[Gladdyu]

Not Google being good - Irish law has been changed such that it's no longer permitted.

"The legislation passed in Ireland in 2015 ends the use of the tax scheme for new tax plans. However, companies with established structures can continue to benefit from the old system until 2020."

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-with-a-dut...

[josefx]

> Due largely to international pressure and the publicity surrounding the use of the double Irish with a Dutch sandwich, the Irish finance minister passed measures to close the loopholes in the 2015 budget.

The EU ordered them to collect taxes from Apple after it came out that Apple ran an optimized double Irish with special exceptions (private rulings) granted by the Irish tax office. This law change is the result of them getting caught violating European trade agreements that predate the EU itself.

[jiveturkey]

> Not Google being good

That goes without saying. What does need to be said is that anti-Google implications should not be taken from this statement.

1. The prior and new behavior is neither good nor bad.

2. That only Google does this is, and should be singled out, is a bit of pitchfork-ism (to be fair, from the article, not your comment). Lots of companies do this and lots of companies will need to stop doing it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/world/apple-taxes-jersey....

[stefano]

> 1. The prior and new behavior is neither good nor bad.

That depends from which point of view you're looking at it. Technically according to the law? All good. Ethically? Different people will have different opinions, but many would agree that it's bad behaviour. You're a law abiding leech on society, but you're still a leech.

[jiveturkey]

You are still arguing good or bad! I say, it's completely amoral.

Google (and the scores of others doing this) are smart, clever, and correct for taking advantage of loopholes like this. If it is in fact legal but unethical, it's easily addressed by Congress. Expecting companies to self-regulate their tax burden is foolish. Google, Apple and the rest are not "public benefit companies" with the declared benefit of maximizing their tax burden.

'Leech' as well is quite a strong word, most unjustified IMHO.

ps. It's not Google/Apple/etc themselves that find these loopholes; it's outsourced specialists.

[bagacrap]

If "being good" means intentionally paying more tax than legally obligated, I don't think any corporation fits the bill.

[domador]

What if "being good" means "no legal arbitrage" and "no jurisdiction shopping"? What if it means "not really, really going out of your way to find ways to pay less tax, including by buying legislation"?

[kmlx]

what if it means no more taxes to corrupt governments?

[jsjohnst]

> means intentionally paying more tax than legally obligated

You have an unusual definition of “legally obligated” if you feel they were 100% following the law doing this. Sure, it used to be legal in Ireland, but intentionally moving IP to claim revenue in a different tax jurisdiction than where the money was earned was a legal grey area at best.

[chatmasta]

It was explicitly, intentionally legal. Ireland enacted these laws so companies like google would move IP and high paying jobs to Ireland. And the Irish economy benefitted from it.

You can’t have a fair discussion of the ethics of this scenario without considering the “tax havens” themselves. Shouldn’t a sovereign country like Ireland have the right to enact laws that benefit its economy? For small jurisdictions like the caymans, what looks like a “tax haven” to outsiders is actually a huge boon to their economy and objectively good for their citizens.

[jsjohnst]

I didn’t claim that it was not legal in Ireland, as that’s not the point. Google (and others like Apple) are multi-national companies which means they might not be following the letter, let alone the intent, of the law in other jurisdictions in which they do business by using this loophole. It’s definitively a legal grey area and everyone skilled in international tax law I’ve read on the topic agree. So saying it’s flat out legal everywhere is glossing over important considerations, and at best comes off naive.