Google pays 2.4% US taxes....

[Coito ergo sum]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-2 ... holes.html

How can this be fixed?

[klr]

WTF? I've known about this practice (in principle) for many years, but I never realised that it was this bad. It looks like everyone is getting screwed bar the corporations themselves.

These sorts of shenanigans are legal, but not very moral IMHO. As for tacking the problem: It probably depends on how badly governments want to curb the practices.

And it's good to see my old mate Abraham Briloff getting a mention - a throwback to my student days when some of his books were required reading for would-be accountants.

[Don't Panic]

WTF? I've known about this practice (in principle) for many years, but I never realised that it was this bad. It looks like everyone is getting screwed bar the corporations themselves.

These sorts of shenanigans are legal, but not very moral IMHO. As for tacking the problem: It probably depends on how badly governments want to curb the practices.

And it's good to see my old mate Abraham Briloff getting a mention - a throwback to my student days when some of his books were required reading for would-be accountants.

It truly is a thing of beauty, I love this country at times.

[klr]

WTF? I've known about this practice (in principle) for many years, but I never realised that it was this bad. It looks like everyone is getting screwed bar the corporations themselves.

These sorts of shenanigans are legal, but not very moral IMHO. As for tacking the problem: It probably depends on how badly governments want to curb the practices.

And it's good to see my old mate Abraham Briloff getting a mention - a throwback to my student days when some of his books were required reading for would-be accountants.

It truly is a thing of beauty, I love this country at times.

Well, we don't seem to be doing too well out of it, and increased focus on this problem is only going to further reduce our ability to maintain a low corporation tax rate.

[Warren Dew]

Corporate income taxes are largely a sham at this point anyway. The best solution is probably to figure out a way to get rid of them entirely, and make it up through income taxes on dividends and capital gains.

[drl2]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-2 ... holes.html

How can this be fixed?

Tax cuts! They fix everything.

[Feck]

That's terrible a company being made to pay taxes to government ,they wouldn't have to at all if all those people weren't getting so much welfare .

[redunderthebed]

Don't do evil I guess that doesn't include blatant tax evasion.

[Don't Panic]

WTF? I've known about this practice (in principle) for many years, but I never realised that it was this bad. It looks like everyone is getting screwed bar the corporations themselves.

These sorts of shenanigans are legal, but not very moral IMHO. As for tacking the problem: It probably depends on how badly governments want to curb the practices.

And it's good to see my old mate Abraham Briloff getting a mention - a throwback to my student days when some of his books were required reading for would-be accountants.

It truly is a thing of beauty, I love this country at times.

Well, we don't seem to be doing too well out of it, and increased focus on this problem is only going to further reduce our ability to maintain a low corporation tax rate.

The only way to fix this government is a coup, the outcome of which being me installed as dictator for life. Anything short of that is just a temporary fix.

I'm prepared to offer you a ministerial post, and dominion over 1 county, in exchange for your support.

[Coito ergo sum]

Don't do evil I guess that doesn't include blatant tax evasion.

If it was tax evasion, then criminal prosecutions would be in the offing. If it's tax "avoidance", then it's not illegal and they'd be stupid not to avoid taxes. Everyone wants to avoid taxes.

But, it seems unreasonable that the law, especially in a year when the tax code was overseen by Democrats (and they are not shy about taxing big corporations), would allow this.

Although, I confess to not being a tax expert. However, my understanding was that the US taxes on worldwide income unless you pay taxes on income earned to another country, in which case you can demonstrate that to the IRS and not pay twice. That being said, I was also of the understanding that if money is earned in the US, as surely most of google's money is earned in the US - I would think - then that would all be taxable by the IRS.

I did not think it was allowable for a person to earn money here in the US and then just pick some other country to have it taxed at a very low rate......

Take a sports figure from overseas - if a race car driver earns money for racing in the US, then they are taxed by the IRS. What they do to avoid some taxation is set up shop in a tax haven, like Monaco or something like that, and then they set up their contracts so that as much of the money as possible gets paid towards some activity occurring outside the US, but they can't claim their earnings for racing in the Indy500 is zero (at least I don't think they can - or the IRS will "impute" some reasonable amount).

All that is just pure speculation on my part based on general understandings, and I'm sure I'm far off. But it would seem possible for the IRS to go in there and audit googles books and make them pay more based on the level of economic activity going on inside the US.

But - then again - google probably has 100 tax lawyers working on it night and day, and if anybody can out tax-code the IRS, it's them...

[Don't Panic]

But - then again - google probably has 100 tax lawyers working on it night and day, and if anybody can out tax-code the IRS, it's them...

Why would they need 100 lawyers? They probably just googled tax avoidance.

[Warren Dew]

That being said, I was also of the understanding that if money is earned in the US, as surely most of google's money is earned in the US - I would think - then that would all be taxable by the IRS.

The article talks about "foreign profits", so I think it's money earned overseas. That said, I'm sure Google arranges its cost structure to earn its profits in the low tax jurisdictions whenever possible.

Here's a more general article on the issue. I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions, but it may help to understand what's going on:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... patriation

[drl2]

The only way to fix this government is a coup, the outcome of which being me installed as dictator for life. Anything short of that is just a temporary fix.

Your seditious talk has been detected by Obama's Kenyan Death Panels. By now, Nazis in black helicopters will have dragged you off to FEMA concentration camps to be re-programmed by liberal media.

[Don't Panic]

The only way to fix this government is a coup, the outcome of which being me installed as dictator for life. Anything short of that is just a temporary fix.

Your seditious talk has been detected by Obama's Kenyan Death Panels. By now, Nazis in black helicopters will have dragged you off to FEMA concentration camps to be re-programmed by liberal media.

Uh-huh, Seeing as how I live in Ireland, I don't think I have too much to fear from Americans thinking my talk is seditious.

[JimC]

Remember, folks, GoogleBot is reading every word of this...