburgs (sp?) for telling how to make an atomic bomb) for speech due to some Judge deciding that the 1st doesn't cover some types of speech. The 2nd amendment is also pretty clear, people have the right to bear arms and yet Judges have ruled that laws that only allow some people can bear arms are legal.
And if you don't want to pay taxes, don't. It's really easy, just don't take the benefits of those taxes just like any other economic transaction you don't want to do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The fact that courts interpret laws differently from their plain meaning is not proof that the laws are unclear. (Nevertheless, your understanding of the First Amendment is faulty.)
Taxes are due whether you "take the benefits of those taxes" or not.
Corporations do have a representation in the government. Their representatition is called a lobby group. In fact, unfortunately they have more representation than people.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Maybe you like "If copyright laws weren't so fucked up and prices for content so insane people wouldn't download shit" more?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
35%? That's huge. 5%.
I agree. However it's easier to actually enforce a much simpler tax code.
They raid French businesses all the same. With SWAT teams. Used to work for one that got raided.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I love how you just make shit up to support your "viewpoint".
What's interesting is that I doubt that there are any number of contrary facts which will make you change your opinion.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Why can't we have intelligent discourse on this site, instead of this polarizing nonsense?
We can have it in addition to, not instead of. The problem is that those screeching about the evil commienazipaetoterrorists, or in modern parlance "SJW" have already indicated that they're incapable of engaging in intelligent discourse by resorting to cheap logical fallacies and invective off the bat.
Think of it as a really effective bozo filter.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You miss the point the parent poster is making. If, as was suggested by GPP, tax is a flat rate on gross income, what constitutes a cost doesn't matter.
PP was making the point that if your business operates on smaller margins than the flat rate, it will not be able to pay its taxes, much less the shareholders.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
considering usual political support i'd suggest some mid tier .gov idiot made this decision - if i was google this would piss me off.
That's gouv.fr my little American friend.
I suspect the French government is intensely relaxed about the idea of "pissing google off".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
SJW, an insult used by someone who things fighting for social justice is a bad thing.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Hello Mr Anonymous Coward, you're replying to someone with the username "Troll".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
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.
Depends. Is the 5% tax rate more expensive than paying a few accountants and lawyers to make it look like less? If so the yes. Remember for the most part what we are talking about here is just smoke and mirrors (claiming sales occurred in different places). What you may get with a 95% tax rate is a different approach (bribery, corruption, or outright illegal tactics rather than dancing around the grey area).
But thanks for taking the extremes which have little to nothing to do with the taxes that businesses pay which are already well below that of the normal population even if they didn't use any underhanded tactics to lower them further.
Haha, nope. However much money politicians get, they'll outspend it, because they benefit politically from it, because they (still) can borrow on the taxpayers' back, and because they don't pay the consequences themselves.
Also, french here, and it's pretty transparent that the Ministère des Finances going after Google is little more than maybe-legal attempted extortion. It's a mediatic coup destined mostly for french voters, in preparation for the coming presidential elections next year - Hollande has been spending a lot on taxis, journalists, students and more, to ensure their loyalty, and now he's pushing for this as a rally attempt on his own left. This is his strategy to eliminate all competition in advance of the election.
But it's a compromise: it favors the national scene over the international. France has lots of tax agreements with other countries where Google pays its taxes, and going after putative billions like this is seriously endangering those agreements, risking a major disruption of international business. French companies which do a lot of their business abroad could be the eventual victims of this hubris. We have our own tax shelters and fiscal niches, enough to call France a "tax haven" for specific categories of businesses and people, and other coutnries ho'd rather see Google's millions go to their own Treasury might take a hint.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
So you read a lot of local French news?
This happens all the time, but it's not global news worthy.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
. . . 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.
Some European countries, including France, have an effective solution to loopholes. If there is any doubt or question, a court settles it based on an interpretation of the law that tries to maintain its spirit. If a company has a question they can ask the tax office for clarification, and even challenge their judgement in court, but if they decide to just start abusing that loophole and get found out later they are going to be on the hook for everything they owe.
