You don't think...... I mean it's not possible that um.. Facebook has lied at all?
Facebook tells US tax bods: Swear to God, we were only worth $6.5bn in 2010 because we were menaced by... MySpace and smartphones
Facebook has told a court the reason it valued itself at just $6.5bn back in 2010 is not because it was seeking to avoid paying billions in extra tax, but because people had started using their mobile phones more. At the time, the antisocial goliath was reliant on ads on its desktop site. The US tax authorities – the IRS – beg …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 20th February 2020 00:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
But they say they pay all the tax they legally owe. Facebook wouldn't lie to us! :O
Companies always say this. And always end up having to come to tax settlements with tax authorities to pay tax that they owed.
At some point, don't you start to suspect that companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google etc don't actually pay all the tax they legally owe. They constantly refuse to pay the tax they owe, they do everything in their power to artificially arrange things such that they pay as little as possible.. and *STILL* cheat on top of that.
Wow.
Do you think it's because cheating actually pays? That they think they can get away with simply flat out lying about paying their tax, while paying armies of accountants and lawyers to contrive schemes that even worst case, when they get caught, will get off with a no admission of liability deferred prosecution agreement with pennies on the dollar paid out in fines.
No i'm not fucking cynical, because this is EXACTLY how reality operates
Oh and if any of them do go to jail, yeah long shot obviously what with those deferred prosecution agreements, Trump'll just pardon them.
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Thursday 20th February 2020 06:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
I hope that ZuckFartbook loses
big time.
He is responsible for more people being addicted to something than all the drug lords with their cocaine, heroin and meth put together.
25-to life in jail is him getting off easy IMHO.
Just say no to FartBook (and the rest) and get on with your life before social media got in the way.
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Thursday 20th February 2020 10:38 GMT Velv
Much as I'd love to see Billions ripped out of Facebook I have to question why it has taken the IRS 10 years to reach this conclusion. They must have assessed the deal at the time and didn't raise any question over the valuation at that point, or in the immediate few years afterwards. I hope someone at the IRS gets sacked for this fuck up too.
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Thursday 20th February 2020 18:42 GMT John Brown (no body)
How does that work?
"Facebook “sold” the rights to its software and trademarks to a subsidiary based in Ireland"
So, you have multi billion dollar company and you create an off-shore subsidiary. How does that small off-shore subsidiary come by enough cash to buy all your IP and then licence it back?
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Friday 21st February 2020 08:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: How does that work?
You either "sell" it under valued, loan it to them (while they only sell it's rights or outsource usage back to you) or they borrow the funds to do so. At which point they also make zero profit and have a large tax deductible "expense" which is even more fun if you own the bank lending them the money.
I'm no account or lawyer... but I never got into trouble for handing in my homework late, or on occasion not at all.
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