[governance] Re: Telecom TV on Google and Taxes
Adam Peake
ajp at glocom.ac.jp
Thu Dec 13 11:41:59 EST 2012
Hi Parminder.
*Internet Governance*
Hope that makes things clear.
Best,
Adam
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 1:21 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>
>
> Adam
>
> I am not sure in what reference are you quoting the IGC mandate. Can you pl
> clarify.
>
> I read from your interventions, and that of some others here, that IGC
> should not take up an issue - however damaging it to be to the public
> interest - as long as a private company is within legal boundaries. Do I
> understand right therefore that if google, facebook or apple was to change
> some privacy setting in a deplorable manner, or make some very significant
> interference with users freedom of expression, all the while remaining
> within legal boundaries, we will never raise an objection; and that kind of
> thing would not be in our mandate?
>
> parminder
>
>
> On Thursday 13 December 2012 07:34 PM, Adam Peake wrote:
>
> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 6:35 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Via Google
>
> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/11/23/0156212/australian-govt-pledges-action-on-google-tax-evasion
>
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Google-tax-evasion
>
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/08/09/is-google-avoiding-or-evading-taxes-in-the-uk/
>
>
> "There seems to be some confusion over whether Google is dodging,
> avoiding or evading corporate taxation in the UK. The first answer is
> the most obvious: it’s not evading taxes because that is illegal, by
> definition. Thus we would expect to see prosecutions if it were
> evading tax. We’re not seeing prosecutions so we might conclude,
> fairly, that there is no evasion going on."
>
> good of you to agree.
>
> and:
>
> "The mission of the Internet Governance Caucus (IGC) is to provide a
> forum for discussion, advocacy, action, and for representation of
> civil society contributions in Internet governance processes. The
> caucus intends to provide an open and effective forum for civil
> society to share opinion, policy options and expertise on Internet
> governance issues, and to provide a mechanism for coordination of
> advocacy to enhance the utilization and influence of Civil Society
> (CS) and the IGC in relevant policy processes."
>
> Adam
>
>
>
> etc.etc.
>
> M
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: apeake at gmail.com [mailto:apeake at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Adam Peake
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 10:23 AM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] Re: Telecom TV on Google and Taxes
>
> Tax evasion, are you suggesting google evades paying tax be illegal means?
>
> Adam
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 6:13 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I don`t think we are talking about ``voluntary`` tax... Rather we are
> talking about the lengths that corporations go to for tax
> avoidance/evasion... That I would guess is somewhat discretionary i.e.
> management decisions and not particularly transparent to shareholders.
>
> M
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: apeake at gmail.com [mailto:apeake at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Adam
> Peake
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 9:59 AM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] Re: Telecom TV on Google and Taxes
>
> Anyone on the list own Google shares?
>
> What would you do if Google paid a few billions of dollars in voluntary tax
> and the value of your shares dropped?
>
> Adam
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 5:50 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Adam,
>
>
>
> I`m curious why you think this… I would have thought that governments
> are pretty much impervious to this kind of `lobbying` (jaded from
> experience) while corporations that have as their slogan things like
> `don`t be evil` might be extremely sensitive to this kind of public
> comment on their behaviour by Civil Society.
>
>
>
> M
>
>
>
> From: apeake at gmail.com [mailto:apeake at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Adam
> Peake
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 9:36 AM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] Re: Telecom TV on Google and Taxes
>
>
>
> -1
>
>
>
> write to politicians. to google would be just posturing.
>
>
>
> Adam
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 1:40 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro
> <salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 5:33 PM, parminder
> <parminder at itforchange.net>
> wrote:
>
>
> Rather shameful that google paid 3 percent tax on its overseas
> profit!! It surely leaves it with a lot of money to spend in lobbying
> and advocacy efforts to keep global markets free for its unlettered
> operations... Like organising campaigns against ITU, German legislature, and
> so on.
>
> Would IGC write an open letter to Google that its tax evasion policy
> is anti people, and it should pays its taxes where it makes its
> profit. (Or is it that the IG civil society does not go into such
> re-distributional questions
> ) It is not rhetorical but a real question to the list, and its
> coordinator.
>
>
>
> What does the list think?
>
> +1 if you think the IGC should write a letter to Google
>
> -1 if the IGC should not write a letter to Google
>
>
>
> As always the IGC decides
>
>
> parminder
>
> On Wednesday 12 December 2012 09:37 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:
>
> More on Bloomberg:
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/google-revenues-sheltered-in
> - no-tax-bermuda-soar-to-10-billion.html
>
> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 4:48 AM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro
> <salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Somehow it feels that there is a targeted media campaign out against
> the likes of Google and other mncs - the timing of the release is
> almost impeccable with the WCIT.
>
>
>
> Source:
> http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=49763&id=e9381817
> -
> 0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10
>
>
>
> Google “can make money without doing evil” (as it evades $2bn in
> taxes)
>
> Posted By TelecomTV One , 12 December 2012 | 1 Comments | (0)
>
>
> Tags: Google corporate tax Finance
>
> As the net closes around the multinationals that avoid paying
> corporation taxes, Google is accused of saving $2bn by routing income
> through a “Double Irish Dutch Sandwich”, paying tax of just 3.2 per
> cent on its overseas profits. Guy Daniels reports.
>
> Three questions. One; where do you stand on the subject of tax
> avoidance? We at TelecomTV believe that individuals and corporations
> have a duty to pay their fair share of tax. By fair, we mean whatever
> respective governments rule to be the legal requirement (after all,
> in most countries, we voted the politicians in to office). By all
> means try and mitigate the amount of tax you have to pay, using
> whatever accepted mechanisms are available. But avoidance? That just
> means somebody else (with far less access to expensive and clever advisors)
> has to contribute to your share as well.