It's a fair and workable system. Occasionally there are still ambiguities that need fixing, but as Google has discovered just pretending your sales happen in Ireland for tax purposes doesn't work.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The thing is that at the scale Google and co operate at even a minute different in tax rates can make it economically viable to hide the money offshore. If you lower the tax rate to accommodate their demands you create a race to the bottom as every country trying to get those tax dollars lowers their tax rate to less than their "competitors." And who are the losers in this arrangement? We are. The people who have to foot the deficit created in the governments budget on account of lost tax revenue.
As for the statistic about tax laws and regulation the US has over 660,000 pages. The UK should be weak sauce compared to that!
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
So make it a 35% flat tax on gross income, no deductions. You know, what it works out to for regular people when you stack in VAT/sales tax, corporate fees passed off as taxes (USF, etc).
Say hello to a world where vertically integrated megacorps rule because their income is only taxed once while money flowing through a series of smaller less-integrated buisnesses is taxed multiple times.
That is why for buisnesses we tax profits rather than income, so it is transparent to the tax system whether the value is created in one large megacorp or a chain of smaller buisnesses.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Literally incorrect, as AmiMoJo mentioned it first by all observational standards.
While, what you are saying in the last line is true. Those that practice daily or even weekly, have a higher probability in making it out of the problem.
Question is, how well do you react to pressure environments.
taking a gun out quickly requires practice,
Aiming at a target 30 feet away and hitting it requires even more ( center mass, even more )
doing both successfully at the same time requires a lot of practice.
after you can do all that, aim for a human and pull the trigger, ending a life is amazingly hard.
Can't cite the sources, but I bet someone here can:
A research report ( which was done after WWI ), shows that a large percentage of new
soldiers first shot was over the head of the enemy on purpose.
Another report in the 1980's about police officers nation wide showed that they (greater than 70%+) did not pull out their pistols.
and just an observation: the phrase "cannon fodder": makes sense to me now after putting the above report into perspective.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
No. But I do think there would be roughly the same number at 10-50%. Just because there is a reaction does not mean it is a straight line .
Signatures aren't visible until you log in.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
So to prevent being abused by SJWs, you suggest exiling myself?
no, actually, I DO read French news and the only ones that the gov goes after are the small ones. Total, Areva, Orange and Sanofi are all companies that owe money to the french gov, but your gov is doing little to NOTHING.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I see we have completely derailed.
If I rush out quickly and find a sig, could we roast me next?
Cheers.
We used to have something called the serious fraud office. I think they closed it or something because the legal cases were so utterly complex no jury could ever possibly understand whether or not what was going on was legal or not. This is course partly a function of the complexity of the tax system I mentioned above.
I mentioned 5% part trolling, part making a point. I would (1) simplify the tax system to such an extent even a jury could understand whether or not the law was broken, (2) lower the rate of tax to such an extent that only the most determined criminals would try to avoid paying it, (3) enforce and strengthen the legal responsibilities of CEOs and company directors, including the penalties for non-compliance.
Nope. It's used by someone who is against the tactics used and - in some cases - thinks that what they're calling "social justice" isn't justice at all.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
I don't know why this was modded flamebait; it's clearly not.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
You're taxed on the buck. If your business expenses plus taxes can't support you, then you're unsuccessful.
If we implemented your ideas, government would become privatized, and essentially feudal and dictatorial.
So you sign an agreement with Joe's Police Force. Who's going to investigate your robbery when Fred's Police Force puts the kibosh on it, and they've got twice the gunmen? Joe decides that you aren't paying enough and your daughter is hot. Too bad there's no court to sue him or independent police to rescue your daughter. We degenerate into gang rule pretty darn fast.
The next step is when some overlord moves in and crushes the gangs in a large area. If you like his policies, fine, I guess, but if you disagree with them, well, you know what happens to armed people who disagree with him, right?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Free men own dildos. Slaves don't.
While I despise AmiMoJo as much or more than you do, he/she/ze/whatever the fuck this cunt wants to be called, is in the right here.
It does you no good to discount an opinion just because you despise the person who holds that opinion.
Cool, free book! Thanks for the link!
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?
How is it shady when it is perfectly legal? If you buy a Mercedes, or buy something from Ikea, do you expect that either of those corporations pay taxes on the entire sale price, rather than just the profit? Why is it shady when Google has expenses that are deducted before the profit is figured? Why do they suddenly not get to deduct their expenses from their profit, while every other company around does?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?