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Google Now Pays More Money in EU Fines Than it Pays in Taxes (computing.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: Google owner Alphabet has reported annual and quarterly revenues up again, largely on the back of increasing market share in online advertising. The company reported fourth quarter revenues up 22 per cent to $39.28 billion, while annual revenues were up 23 per cent to $136.8 billion. And the company also took the time to separate out "European Commission fines" in its consolidated statements of income in the company's accounts. These increased from $2.7 billion in 2017 to $5.1 billion in 2018, with a further 50 million euro already set to be added to the bill for its first quarter and 2019 accounts, thanks to French data protection authority CNIL.That fine compares to a provision for income taxes of just $4.2 billion for 2018, or 12 per cent of its pre-tax income.
Net income for the full year increased by a 143 per cent from $12.67 billion to $30.74 billion thanks largely to a radically lower provision for income taxes - down from $14.5 billion to just $4.2 billion. The company attributed this tax boost down to the US Tax Act of 2017, which had depressed net income in 2017. This had "resulted in additional tax expense of $9.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, primarily due to the one-time transition tax on accumulated foreign subsidiary earnings and deferred tax effects", the company claimed in its earnings release.
Net income for the full year increased by a 143 per cent from $12.67 billion to $30.74 billion thanks largely to a radically lower provision for income taxes - down from $14.5 billion to just $4.2 billion. The company attributed this tax boost down to the US Tax Act of 2017, which had depressed net income in 2017. This had "resulted in additional tax expense of $9.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, primarily due to the one-time transition tax on accumulated foreign subsidiary earnings and deferred tax effects", the company claimed in its earnings release.
From the article, one cannot tell what the fines are attributable to. For example, if the fines are in fact a form of back-pay on some of the taxes, then the comparison doesn't really make much sense. Google is presumably run by rational people who are working to optimize their bottom line.
It was obvious that Europe can not use their tax laws to go after Google (and other American tech companies), so, they were going to use their laws with MASSIVE fines. I had to laugh when somebody gripped about America fining VW 2.8B for their lying and polluting, while Europe will make up fake fines which are much higher against these companies and use it on their coffers.
Yeah, because American mega-corps are such a nice honest salt-of-the-earth bunch people who never cheat on their taxes. I'm pretty sure the people running US corporations are the exact same species of greedy sociopathic assholes as their European colleagues. I for one despise them all equally.
So as the US Federal Government goes deeper into debt to fund Corporate Tax Breaks, the EU gladly hands down fines to collect the dollars those same companies are NOT paying in infrastructure reinvestment, average worker wages and benefits.
What part of Reaganomics "trickledown" lead to raising taxes on the middle class 11 times in Reagan's 8 years are lost on people. Stop buying the "trickledown" lies.
The lawyers promised everything was legal, even though they weren't doing any of it the way that the governments involved had written the regulations, and then later the governments had their own lawyers look at it, and those lawyers pointed out it was never legal, and they'd know if it was legal because google would be following the regulations as written.
Loopholes are something that doesn't exist, that your lawyer promises will continue to not exist. The government might look the other way, but they also might just throw the book at you. Does google have the institutional intelligence to observe their results, and alter their formula?
Time will tell! I'm guessing not, and they're going to pay a lot more than this in the future.
I'm not sure what effect you're after, but if you believe that will make the rest of the world go "oh gosh, we better not piss off amercian corporations again" I think you might be disappointed. If the desire is to keep control for as long as possible then not giving the world a good reason to build their own infrastructure is probably the best course.
It would also seriously impact the business of those mega corps. Again, not sure what your goal is, but its probably not beneficial to the american economy as a whole... and outside short term pain, probably long term gain.
I think it's not provable unless you delve, and you're not doing that. However it's also irrelevant because they have the right to have laws! Google plays in their country's sandbox, not the other way around. Google != Sovereign.
If they were really not wanting to pay the fines they'd ADDRESS THE VIOLATIONS OF LAW, which wouldn't be impossible and everyone else has to do it also, OR STOP OPERATING IN EUROPE. Them's the breaks kid.
They choose to pay. They make massive profits anyway. Now if they only fix their models to protect user privacy over their multifaceted interconnected empire of data collection "for advertising" -wink, THEY WOULD BE ALL SET.
Stop apologizing for a massive profit just because a country wanted to enforce their laws SLIGHTLY in the process. It's retarded. And no, I'm 100% not trolling.
That idiot windbourne literally seems to think EU can't have different laws than the US, or what Google would prefer. Fuck him back to a Lego movie, he's an idiot. Completely not trolling, 100% serious.
Capiche?
https://www.businessinsider.co...
It is easy. All taxes should be paid at point of revenue and all cost deductions should be proven and the associated profits with those deductions even offshore ones, should be taxed. So no matter where the cost goes, the profits associated with it are taxed as if they occured locally at the point of revenue, no profit shifting should be allowed. Not able to prove the cost and profit in a different country, pay tax on total revenue and tough luck on the loss.
All taxes should be paid at point of revenue, the location where the customer spent their money.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
they are NOT being fined for taxes. They are being fined for all sorts of BS that their own companies do, but it is not illegal.
Yeah actually in the EU it is illegal which is why they got fined.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Imagine if all of Europe suddenly was cut off from Google Services, Gmail, Maps, and the Play Store. I'm tired of foreign countries attempting to hurt American companies.
Are you aware that there is actually a movement in the US that people sign up to to remove Google from their online lives? If Europe was cut off from Google Services they'd just use one of the plethora of alternatives. Remember the only reason you have the WWW and that Google exists at all is thanks to the British creator of HTML and the European foundation CERN.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
..They are being fined for all sorts of BS that their own companies do, but it is not illegal....
What are you talking about? I said that BOTH Americans and European companies are doing this stuff, it is just that the European govs are going after the American companies.
You suggested that the EU is unfairly fining US companies and not fining European ones for getting up to the exact same shenannigans the US companies are pulling, or, in other words the usual: Bwwwaaaaaaaahhhhhh. UNFAIR!!! ... whining that seems to be so in vogue with US conservatives these days.
Here are some companies that have been fined by the EU for all kinds of dirty tricks over the last few decades:
Daimler (German)
Scania (Swedish)
DAF (Dutch)
Saint Gobain (French)
Philips (Dutch)
LG Electronics (South Korean)
Volvo/Renault (Swedish/French)
Iveco (Italian)
Deutsche Bank (German)
F. Hoffmann-La Roche (Swiss)
The list is much, much longer and it consists of many European and Asian companies. The EU is not singling out US companies for 'unfair' treatment, it's more that US companies get away with murder in the US, with the help of US politicians to screw the US public, and they think they can get away with it everywhere else too. Well think again.