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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.
GDPR violations mostly. Google didn't specify in their listing either, they just said "EU com fines" and put up a total. They don't want people to remember they were for violations of EU privacy laws right at frontal lobe level.
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.
GDPR violations mostly.
I think very little was GDPR-related. As I recall, 2017's big fine ($2.5B) was for putting Google Shopping ads in Google Search results, and 2018's ($5B) was for bundling GApps with Android.
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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.
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