Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
.

Plus, your country might not be happy to see one of its big companies being 'punished' like this. Congress might kick up a fuss.

Maybe, maybe not. There is a growing public backlash against the idea of American companies moving parts of their business out of the country for the purposes of evading taxes. And Apple is already a company that a lot of people don't like.

How would you guys go about fixing the issue of tax dodging multinationals?

 Future War Cultist wrote:
How would you guys go about fixing the issue of tax dodging multinationals?

Lower our absurdly high Corporate tax rate which is causing the majority of this nonsense and offer a nominal 10-15% repatriation fee on the money already sitting offshore so it can get back home and go to work.


http://taxfoundation.org/blog/us-has-highest-corporate-income-tax-rate-oecd

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

I agree with this. As bad as the deal was, it was all legal and above board at the time. The EU's actions come across as retrospective, which could have all sorts of horrible implications down the line.

My understanding was that it wasn't actually legal per se, since the treaty in question was inked in 1957, It just took this long before anyone noticed it. Apple has been illegally hiding funds and funneling them to Ireland before disclosing them for years.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Having said that, big companies do need to start paying more tax. These days though, corporation taxes on profits are a bit old fashioned and easily sidestepped. Maybe they need to be applied differently, like on the amount of sales a company makes in the area. Something that's not as easy to avoid.

The problem with taxing on sales is that different companies make different amount of profit on sales. Taxing Apple at 10% on the sale of their phones would be fine, but applying the same tax to a large scale retailer like K-Mart would completely kill the company, it would eat up the gross profit entirely.

 sebster wrote:
pplying the same tax to a large scale retailer like K-Mart would completely kill the company, it would eat up the gross profit entirely.

Is this a comment on how Kmart died, or a joke about how Kmart is dead

EDIT: A walking corpse is still a corpse.

Herzlos wrote:
As I understand it, it was technically an illegal deal; offering different tax rates to different companies. Just because it was agreed with a country doesn't make it not illegal.

I also assume they aren't going to be forced to pay this back in a single hit, though I believe Apple has enough cash in the bank (offshore somewhere, anyway) to pay for it without flinching

Yeah, Apple can pay this back with the spare change they've lost under the couch. There's no issue there.

Nor is there any issue with this deal being declared illegal. It was clearly way to generous, basically it was Ireland telling Apple they could treat all their European sales as close to tax free, as long as they put some jobs in to Ireland. It was unsustainable to let EU member nations do stuff like this.

My problem, basically, is that companies want to know where they stand when they make investments in to countries or in to regions. It is one thing to say 'your tax deal was too generous so from now on you'll have to pay x rate', and quite another thing to say 'your tax deal was too generous so from now on you'll have to pay x rate, and also repay y for all the years you operated on the old deal'.

Don't think about this in terms of Apple, think about it in terms of a small to medium company. Having to find back taxes with interest for five or ten years is likely to be crippling.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
No real winners here - Ireland doesn't want to lose its attractiveness as a tax haven, and Apple doesn't want to pay 13-14.5 billion in back taxes.

The winner is the EU, which has taken a big step to ensuring that any company operating on its shores will be paying something closer to a sensible tax rate. If they lost this case then there'd be little stopping a 'race to the bottom' among member nations, as they would all offer increasingly low tax rates to encourage investors to their own countries.

All told, Apple has enough cash on hand to cover the back taxes. Warren Buffett is sitting on about a billion dollars worth of Apple stock, and I'm not planning on dumping my Apple holdings just yet.

Considering a buy or sell based on something like this, which is absolutely trivial to Apple given their size, would be madness. Newspaper stories and investment decisions have little in common.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
Since it was legal/above board at the time... couldn't Ireland simply refuse to collect this ex post facto tax on behalf of the EU?

It is a tax assessed on income already earned. It isn't like a sales tax, where you are collecting it on behalf of government, it is more like income tax, where government is seeing what you earned over a period and government is saying they'll take a certain piece of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
However Eire grew massively after joining the EU and I defy anyone to say it is still a poverty-stricken area when the IMF ranked Eire 5th in the world for GDP per capita in 2014.

