
Facebook agrees to pay France €106M in back taxes - amaccuish
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53894959
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0xy
Here's an interesting truth that many of you might not know. When you're a
large multinational company or a very high net worth individual, then taxes
aren't really an objective calculation.

The tax code in most countries, despite being tens of thousands of pages of
legalese, are extremely subjective. This subjective and loose language allow
for innumerable loopholes and tax dodges.

If you're using these creative methods, the chances are that you'll get
audited every single year by the IRS or local equivalent. Trump famously gets
audited every year. Your tax lawyers & accountants will then __negotiate __a
tax payment with the tax office. I used the word negotiate because there is no
one true formula for tax owed. It doesn 't exist, especially not for
corporations.

When you add in 'creative' intellectual property ownership and royalty
payments, then the tax office basically has no idea where money is flowing.
This is why EU countries commonly lob these huge penalties. Facebook tries to
pay X in tax, and the tax office says they should pay X _2, and then after
negotiation they pay X_ 1.5.

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burtonator
> innumerable loopholes and tax dodges.

... a better way to look at these are backdoors explicitly added for
billionaires and corporations to exploit.

You and I have to pay taxes. Large corporations and billionaires do not (not
effectively)

~~~
refurb
Got an example of one of these “backdoors explicitly added for billionaires to
exploit”?

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rayhendricks
I’m not an accountant or tax lawyer but here you go:

[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/102515/carri...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/102515/carried-
interest-loophole-americas-tax-code.asp)

Carried interest is a share of a private equity or fund's profits that serve
as compensation for fund managers. Because carried interest is considered a
return on investment, it is taxed at a capital gains rate, and not an income
rate. Critics argue that this is a tax loophole since portfolio managers get
paid from that money, which is not taxed as income. Advocates of carried
interest argue that it incentivizes the management of companies and funds to
profitability.

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syoussry
As a French citizen, I also "agreed" to pay my taxes last year :). I even paid
the full amount I was being claimed. How generous of me.

~~~
throwawaynothx
Just curious, if you don't pay your taxes for 10 years as a citizen what
happens? do you get arrested at some point?

~~~
mickael-kerjean
They will get it from your bank account. That's what happened to me over a
parking ticket a few years ago as I parked in a spot reserved to the national
train company. I refused to pay as the amount was 4 times over what it would
cost to park in a disable spot which I did find unfair from a morale
standpoint. After some time, they took the money from my bank account.

~~~
harmoat
In France, they can also take it from your salary.

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adventured
Let me just check.

$27.9 billion in operating income the prior four quarters.

$58.2 billion in cash.

It appears they will be able to afford the taxes.

~~~
refurb
Luckily we don’t determine the amount of tax you owe based on how much cash
you have on hand!

~~~
bergstromm466
Why wouldn't we? They've used legal loopholes to dodge taxes, and the result
of that is a lot of 'cash on hand'...

~~~
jjeaff
Because there are a lot of reasons you could have a lot of cash on hand. You
may have a big upcoming expense. Or that cash might even be from a bank loan
that you will need to pay back.