>
>
>
> Second question: how do you define evil? The Oxford English
> Dictionary defines evil as “profoundly immoral and wicked” or
> “something which is harmful or undesirable”. In my book, that means
> tax avoidance is evil, simple as that.
>
>
>
> Third and final question: Is Google evil? If you believe that
> avoiding tax is wrong (especially through aggressive and
> mind-boggling complicated avoidance schemes) and if you believe that
> depriving society of tax revenues is wrong (and so reducing the level
> of available State support for the most
> needy) and could be described as an evil act, then surely you must
> conclude that Google is acting in an evil manner.
>
>
>
> An investigative report by Bloomberg has discovered that Google
> avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by
> shifting
> $9.8 billion in revenues into a Bermuda shell company – almost double
> its total from three years ago. The information was disclosed in a
> November filing by a Google subsidiary in the Netherlands, which was
> discovered by reporters from Bloomberg.
>
>
>
> It appears that Google legally routed profits from overseas
> subsidiaries into Bermuda, which doesn’t have a corporate income tax,
> thereby enabling it to cut its overall tax rate almost in half.
> Bloomberg says the amount moved to Bermuda is equivalent to about 80
> per cent of Google’s total pretax profit in 2011.
>
>
>
> Tax evasion and avoidance costs the European Union a staggering €1
> trillion a year. That’s worth dwelling on for a moment longer…. €1
> trillion. No wonder politicians are now acting to try and prevent
> this financial loss and branding such acts as scandalous and immoral.
>
>
>
> Bloomberg has a good quote from a UK-based tax accountant, which
> pretty much sums up the feeling in Europe at the moment. According to
> Richard Murphy of Tax Research:
>
>
>
> “The tax strategy of Google and other multinationals is a deep
> embarrassment to governments around Europe. The political awareness
> now being created in the UK, and to a lesser degree elsewhere in Europe, is:
> It’s us or them.
> People understand that if Google doesn’t pay, somebody else has to
> pay or services get cut.”
>
>
>
> Just look what happened to Starbucks. When the public discovered the
> US coffee giant paid zero taxes in the UK (yes, absolutely nothing at
> all), it started to boycott the chain.
>
> Advertisement
>
> As a result, Starbucks was forced to “volunteer” to pay taxes…
>
>
>
> The UK is Google’s second-biggest market, responsible for about 11
> per cent of its sales. Of the $4 billion it turned over last year, it
> paid UK corporation tax of less than $10 million. Bloomberg says
> Google avoids tax by using an Irish subsidiary to collects revenues
> from ads sold in the UK, which then pays royalties to another Irish
> subsidiary whose legal residence is in Bermuda. Payments are then
> sent to yet another subsidiary in the Netherlands (with no employees,
> note) before finally reaching the tax haven of Bermuda.
>
>
>
> Sounds pretty ‘evil’ to me. And if so, then that’s against the
> internet company’s guiding principles. Stated clearly on the “Ten
> Things We Know to be True” page on Google’s website is the following:
>
>
>
> “You can make money without doing evil.”
>
>
>
> I’m sorry, Google, but I don’t see how avoiding tax is anything but
> evil. Of course you – and all companies – have a duty to shareholders
> to maximise profits. But there are rules. Some of these are merely
> ethical, whilst some are legal. There is no indication or suggestion
> that Google has acted illegally, but there is every suggestion that it has
> acted unethically.
>
>
>
> And who said you can’t have ‘ethical companies’? Of course you can. I
> don’t buy the ‘extreme capitalist’ viewpoint that corporations will
> only act in self-interest and never “do the right thing” or pay their
> fair share. If their customers start to boycott their services, then
> they’ll change. It happened with the sudden emergence of all the
> so-called ‘corporate responsibility’ positions that all featured
> heavily in annual reports. I don’t see why it can’t happen with fair tax
> positions.
>
>
>
> Other ICT companies reported in the media to be using this
> complicated tax evasion (sorry lawyers, of course I mean
> ‘mitigation’…) structure include Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and
> Oracle. Unfortunately, Google – and all the others, who no doubt will
> soon be named and shamed – will continue their sharp practices until they
> are forced to make a change.
> If governments can’t do that through the legal process, then it’s up
> to customers to vote with their feet and walk away from Google
> services. As Richard Murphy said, consumers are beginning to get the
> message that it’s “us or them”, and we’re already being squeezed by
> the many austerity measures that are in effect to drag us out of recession.
>
>
>
> Come on Google, time to step up to the plate and show some leadership.
> Pay your fair share. And then the rest of the ICT industry can do
> likewise. Or else remove that fatuous and out-dated “don’t do evil”
> slogan from your website once and for all.
>
>
>
> Further reading: The Pearse Trust blog has a detailed explanation of
> the so-called “Double Irish Dutch Sandwich” tax scheme. Please don’t
> try and implement it.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala
>
> P.O. Box 17862
>
> Suva
>
> Fiji
>
>
>
> Twitter: @SalanietaT
>
> Skype:Salanieta.Tamanikaiwaimaro
>
> Tel: +679 3544828
>
> Fiji Cell: +679 998 2851
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> --
>
> Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala
>
> P.O. Box 17862
>
> Suva
>
> Fiji
>
>
>
> Twitter: @SalanietaT
>
> Skype:Salanieta.Tamanikaiwaimaro
>
> Tel: +679 3544828
>
> Fiji Cell: +679 998 2851
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
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