In Australia, Google Pays Just $74k Tax On Claimed Revenues of $200 Million 345
daria42 writes "Looks like Apple isn't the only company with interesting offshore taxation practices. The financial statements for Google's Australian subsidiary show the company told the Australian Government it made just $200 million in revenue in 2011 in Australia, despite local industry estimating it actually brought in closer to $1 billion. The rest was funnelled through Google's Irish subsidiary and not disclosed in Australia. Consequently the company only disclosed taxation costs in Australia of $74,000. Not bad work if you can get it — which Google apparently can."
Taxes suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
Good for them (Score:1, Interesting)
Businesses don't pay taxes, their customers do. I cheer whenever I hear about someone dodging taxes, although I'd cheer more if the size of your accounting team didn't determine your tax bill.
Why don't people ask for laws simple enough to just -know-?
Re:Taxes suck. (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that corporations are allowed to give to politicians and that lobbying isn't required to be done via means that are available for viewing by the public. I wonder how much would change if the public had a right to go through the communications between lobbyists and politicians and see what deals were being made.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, that's one way to ride your straw man [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man] down a slippery slope [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope]. Did I suggest anywhere 100% tax? Has there ever been a 100% tax?
As it happens, I am pretty familiar with the USSR economy. While the government did take a large chunk off one's wages, probably over 50% (maybe up to 70%, hard to give a specific number), the wages were way above "subsistence." People used their wages to buy expensive at that time electronics (TVs, video players), travel inside the country; frugal ones bought cars. For the 50-70% taxation, people were getting 100% free healthcare, 100% free kindergarten, high school, and college education and decent retirement benefits to name some.
About "taxing every worker to death, " that's just a lie. Minimum wage workers pay little to no taxes. Middle class pays more, but hardly over 30% even in extreme cases. Also, low wages people refuse to work for are not a result of taxation, but of employers intentionally pushing wages down because they can, due to high unemployment, offshoring, and cheap illegals.
And what the hell is this talk about “taxing to death" and "his dead body in the street"? It reminds me of ridiculous "death panels" by teabaggers. I have not seen unemployed dying on the streets yet. It seems that you are incapable of reasonable discussion about economy and taxes without resorting to threats of death and destruction to all who do not follow your anti-tax religion.
Re:Google isn't the villain here (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me re-phrase on your behalf:
"What kind of company wouldn't exploit every loophole or legal avenue available to pay the absolute minimum amount of taxes in the country they do business in and reap the benefits of? Hey, provided it's not actually illegal, who cares if it's wholly unethical?"
At some level, it's a frankly depressing picture of humanity that we can so easily rationalise away doing pretty much anything in the name of material pursuit, so long as it doesn't outright violate national laws. What's worse, is that I hate the fact that governments are seemingly enacting ever more legislation, ever more restricting our rights, and yet, it seems that when it comes to things like tax law, the reason is because if they don't, people will abuse it unless it is absolutely watertight. Hell, people admit they are looking for and exploiting the system as if it's a badge of honour, as if they'd be somehow morally liable if they didn't abuse the system.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:5, Interesting)
I am pretty familiar with the USSR economy. While the government did take a large chunk off one's wages, probably over 50% (maybe up to 70%, hard to give a specific number), the wages were way above "subsistence." People used their wages to buy expensive at that time electronics (TVs, video players), travel inside the country; frugal ones bought cars. For the 50-70% taxation, people were getting 100% free healthcare, 100% free kindergarten, high school, and college education and decent retirement benefits to name some.
- OK, I was born and lived in USSR, let's take this apart, piece by piece.
1. Taxes. Taxes in the former USSR were built into the paycheck, however that was just a show. Every person was working for the gov't, thus nobody had to file any tax returns, because that made no sense, why would you have to do that, legally you basically couldn't have any income other than what the gov't paid you.
Of-course you could in principle do something underground - even simplest of things, like make your own soap and sell it, grow some food and sell it, rent out a room in your apartment.
But, first of all, the apartments were given out by the State, not acquired in any free market, there was a huge shortage of housing, multiple generations of people lived in one apartment, old, pre-war apartments were shared by multiple families, a family of 3, 4 people could live in one room, sharing a kitchen and a bathroom and the hall with a few more families.
People waited for new housing their entire lives. Obviously situations were different, the more enterprising people were in the Communist Party, running the place, so they certainly had ability to get paid much more, specifically they could steal things and get bribes from all over the place, and they did. They got apartments, housing without long line ups, they even got more than that - 'dacha', which is a country house, where one would go on a weekend or for holidays.
But the point is there was huge shortage of living accommodations, my parents waited for 17 years for an apartment in Ukraine. 17 freaking years in a line up.
2. Cars.
Well, if you can call those ridiculous metal boxes cars, but even those couldn't be acquired by anybody living on a 'normal engineer salary' of 120 rubles. A car would cost 5-7000, depends on a car, depends on time it would differ, but basically it would take one person about 10 years of unspent salary to buy a car, in reality nobody could buy a car for that money.
Cars were bought on the black market, for twice, tree times their nominal prices, people bought (or stole) parts over long period of time and put together the cars themselves.
You see, when everybody gets the same salary (about 60 rubles for a cleaner, to the average and most common salary of 120 rubles paid to engineers, doctors, teachers, I am talking post-Krustchev, before Brezhnev, when normal salaries were about 3000 'old' rubles for a factory worker), an experienced factory worker could be making 200-350 rubles, a high ranking manager would be around 200-500.
A politician, a party member wasn't working for money. REAL USSR economy was not built with money, it was built with connections, with personal relationships. That's what happens when money is fake, and money was fake, trillions of rubles were printed and put into circulation year after year.
Farmers could have some extra money, because they would grow their own crops and sell them at markets, the cops would take bribes, protection racket, not to throw a book at those semi-legal activities.
People stole from everywhere they could, from factory floors, to collective farms, to construction. The army was a pretty good place to steal from, or maybe just use the conscripts for personal purposes - built a bigger 'dacha' (country house) for the generals or politicians or managers, what else is new.
Taxes in USSR were completely irrelevant, because money was fake and people were quite poor.
The poor quality of pro
Re:misunderstandings about the Australian tax syst (Score:5, Interesting)
I think people here don't seem to understand the Australian tax system.
As an accountant, it's clear to me that people generally, but especially technology websites, do not understand any tax system. In the case of the latter I'm fairly sure it's wilful ignorance since there's a habit of neatly avoiding very obvious things that require mere common-sense to trigger realisation that they're spouting bullshit.
It's equivalent to those media articles on hacking, with the picture of some hooded terrorist stealingz your megahurtz. There is activity to be concerned about, but anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge -- or simply combining common-sense and critical thought -- can just glance at it and find themselves shaking their head as they hold it in their hands, unable and frankly unwilling to decide on which is worse: that the media is so intentionally misleading or genuinely so incompetent.