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Google Shifted $23 Billion To Tax Haven Bermuda in 2017, Filing Shows (reuters.com)
schwit1 shares a report: Google moved 19.9 billion euros ($22.7 billion) through a Dutch shell company to Bermuda in 2017, as part of an arrangement that allows it to reduce its foreign tax bill, according to documents filed at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. The amount channeled through Google Netherlands Holdings BV was around 4 billion euros more than in 2016, the documents, filed on Dec. 21, showed. For more than a decade the arrangement has allowed Google owner Alphabet to enjoy an effective tax rate in the single digits on its non-U.S. profits, around a quarter the average tax rate in its overseas markets. The subsidiary in the Netherlands is used to shift revenue from royalties earned outside the United States to Google Ireland Holdings, an affiliate based in Bermuda, where companies pay no income tax.
For the avoidance of any doubt I do not condone arson, larceny or other illegal/antisocial actions.
That said, I would dearly love the following scenarios to play out:
A major fire to break out at an Amazon warehouse or Google office. When they call the (taxpayer funded) fire services they get told "oh we only operate the phones here - you'll have to source the water from Ireland, the crews from Luxembourg, the appliances from Bermuda... after all that's where you operate isn't it? You don't want to get involved with civil society - well provide your own protection through self funding then!"
Similarly for break-ins/vandalisation at Facebook's offices ... "here's a crime number for your insurers... we'll get back to you when we've dealt with incidents affecting those who do engage with civil society and contribute to the common good".
Or roadworks right outside the offices of Vodafone, Oracle, Microsoft - started and then de-prioritised to serve ordinary folk who pay their way - "yes, we'll get back to fixing your road in due course...".
After all disrupting these organisations wouldn't be a big loss because they don't pay much into society now anyway.
The "I'll keep whatever I can and get everyone else to cover externalities and emergencies" rejection of paying the same taxes as others do should come back to bite them when they discover they're neither all powerful nor an island sufficient unto themselves.
Now, whether the government provides good levels of service for the taxation raised is a separate debate; certainly there are many areas where it could do better. Enriching yourselves by demanding the same benefits as everyone whilst doing everything to avoid the common obligations is the behaviour of an antisocial bully.
Ignore chatter. Here is the end game: if they paid more taxes, this would not reduce borrowing one iota, as this would give politicians a few more billion to spend.
There is no "fair share" since that presumes some fixed level of spending. But spending is tied to what they can get away with to buy votes. It will always increase even as times get better and better.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Proving that they're progressive about your life and your money and the choices you should be allowed/denied. When it comes to what's good for Google, all that progressive dogma falls away and they might as well be a bank or a drug company or an oil driller. All that progressive dogma is just a show to trick the rubes. Hope none of you were gullible enough to take it seriously.
Tax dodging. Define it as incorporating (directly or indirectly via a parent/holding/etc. corporation) in a nation in which the CxOs, board members, etc. and their immediate families do not physically reside for at least 51% of the year or in which they do not claim citizenship, or in a nation whose individual (citizen) and incorporated investors do not control a plurality of voting shares of the company.
Thus, to incorporate in a country you must have all the higher ups and their families LIVING in that country as CITIZENS for most of the year, and all voting stock must be held within that country. No shell games either. Google gets the most restrictive set of rules and highest tax rates that would apply to Google OR Alphabet OR any of its "holding companies" OR anything like Google China.
You know, the same kind of shit a regular person working/living across state/national borders has to deal with.
Tax dodging. Define it as incorporating (directly or indirectly via a parent/holding/etc. corporation) in a nation in which the CxOs, board members, etc. and their immediate families do not physically reside for at least 51% of the year or in which they do not claim citizenship
No matter how smart you are in thinking you can close up the loopholes there are armies of accountants and lawyers who are WAAAY smarter and can figure out a way around it.
Meet Joe Islander. He has lived on the island his entire life where he is an aspiring surfer. He is our new CEO and his salary is a company-paid-for beachside house and fishing boat. Please address all high level corporate decision making to our former CEO and new executive ultra president Mr Big back in New York.
Etc, etc.
It's time for President Trump to get out his trust-busting stick. Break up Alphabet!
Android - separate company
Chrome - separate company
YouTube - separate company
Gmail - separate company
Search - separate company
Advertising - separate company
Maps - separate company
Arrest Sundar Pichai. Shut down the dangerous mad science projects. Arrest the nazi mad scientists. Shut down the wannabe-Skynet AI. Arrest those mad scientists too.
Break up Alphabet now! Stop Google before it's too late!
No matter how smart you are in thinking you can close up the loopholes there are armies of accountants and lawyers who are WAAAY smarter and can figure out a way around it.
Sick of this quote. It is easy to close the loopholes. It is just not a good move politically as you would be painted as introducing something "unfair" (or some other smear campaign).
Remember Dodd-Frank? It was one of those attempts to close a bunch of loopholes in the banking industry, and to an extent it worked and made the financial sector less risky.
It also made the big banks bigger and the small banks smaller.
The problem is to close loopholes you need lots of rules, and if you have lots of rules then businesses need lots of people to ensure they're following those rules, and the bigger the business the more people you can afford.
One of the reasons that Google and Apple are so dominant is there are a lot of rules meant to prevent companies exploiting loopholes, and it's the biggest companies who are best able to invest in circumventing those rules.
Try to close more loopholes and you might end up giving Apple and Google even bigger shares of the economy.
First easy solution: You pay the greater of X% on profit with existing rules OR Y% on gross revenue.
Gross revenue of what? A company from the Netherlands makes a phone in China and sells it in the US for $500.
Which countries deserve to collect which taxes?
I stole this Sig