Funnily enough that high ranking is due largely to companies listing in Ireland thanks to the low tax rates, but those companies actually do very little work in Ireland. So Apples sets up in Ireland to sell phones throughout Europe, but it has only a few thousand jobs in Ireland. But a large portion of every sale ends up being recorded as Irish economic activity, even when neither the phone nor the money received ever actually moved through Ireland.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
How would you guys go about fixing the issue of tax dodging multinationals?

Option 1 - establish a uniform company tax rate. All nations that agree to charge this rate, and abide by a consistent code of revenue and expense recognition. Companies that are set up in a country that aren't part of this deal will have to set up subsidiaries listed and fully taxed in one of those countries in order to access those markets.

Option 2 - allow countries to decide their own company tax rates as we do now, but make 'offshoring profit' far more difficult. Right now there's a lot of accounting tricks that allow you to make a sale in one country, but actually have that revenue recognised in another country. Come down hard on those kinds of arrangements, and also look to remove tax havens from international tax arrangements, unless they increase their taxes and increase the transparency requirements on companies listed there.

Option 1 is simpler, cleaner and a lasting solution. But it will never happen because a deal like it would need the US, and the US is the biggest tax haven in the world. So something like option 2, basically an expansion of existing efforts, is more a practical way forward. And something like it is already happening, although very slowly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Lower our absurdly high Corporate tax rate which is causing...

Race to the bottom.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
Is this a comment on how Kmart died, or a joke about how Kmart is dead

EDIT: A walking corpse is still a corpse.

I wish I could claim that but I'm not that clever. It was just the first company that popped in to my head as something people in the US, EU and Australia would be familiar with.

 sebster wrote:

My problem, basically, is that companies want to know where they stand when they make investments in to countries or in to regions.

They do know exactly where they stand, which is paying the same rate of tax as every other company in that particular country. Small and medium sized businesses will be completely unaffected by this as won't they be in the position to be offered/negotiate special snowflake deals.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
They do know exactly where they stand, which is paying the same rate of tax as every other company in that particular country. Small and medium sized businesses will be completely unaffected by this as won't they be in the position to be offered/negotiate special snowflake deals.

Obviously the owner of Ted's Second Hand Phones isn't in a meeting with Irish finance officials as we speak. But governments still set up tax arrangements that are designed to encourage all kinds of businesses. They may not be the bespoke deals that multinationals Apple can get, but there are still deals with all kinds of lures to get lure new and expanding businesses to their countries. Any time you see a country talking about lowering its corporate tax rate this is what it is all about.

Now consider if you are starting a business, and see that Ireland is offering a nice low rate of tax, and a bunch of other supports for start up businesses. You start your business there and pay tax according to the deal arranged between you and that country. Then a third party comes in and says the country had no right to offer you that deal. Fair enough that the deal is scrapped. But to go chasing you for back taxes... that's a whole other thing entirely.

 sebster wrote:
You start your business there and pay tax according to the deal arranged between you and that country. Then a third party comes in and says the country had no right to offer you that deal. Fair enough that the deal is scrapped. But to go chasing you for back taxes... that's a whole other thing entirely.

Surely this why lawyers are paid huge sums to scrutinise contracts? In this case the original deal broke EU state aid rules when it was struck and when it was renegotiated, the lawyers for both parties should have noticed that and its probable that they did.

Back taxes are back taxes, I don't see why companies should be exempt from paying them.

 sebster wrote:
[Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Lower our absurdly high Corporate tax rate which is causing...

Race to the bottom.

May the best country win! Painting the picture, as you have in a couple of your responses about certain situations creating a "race to the bottom" is a bit simplistic as it portrays a mass migration of corporations bounding from shore to shore chasing the low tax rate du jour. Not at all realistic as it fails to take into account the many obstacles, and quite often the many downsides, to corporate tax inversions.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
May the best country win!

No fair, my own country is just realising the race has started

Painting the picture, as you have in a couple of your responses about certain situations creating a "race to the bottom" is a bit simplistic as it portrays a mass migration of corporations bounding from shore to shore chasing the low tax rate du jour. Not at all realistic as it fails to take into account the many obstacles, and quite often the many downsides, to corporate tax inversions.

It would be simplistic to claim that all companies would relocate to whatever country offers the best tax. Other factors such as infrastructure, skilled populations and large consumer markets will drive investment more. However, those things only exist as considerations for actual production and sales. Where holding companies can be established independent of where you make and sell the product, then the tax rate is the only issue.

