Taxes?
Microsoft?
The Danish government is reportedly chasing down Microsoft for nearly a billion dollars in missing tax revenue, stemming from its purchase of Viking accountancy software firm Navision. According to local media outlet DK, the Danish authorities have begun what could be the largest tax case in the country's history, involving …
Which big business hasn't had a hand in tax avoidance.
Rolls Royce paid no corporation tax in the UK last year despite profits of 1.4 billion pounds.
There's nothing illegal with this or Microsoft, it's just they can afford employ loop hole finders whereas the little people have to put up with it.
Ha! Vikings in Scandinavia? The Vikings all beggared off southwards a thousand years ago - those left in Scandinavia are descended from the peasants, thralls and others who couldn't make the move. Even the British Isles had better weather back then, before the climate packed up.
Interesting story though; I can actually see the Danish coast from my office window and the story has been floating around the local papers for a few days now.
For example those who had murdered or stole cattle etc were, if caught, often declared "nithing" meaning they were outside the protection of the law and in order to escape enraged relatives and/or cattle fondlers they often fled (during the late tenth century and the early eleventh) to the western coast of France. The grandson of one of these thieves/murderers was known to his contemporaries as William the Bastard (a little matter of, ahem, lack of a wedding between his mum and dad although given what he did next the alternative interpretation holds as well).
He landed one day with his cohort of third/fourth generation thieves, murderers and cattle-rustlers on the southern coast of England in 1066 and the rest, as we say, is history. The Vikings never successfully conquered* either Scotland or England (indeed Harold Godwinson trounced a Danish/Norwegian army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in the same year only to march south to his fuck-up at Hastings), it was in fact the descendants of a bunch who even the Vikings could not stand who managed that trick.
*They actually settled as farmers and traders in many areas where they had control but they did not ever succeed in national conquest.
Your kind of missing the point. The deal to buy the company was worth $1.2b, but the company has continued to make a profit since then, and it is this which they are being charged the $1b in tax on. It says in the article that microsoft diverted about $11b in revenue out of the country using this tax avoidance/evasion method (if the danish government wins its evasion, if they lose it was only avoidance!). So $1b in tax on $11b in revenue still seems very low to me!
yes and no: $1b tax against $11b in profits would be fair enough, but $1b against $11b in revenue, when costs might be $9b, that's not right. You can't judge things like this on revenue - unless, of course, you are happy to say government performance is measured on revenue only? Only way that could be true is if Parliaments, HMRC, the entire civil service and their equivalents cost zero to run? That's nonsense.
The correct short term for Danmark Radio is DR. Not DK. That is a different media outlet here in Denmark.
As for Microsoft. They have been spotted and Danish Tax is going in for a grab of Microsoft money. Microsoft can employ any amount of lawyers they want. They are still going to loose in most case. Since Denmark tax code is efficient tax code from what I understand.