[panragon]

>Google Ireland alone had a 50B euro turnover.

Not to discredit the rest of what you're saying, because it is true the EU has jurisdiction and that anti-trust is a lost art in many places in the world. Still, saying Google Ireland 'alone' is a bit funny when Google (like all multinationals) is known to take advantage of Ireland's tax laws to funnel as much of their EU business through.

Whatever money Google is making in Ireland isn't just what they're making from the Irish market, it's also from whatever they're making everywhere else in the EU who's origins are ambiguous enough to not be attached to any single country.

[madeofpalk]

You can't have it both ways though. You don't get to take advantage of Irish law to reduce your tax/costs, but then also say that Ireland (and the EU) has no jurisdiction over you.

[thfuran]

But that's not the claim being made.

[throwaway462910]

It's the claim being pre-emptively argued against though

[panragon]

This is completely false, I stated very clearly that they have jurisidiction regardless and that anti-trust is fine. I was just pointing out that it's pretty unfair to use the size of Google Ireland as if it's "just another EU country" when it accounts for basically all EU-based revenue.

€50bln is still a huge amount, but based on the phrasing of that comment you'd assume we were talking about figures well over €1t!

[thfuran]

The comment they replied to already explicitly stated that the EU has jurisdiction. They're not pre-empting anything.

[bbor]

Not sure there’s anyone in here arguing for google. Poor little google, being bullied by all us hackers…

[sensanaty]

You should check out the thread, lots of people throwing themselves in front of the firing line because I guess they think that messing with Google will somehow translate to messing with their own startups or whatever.

[panragon]

Or they just work for Google, of which there's a reasonable amount of members here, but yeah.

[heywhatupboys]

well, that still means they have to follow Irish law. Just like shipping companies register their ships in other countries, that means they have to follow their laws too.

[Detrytus]

yes, but that's not the point of GP comment. Saying "Ireland alone has $50B turnover" might make someone think: "Wow, if they make so much money from such a small country, then how much do they make in the entire Europe?". And the answer to that is: $50B. There's not a single euro-cent is earned in Europe that does not go through Ireland.

[Detrytus]

Yep, and that's how you get Ireland's GDP per capita artificially inflated to $114k, when in reality it should be maybe a third of that...

[bee_rider]

Eh, we can’t really complain. The international capitalist system owes Ireland a bit more; its predecessor, colonialism, screwed Ireland over for generations.

[Detrytus]

But the point is that Ireland does not really benefit from this money - it is only an accounting trick. Google funnels money through Ireland, but does not employ many people in Ireland, and does not pay much taxes there. In the end, the living standard of typical Irishman is closer to countries with $40-45k GDP, such as Italy or France, than to countries with $100k GDP, such as Norway or Switzerland.

[inamorty]

This is not true. If anything Ireland is too reliant on a few multi-national corporations. In 2022, corporate tax was the second highest income stream for the state: https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/4992b-exchequer-surplus-...

[resolutebat]

This article suggests Google employed over 8,000 people in Ireland in 2018, and it's quite likely that number has grown since.

https://9to5google.com/2020/03/02/google-dublin-coronavirus/

[Detrytus]

Which means one employee per $6 millions of revenue. Which is exactly what I’m talking about: their actual presence in Ireland is much smaller than you would expect from revenue number alone, which again supports my claim about “accounting trick”

[toast0]

Because big companies are funneling money through Ireland, they usually need some corporate presence there. Because they already have a small office there, and there's a large English speaking population, when they want a bigger office in Europe, Ireland is a likely choice.

If they weren't already in the country for accounting purposes, they might choose different locations for offices.