This problem is particularly acute in the EU, which has established no trade boundaries and largely uniform legal structures, but then let each country set its own tax rate.

 sebster wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
They do know exactly where they stand, which is paying the same rate of tax as every other company in that particular country. Small and medium sized businesses will be completely unaffected by this as won't they be in the position to be offered/negotiate special snowflake deals.

Obviously the owner of Ted's Second Hand Phones isn't in a meeting with Irish finance officials as we speak. But governments still set up tax arrangements that are designed to encourage all kinds of businesses. They may not be the bespoke deals that multinationals Apple can get, but there are still deals with all kinds of lures to get lure new and expanding businesses to their countries. Any time you see a country talking about lowering its corporate tax rate this is what it is all about.

Now consider if you are starting a business, and see that Ireland is offering a nice low rate of tax, and a bunch of other supports for start up businesses. You start your business there and pay tax according to the deal arranged between you and that country. Then a third party comes in and says the country had no right to offer you that deal. Fair enough that the deal is scrapped. But to go chasing you for back taxes... that's a whole other thing entirely.

Except it happens all the time. The EU and the WTO can and will come knocking if you're found out breaking some of their rules.

That's the nature of international trade. Especially one within a tariff-free trading block. That's not something new or specific to apple, it goes back to the 70s and the special tax benefits the Italian state put on their textile manufacturers:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A61973CJ0173

And then followed with steel, shipbuilders, mining hitting just about every country and sector.

And talking about back taxes, just last year EDF had to pay 1,4b€ for a 1997 tax agreement with France, a story that had been dragging on the courts since 2003 and that parallels the Apple case

So Apple and the Irish government may well fight it, but it's a lost cause.

jouso wrote:
Except it happens all the time.

Who said this was a once off? Why would it need to be a once off to be bad?

 sebster wrote:

jouso wrote:
Except it happens all the time.

Who said this was a once off? Why would it need to be a once off to be bad?

Well you were talking about investment (in)security, there are precedents that if you're getting too good a tax deal it might be breaking some law. Apple should have known it, the Irish government must have known it. They can act all surprised now but given the precedents they must have seen it coming.

If your idea is to set up shop in one EU country to syphon benefits from operating on each EU country you can be sure the EU will take an interest.

jouso wrote:
Well you were talking about investment (in)security, there are precedents that if you're getting too good a tax deal it might be breaking some law. Apple should have known it, the Irish government must have known it. They can act all surprised now but given the precedents they must have seen it coming.

Sure, and don't think I've got any sympathy for Apple or Ireland.

I just think as a matter of effectively managing an economy that fosters business, it isn't wise to have companies trading while always thinking that they may just get with mountains of back taxes if it is decided that the deal they were operating under was too generous.

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
May the best country win!

No fair, my own country is just realising the race has started

Painting the picture, as you have in a couple of your responses about certain situations creating a "race to the bottom" is a bit simplistic as it portrays a mass migration of corporations bounding from shore to shore chasing the low tax rate du jour. Not at all realistic as it fails to take into account the many obstacles, and quite often the many downsides, to corporate tax inversions.

It would be simplistic to claim that all companies would relocate to whatever country offers the best tax. Other factors such as infrastructure, skilled populations and large consumer markets will drive investment more. However, those things only exist as considerations for actual production and sales. Where holding companies can be established independent of where you make and sell the product, then the tax rate is the only issue.

This problem is particularly acute in the EU, which has established no trade boundaries and largely uniform legal structures, but then let each country set its own tax rate.

"Where holding companies can be established independent of where you make and sell the product, then the tax rate is the only issue."

This isn't quite true. Issues have arisen even in inversions that do little more than change address.
S&P warned, in a piece on tax inversions, the credit downgrade risk that accompanies this maneuver. Primary among them being the debt load created by the merger itself increasing credit downgrade risk, which also reduces their ability to make other strategic purchases to improve their business. Easier access to foreign earnings can lead to aggressive stock buybacks and larger dividends, which can further damage credit ratings.
The WSJ also had a piece a while back highlighting that while the inversion benefits the corporation with a lower tax rate, it can often drop a tax liability on the shareholder as the U.S. stock is effectively sold in the deal, often creating a tax bill with the further statistic that unfortunately for those investors, those new shares often do poorly. A new study by Reuters found that the stocks of more than a third of the 52 inversions accomplished over the last three decades underperformed the S&P 500.
There's other articles on some of the cracks to the inversion which will keep this from being a runaway practice, but it's almost 4am and I'm going to sleep. I think you see my point.

 sebster wrote:

jouso wrote:
Well you were talking about investment (in)security, there are precedents that if you're getting too good a tax deal it might be breaking some law. Apple should have known it, the Irish government must have known it. They can act all surprised now but given the precedents they must have seen it coming.

