Yahoo! leaves! London!

Yahoo! is moving its European headquarters from London to Switzerland and is telling senior staff to pack their bags or leave the company. Yahoo! is moving to Rolle, near Geneva, Switzerland, the Financial Times reports. The main reason is to reduce its corporate tax bill. Yahoo!'s operational and product managers got an …

[amanfromMars]

Prime Stakes ... Blue and Rare to Medium and Media

I'd have thought the Yahoo crowd were Tomorrow's Dow Jonesers

[Anonymous Coward]

Livingstone take note

This is going to happen more and more as you tax the residents of London away.

[Duncan Hothersall]

Re: Livingstone take note

What nonsense. This has nothing to do with local taxes, and everything to do with corporate taxes. The last thing the UK should do is start to worry about being tax equivalent to places like Switzerland. It is not a country we should be hoping to emulate.

[StooMonster]

Non-dom or High Net Worth

Or alternatively the non-doms and/or High Net Worth individuals in Yahoo! London don't fancy the new tax regime and like many others in their position are moving to non-dom/HNW friendly Switzerland.

Paris because if she lived in London she would be both a non-dom and a HNW and would leave for Switzerland too.

[Davos Summit]

Re: Livingstone take note

What are you on about? They're leaving because of corporation tax. As if a massive company like Yahoo! is going to go through a major relocation - risking losing senior staff in the process - because of some pissy little congestion charge or a minor hike in council tax.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Duncan Hothersall

No of course we shouldn't emulate Switzerland.

Low Taxation, very efficient public transport, very efficient public services, clean streets, friendly people.

Hell we should be sticking with our own idea of Utopia, a quagmire of high taxes, inefficient workers, a transport system that provides 3rd world services for 1st world prices and the efficiency level of our public services comparing favourably with only Zimbabwe.

You are so right.

[Chris]

@Duncan

Typical socialist claptrap. Corporate taxes are far too high here.

Take away the tax raised from globalised companies like BP, Vodafone, Shell, GlaxoSmithKline, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland et alia ad nauseam and especially from the rich people who work for them and live in the UK, and who will pay for all the socialist sacred cows like the NHS and the welfare state?

Notice the improvement in the Irish economy, and INCREASED tax take since they slashed corporation tax.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Livingstone take note

Switzerland is not a country we should be hoping to emulate ?

I should hope not, they actually run something called a democracy ... something that would never be allowed here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Re: Livingstone take note

I am intrigued. Why should we not want to emulate Switzerland's tax system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom to Flourish

This is be a blow to the latest budget speech announcing UK on course for steady growth.

They could've moved closer to home - the Isle of Man tax rate is 18% maximum.

Not glamorous enough for Yahoo! execs obviously.

[StooMonster]

@ Hedley Lamarr

You're wrong ... we currently have the highest tax burden in history of the UK, not just in memory (at least according to Ernst & Young). ;-)

The present 38+ per cent is higher than the 37.7 per cent peak reached in the early 1980s when the top rate of income tax was 60 per cent, and is more than the burden of the 1970s when the top rate was 83 per cent.

So it's all in those stealth taxes ... and corporation / capital gains / etc taxes.

Black helicopters because they are authoritarian socialists too.

[Anonymous Coward]

@@ Duncan Hothersall

yeah bring on male suicide rates of 26.5 per 100,000!

[amanfromMars]

Print and be Damned

With every country having its own government and different government practices, that must make government an experiment sequestering public funds on subjective pet projects..... controlled by Money Worries perpetrated by Third Party Money Vendors/Federal Reservists/Paper Cowboys.

[Cambrasa]

Quality of Life

I suspect that quality of life also plays a role, not just taxes. Swiss cities rank as the best in the world in studies by Mercer and The Economist. And London, despite its vibrancy, is a dump in comparison.

[Andus McCoatover]

Presence in London?

Apart from the obvious "Why the Fuc*k - London??" I read this as:

We are not confirming numbers yet but are committed to keeping a _bloke_ in London, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

In my dreams

I wish my place of work moved to Switzerland.

[amanfromMars]

The Scenic Router ...... for Magical Mystery Turing Trips ...... SurReal Episodes:-)

"I wish my place of work moved to Switzerland." ...... In my dreams, live and prepare for your life as you wish, it can.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not emulate Switzerland ?

Hmm, great cities and wide open spaces. good skiing, walking, cycling etc...great quality of life, working and affordable public transport, decent education, low taxes, keeping out of other countries business. What is to emulate there?

