Former Google Exec Turns Whistleblower On Company’s Tax Avoidance In The UK

This is techcrunch blog spam of the actual story in the sunday times.<p>actual story: <a href="http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1261720.ece" rel="nofollow">http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/ar...</a><p>previous discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730861" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730861</a>

"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes a public duty to pay more than the law demands."<p>Judge Learned Hand in Helvering vs Gregory, 1934.

It's not likely illegal.<p>Anyways, 'immoral' is all relative to one's political philosophy. Some find taxes immoral - especially when they're used to bailout and/or protect competitors, bomb and maim 'enemies' and spy on it's own citizens.<p>Depriving poorly run corrupt governments of tax benefits everyone, including said government.

I love when someone wants to use the word "scam" and "immoral" when talking about "technically" avoiding taxes. It's either legal or it ain't - and there's nothing that shows it was illegal.

Whistleblowers pointing fingers in the wrong direction. What they're doing is most certainly legal. What should be looked as is the legislation enabling it. Or rather if it's even a bad thing in the first place.

When Google first came out with "don't be evil", this was exactly the kind of thing I thought they wanted to avoid, especially since the corporate bogeyman of the day was Microsoft and they were doing exactly this (Apple too). Turns out I don't really have any idea what Google thinks don't be evil means. It looks like they operate like any other corporation, where the only people they truly care about in a bottom-line sense are shareholders. May as well be up front about that. From what I've seen, a better motto is probably:<p><pre><code> Don't be evil unless it makes money than being good, but never admit to evil or talk about it in any way.</code></pre>

Isn't this just the Double Irish scheme[1] that Google and other multi-nationals have been doing for a long time now? How is it "whistle blowing" if something is public knowledge? If it goes beyond that, then the article hasn't really done a good job at pointing that out.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement</a>

This is just another reason we should ditch corporate income tax. It never made any sense anyway.

Every time people say "What's the problem if they're obeying the law?"<p>These companies are using very complicated schemes, bought from well funded well staffed multinational accountancy companies (any single one of the big four has more staff in an off shore tax haven than the HMRC has in total). Don't forget that law consists both of statute and case law - a bunch of this stuff has never been before a judge so we don't know if it's legal or not.<p>These schemes are not normal tax planning. While they're not tax evasion (use of clearly illegal methods to not pay tax) they're borderline, and may not actually be legal. For these schemes to be legal requires a suspension of disbelief - for example, Starbucks doesn't make any profit in the UK[1]. (Baffling if you've ever bought a £4 coffee.)<p>Forensic accounts investigation is complex, time consuming, and expensive. It's not surprising that overworked under funded understaffed tax offices can't spare the resources to investigate companies who are trying to obfuscate their tax arrangements. When companies are caught they negotiate deals to repay some, but not all, of the tax. Not paying your tax and risking getting caught is just a cost of doing business.[2]<p>A company using English staff, in English offices, to sell English products to English staff working for other English companies, using English money through English banks should probably be paying tax in England, even if the company have arranged for someone in an Irish office to sign a bit of paper at the end of the chain.<p>And we've got ourselves into this weird situation. The big four firms lend staff to HMRC to help draft tax law. The big four firms then use their inside knowledge of these laws, that they helped to draft, to create schemes on the edge of legality[3ab].<p>What I'm gently worried about is an employee of Google (apparently from an accounts department but maybe I got that wrong) siphoning off 100,000 emails, and keeping them for <i>years</i> before coming forward. That feels like a significant fail, but I have no idea of the law around that kind of thing. I trust that Google has much tighter controls around user data.<p>[1] (<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/starbucks-is-right-not-to-pay-uk-tax-because-it-makes-no-profit-says-coffee-chains-tax-advisor-8589459.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/starbucks-is-...</a>)<p>[2] (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/20/inland-revenue-sweetheart-tax-deals" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/20/inland-revenu...</a>)<p>[3a] (<a href="http://www.ion.icaew.com/TaxFaculty/26745" rel="nofollow">http://www.ion.icaew.com/TaxFaculty/26745</a>)<p>[3b] (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/26/accountancy-firms-knowledge-treasury-avoid-tax" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/26/accountancy-f...</a>)

I would like to point out that this is about Google actually breaking the law and not just gaming the system. Seems most commenters assume that this is about gaming the system. Google is walking a fine line here and if they step over that line they can't expect folks to go easy on them.

I am in favor of replacing all income tax with a consumption tax- one that is really easy to calculate, like the Fair Tax. The Fair Tax may have some kinks that need to be ironed out, but the concept is really solid.

Somebody is really trying hard to spread this negative press against Google.<p>The issue isn't even news, it's well known that Google and many other large multi-international companies do the Double-Irish to avoid taxes. Until Congress plugs the loophope, what should Google do, they hire companies to manage their taxes and the hired company does it to the best of their ability, who is to blame? Our representatives, IMO.

Go Google! Perhaps? An issue I always face when considering tax evasion is that I'm pleased when someone manages to avoid at least some compulsory taxation, but I'm disturbed that it's often very large and very wealthy organizations, which suggests a level of corruption (conscious or emergent) in our systems of Government.