Sure, and don't think I've got any sympathy for Apple or Ireland.

I just think as a matter of effectively managing an economy that fosters business, it isn't wise to have companies trading while always thinking that they may just get with mountains of back taxes if it is decided that the deal they were operating under was too generous.

Think of it this way: suppose the Tasmanian government stroke a deal with a big chemical company which would allow them lower than usual environmental standards.

Would you be OK that the Commonwealth called the Tasmanian government on that and demanded compensation? I'm sure you would.

If you don't apply back taxes to illegal deals, what sort of behaviour do you think it encourages?

 sebster wrote:


I just think as a matter of effectively managing an economy that fosters business, it isn't wise to have companies trading while always thinking that they may just get with mountains of back taxes if it is decided that the deal they were operating under was too generous.

They the companies could try not looking for special deals, simple as that. If they want a really special tax rate that saves them a lot of money then that's their gamble. They have accountants and lawyers who are at fault for interpreting the situation wrongly. Why should the entity that says "hey, that's not how this works" be at fault for fostering uncertainty when it's the company's fault for not doing their own homework?

Apple may think they are in doing everything correctly and want this decision overturned, and that's their right. Ireland may want to to give Apple as much of a tax discount as they can, and that's their right too (we'll see how much adjustment will be needed in the end). And the EU has the right to intervene if they think something is not done the correct way. Should they just ignore it because the wrong thing has been going on for a long time? Does habit overrule laws?

It's probably a complicated situation for everyone (the interaction of companies, nations, legal bodies) but all the companies that use these creative multi-national tax avoidance schemes (with subsidiaries and creative IP licensing protocols) are at fault if their rickety legal scaffold comes falling down. Their best defense was always "but it's legal" and that legality is being tested now. If it turns out that it was not legal then they should be happy to pay the back taxes and fines because they are the ones setting a high value on the legality of the situation (above, and to the exclusion of, everything else).

 BigWaaagh wrote:
This isn't quite true. Issues have arisen even in inversions that do little more than change address.

Absolutely. I didn't want to imply companies could make any relocations transparently just for the tax benefits. But I was trying to keep the discussion simple and with broad strokes. And while companies

A new study by Reuters found that the stocks of more than a third of the 52 inversions accomplished over the last three decades underperformed the S&P 500.

That's evidence of the opposite. Even if company performance was a perfect bell curve, then 52 randomly picked companies would produce 26 underperformers. And that's before we get in to the actual split of stock performance, where much of the gain actually comes from a handful of really strong performers, meaning that actually well over half of companies will end up underperforming the average.

In other words, I'd take a portfolio where only 1/3 underperformed any day

but it's almost 4am and I'm going to sleep

Quitter


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jouso wrote:
Think of it this way: suppose the Tasmanian government stroke a deal with a big chemical company which would allow them lower than usual environmental standards.

The idea of Tasmania doing anything to foster local economic activity is well past the hypothetical and in to la la land

Would you be OK that the Commonwealth called the Tasmanian government on that and demanded compensation? I'm sure you would.

If the deal was in place for almost a quarter century, and the final ruling was that penalties should be paid to the Tasmanian government who themselves don't want the penalty paid, then yeah, we'd be talking about a great big clusterfeth. In that instance it would make a lot more sense to wipe the slate clean and say 'from now on...'


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Baragash wrote:
If you don't apply back taxes to illegal deals, what sort of behaviour do you think it encourages?

A deal that was in place for almost 25 years, and made with a sovereign government... again, I don't have any sympathy for Apple in this, but we should step back from the rhetoric of 'illegal deal'.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mario wrote:
They the companies could try not looking for special deals, simple as that.

Companies trying to find the most profitable place to do business is kind of the whole point of capitalism, though.