I much prefer my crap commute on the M4, the high local crime, the taxes that go up, the salary that goes down, the stinking trains, the non-existant buses etc...

The only mystery to me is why any Swiss people are here. Likewise why did Yahoo ever come here? They must like slumming it.

[Name]

no wonder

Running a business in the UK and having lived in Switzerland beforehand - I can totally see why they are doing it.

Based on corporation tax ireland seems to be the popular tech head office for europe destination.

Blame the government please.

[Elmer Phud]

Swizerland a nice place to live?

"An official report into the process of naturalisation in Switzerland says the current system is discriminatory and in many respects racist." BBC website.

Doesn't like non-rich folk either.

[DavCrav]

Not emulating Switzerland...

I'm guessing what's meant is that Switzerland is a tax haven. The only reason Switzerland exists is because other places are not like it. A world full of Switzerlands is not possible, because Switzerland (and other tax havens) depend on the majority of people in it being filthy rich.

[Jasmine Strong]

We really shouldn't emulate Switzerland

There's a reason it has the highest suicide rate in the world, and that's because living in a closed society with only horizontal movement is very depressing.

Switzerland, despite its low taxation, is a very unpleasant place to live. Trust me, I spent more than a year there. Everything that is not mandatory is forbidden. Society is controlled with an iron fist, conformity is king.

And as for the great standard of living- that only really exists if you ignore the vast population of stateless people living in Switzerland. The undesirables, the foreigners and the unusuals, trapped but unable to leave. These people have hard lives because Switzerland does not offer them a path to integration.

It is a staggeringly unjust society. Unless you have seen it first-hand, you can't believe that something like this exists in western Europe in these post-Iron Curtain days.

[Dave]

@Elmer Phud

The 'racisit' system you deplore:

"Switzerland has Europe's toughest naturalisation laws. Foreigners must live for 12 years in a Swiss community before they can apply, and being born in Switzerland brings no right to citizenship.

Under the current system, foreigners apply through their local town or village.

They appear before a citizenship committee and answer questions about their desire to be Swiss. After that, they must often be approved by the entire voting community, in a secret ballot, or a show of hands. "

Sounds super to me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6992670.stm

[Simon Painter]

@Elmer Phud

The Swiss operate a true democracy with referendums on every issue which enables everyone to vote and decisions to be made by the people. The difference between this true democracy and ours is that even though over 50% of the country is opposed to something like the hunting ban, a political party can force it through. Even though the majority of people were against the invasion and subsequent occupations of afghanistand and iraq, the government can do what they please for the full duration of their term in office (and even change leaders so we have an unelected prime minister).

The side effect of this is that the people naturally want to keep their country for themselves and are not all that keen on letting the whole of poland in to claim from their benefits system. As a nation they have a pretty solid work ethic as well so only want people of a similar disposition to be allowed in. The democratic process allows for people within a canton to vote to allow or disallow a new resident to gain citizenship and if my home town had been given the vote I doubt we would have voted to be over run with immigrants.

[Cavehomme]

Losers

"Switzerland, despite its low taxation, is a very unpleasant place to live. Trust me, I spent more than a year there."

What is hell for some is heaven for others!

Very little crime, very high democracy, very good state schools, very good healthcare and other services, very nice scenery, very nice people, very nice cheese and chocolate, very high quality of local food and wine, very carefully managed immigration policy to ensure a match between demand and supply.

No it is not paradise and has its issues as well, but there are far more pluses than minuses.

And this comes from experience of living and working there far more than a measely 1 year.

Come on over Micro-hoo, you are welcome, and you will have a great time here!

[tony trolle]

only one swiss

area you need to go Campione, it's Italian :-)

[Andy]

*Shakes head*

Where do I get the neural implant so I too can have the Daily Mail's criminally woeful brand of 'news for people who can't think for themselves' beamed directly into my brain? (Satellite 5 perhaps?)

I swear, if I have to have the 'Poles, coming over here, taking our jobs and eating our swans' conversation one more time I'll explode in a fit of bigot-induced rage.

One man's mead is another man's poison. Every country on Earth has pros and cons and pros for some will be cons for others. I happen to like the pros I see in this country and the cons, whilst plentiful, are still not close to being outweighed. And there'd be a lot more room, and less carbon dioxide emitted through hot air, if the serial whingers would go through on their promise and leave those of us who don't judge their quality of life by the size of their bank balance in peace. And good luck with that wild-goose-chase to find paradise on Earth.