They have accountants and lawyers who are at fault for interpreting the situation wrongly.

This is the point, actually. If you establish processes like this, then you're encouraging individual companies to set their own lawyers to work on assessing deals to see if they might not end up hitting them with a big tax bill 25 years from now.

In many cases the lawyers will say 'maybe, better not risk it, let's not set up a shop in that other country'.

Which is, as was my point from the start, not a very good legal framework to encourage new economic activity.

Should they just ignore it because the wrong thing has been going on for a long time? Does habit overrule laws?

Of course they shouldn't ignore it. For starters they should have started their action a lot sooner than 25 years after the initial deal. And once you let that kind of time pass, then the EU should still act, but it would be better to act without the retroactive element.

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
This isn't quite true. Issues have arisen even in inversions that do little more than change address.

Absolutely. I didn't want to imply companies could make any relocations transparently just for the tax benefits. But I was trying to keep the discussion simple and with broad strokes. And while companies

A new study by Reuters found that the stocks of more than a third of the 52 inversions accomplished over the last three decades underperformed the S&P 500.

That's evidence of the opposite. Even if company performance was a perfect bell curve, then 52 randomly picked companies would produce 26 underperformers. And that's before we get in to the actual split of stock performance, where much of the gain actually comes from a handful of really strong performers, meaning that actually well over half of companies will end up underperforming the average.

In other words, I'd take a portfolio where only 1/3 underperformed any day

Under normal conditions, yes, that position could be argued as within expected market performance parameters, but remember we're discussing companies that have taken extraordinary steps, tax inversion, in order to receive dramatically beneficial taxation and, logic would follow, an enhanced bottom line. The benefits of the taxation relief alone, one would think, should skew the percentages of underperforming equities to a more favorable position on the curve. The fact that this hasn't happened, and that the research showed almost another third of the companies in the study just kept pace with the broader indices reveals that the grass may not always be greener in inversion land.

If nothing else comes of this EC maneuver, just getting Tim Cook to call the EC action "...total political crap." made the whole news story worthwhile.

 sebster wrote:

A deal that was in place for almost 25 years, and made with a sovereign government... again, I don't have any sympathy for Apple in this, but we should step back from the rhetoric of 'illegal deal'.

But it is. What we should really step back is the mentality of "we agreed this with the government so it's legit". It's not necessarily the case.

Central governments overrule decisions taken by local and regional governments all the time, and Ireland signed themselves into having the EU as their ultimate tax authority, and this has come back to bite.

jouso wrote:

 sebster wrote:

A deal that was in place for almost 25 years, and made with a sovereign government... again, I don't have any sympathy for Apple in this, but we should step back from the rhetoric of 'illegal deal'.

But it is. What we should really step back is the mentality of "we agreed this with the government so it's legit". It's not necessarily the case.

Central governments overrule decisions taken by local and regional governments all the time, and Ireland signed themselves into having the EU as their ultimate tax authority, and this has come back to bite.

The EU was quite happy for this deal to breach its legislation whilst there was no come back. recent events mean that such deals are now not favourable and can be spun to start clawing back some good will as recent events and perceptions are not in their favour.

Didn't Ireland get huge amounts of bail-out money from the EU a few years back?
How does that compare to the tax Apple did not pay?

 Mr. Burning wrote:

jouso wrote:

 sebster wrote:

A deal that was in place for almost 25 years, and made with a sovereign government... again, I don't have any sympathy for Apple in this, but we should step back from the rhetoric of 'illegal deal'.

But it is. What we should really step back is the mentality of "we agreed this with the government so it's legit". It's not necessarily the case.

Central governments overrule decisions taken by local and regional governments all the time, and Ireland signed themselves into having the EU as their ultimate tax authority, and this has come back to bite.

The EU was quite happy for this deal to breach its legislation whilst there was no come back. recent events mean that such deals are now not favourable and can be spun to start clawing back some good will as recent events and perceptions are not in their favour.

Do you really think they came up with a case against Apple and/or ireland in a matter of weeks?

They were formally notified of an investigation over 2 years ago, and the previous investigations surely go far beyond that.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/253200/253200_1582634_87_2.pdf

jouso wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

jouso wrote:

 sebster wrote:

A deal that was in place for almost 25 years, and made with a sovereign government... again, I don't have any sympathy for Apple in this, but we should step back from the rhetoric of 'illegal deal'.

But it is. What we should really step back is the mentality of "we agreed this with the government so it's legit". It's not necessarily the case.

Central governments overrule decisions taken by local and regional governments all the time, and Ireland signed themselves into having the EU as their ultimate tax authority, and this has come back to bite.

The EU was quite happy for this deal to breach its legislation whilst there was no come back. recent events mean that such deals are now not favourable and can be spun to start clawing back some good will as recent events and perceptions are not in their favour.

Do you really think they came up with a case against Apple and/or ireland in a matter of weeks?

They were formally notified of an investigation over 2 years ago, and the previous investigations surely go far beyond that.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/253200/253200_1582634_87_2.pdf

Lets give the benefit of the doubt and say that 2010 was the starting point for concern over Apples tax arrangements within Eire.

Maybe there was concern when the deal was announced and when Apple declared it was moving HQ to Eire.

So, we have legislation being trampled on since at least 2007. I cannot find any evidence of a case being built from that point.

I'll accept that bureaucracy sees wheels move slowly when set in motion but I still stand by my statement that this tax deal shows prior indifference (at best) by the EU to the dealings of member states.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

jouso wrote:

 sebster wrote:

A deal that was in place for almost 25 years, and made with a sovereign government... again, I don't have any sympathy for Apple in this, but we should step back from the rhetoric of 'illegal deal'.

But it is. What we should really step back is the mentality of "we agreed this with the government so it's legit". It's not necessarily the case.

Central governments overrule decisions taken by local and regional governments all the time, and Ireland signed themselves into having the EU as their ultimate tax authority, and this has come back to bite.

The EU was quite happy for this deal to breach its legislation whilst there was no come back. recent events mean that such deals are now not favourable and can be spun to start clawing back some good will as recent events and perceptions are not in their favour.

Do you really think they came up with a case against Apple and/or ireland in a matter of weeks?

They were formally notified of an investigation over 2 years ago, and the previous investigations surely go far beyond that.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/253200/253200_1582634_87_2.pdf

Lets give the benefit of the doubt and say that 2010 was the starting point for concern over Apples tax arrangements within Eire.

Maybe there was concern when the deal was announced and when Apple declared it was moving HQ to Eire.

So, we have legislation being trampled on since at least 2007. I cannot find any evidence of a case being built from that point.

I'll accept that bureaucracy sees wheels move slowly when set in motion but I still stand by my statement that this tax deal shows prior indifference (at best) by the EU to the dealings of member states.

The closest parallel to the Apple case (the EDF 1.3b) started in 2000 and only closed last year.

And again: this is not a tax issue. It is a state aid case (through tax policy, but state aid nevertheless).

These cases usually take decades to work, be it EU or WTO.

Good result.

Now its time to feth over Amazon.

Ah, Thank you, looked that up. I'm always willing to have my mind changed.


Also, somewhat relevant.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37259278

Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax in Austria than a local sausage stall, the country's Chancellor Christian Kern has said in a newspaper interview.
"Every Viennese cafe, every sausage stand pays more tax in Austria than a multinational corporation," Mr Kern told Der Standard.
"That goes for Starbucks, Amazon and other companies," he said.
He added that EU countries with low corporate taxes were undermining the structure of the union itself.
"What Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg or Malta are doing here lacks solidarity towards the rest of the European economy," he said.
He praised the European Commission's recent order that Apple should pay 13bn euros (£11bn) more in tax to Ireland.
On Tuesday, the European Commission decided after a long investigation that Apple should pay the 13bn euros in extra tax, plus interest, to the Irish government because a long-standing tax deal with the US tech giant amounted to illegal state aid.
Apple and the Irish government have criticised the decision and the US firm has said it is confident it will be overturned on appeal.
Mr Kern, who heads Austria's Social Democrats and the country's coalition government, also said Facebook and Google had sales of more than 100m euros each in Austria.
"They massively suck up the advertising volume that comes out of the economy but pay neither corporation tax nor advertising duty in Austria," he added.
As well as Apple, the European Commission has launched past or current investigations into the tax arrangements of Fiat, McDonald's, Starbucks and Amazon.

Well, He is part of the government so he can push for something to be done no?