Facebook CEO Gets a Grilling From Investors
ft 專欄作家加普：與谷歌地位最相似的不是微軟，而是19世紀末期電氣化時代的通用電氣，不僅能發明影響深遠的產品，還能挖掘產品的商業價值。
HMRC must fully investigate Google over tax, say MPs
Google says it welcomes calls to make the tax system simpler and more transparent
HM
Revenue and Customs should "fully investigate" Google after information
from whistleblowers "undermined" the firm's defence of its tax
arrangements, a committee of MPs has said.
Google says that advertising sales take place in low-tax Ireland, not the UK.But the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said it had been told by ex-employees of the tech giant that UK-based staff are engaged in selling.
Google said it complies with all the tax rules in the UK.
The company generated $18bn (£11.5bn) in revenue from the UK between 2006 and 2011 and paid just $16m (£10m) in UK corporate taxes in the same period.
Companies pay corporation tax on their profits, not their sales. But the current debate revolves around the apparent ability of multinationals to move their profits from country to country with little obvious relationship to where the sales are generated.
The committee also said that confidence in HMRC had been weakened.
It said it was "extraordinary" that the tax authority did not challenge Google over "the complete mismatch between the company's supposed structure and the substance of its activities".
'Much wider problem'
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Google spokesmanIt's clear from this report that the PAC wants to see international companies paying more tax where their customers are located, but that's not how the rules operate today”
Google executive Matt Brittin
has twice appeared before the PAC - first in November, alongside
executives from Starbucks and Amazon - and then in May when he was
called back after whistleblowers said Google had sold advertising within
the UK and invoiced customers in the UK.
He insisted that no-one in the UK could execute transactions, despite the fact that he employed sales staff in the UK."Google brazenly argued before this committee that its tax arrangements in the UK are defensible and lawful," said Margaret Hodge, chair of the PAC.
"The company's highly contrived tax arrangement has no purpose other than to enable the company to avoid UK corporation tax."
Google is one of several multinational companies that have been strongly criticised in recent months for organising their tax affairs in ways that minimise the amounts they pay in the UK.
The committee said it was not singling out Google, nor Starbucks or Amazon, but said the tax avoidance of these multinationals was "illustrative of a much wider problem".
It said the only way for Google to repair its damaged reputation was for it to pay "its fair share of tax in the country where it earns the profits from the business it conducts".
A Google spokesman said: "It's clear from this report that the Public Accounts Committee wants to see international companies paying more tax where their customers are located, but that's not how the rules operate today.
"We welcome the call to make the current system simpler and more transparent."
Tackling tax avoidance MPs were also critical of HMRC for not sufficiently challenging multinationals over their tax arrangements.
HMRC head of business tax Jim Harra said: "Since 2010 we have collected over £23bn in extra tax through challenging large businesses' tax arrangements.
"Through tackling transfer pricing issues, we have collected £2bn since 2010 alone. We relentlessly pursue businesses who don't play by the rules, these results reflect this."
The committee called on the government to strengthen HMRC and to simplify the tax code so that there are fewer loopholes.
The UK is hosting next week's G8 summit in Northern Ireland, and has put tax and transparency at the heart of the agenda.
Prime Minister David Cameron wants the meeting to include country-by-country reporting of where companies pay their tax.
"This government is committed to creating the most competitive corporate tax system in the G20, but this goes hand-in-hand with our call for strong international standards to make sure that global companies, like anyone else, pay the taxes they owe," a Treasury spokesman said.
June 11, 2013, 8:08 PM
How Google Transfers Data To NSA
By Amir Efrati
How does Google GOOG -0.89% hand over data to the government? By old-fashioned secure “file transfer protocol,” or FTP. And sometimes even by hand.That detail, which Google disclosed for the first time late Tuesday, contrasts with earlier reports that claimed the government had special access to its network and to those of other technology companies.
Chris Gaither, a Google spokesman, said that when the company receives court orders to provide information to the government, it usually does so with secure FTP, a method of sending encrypted files over the Internet.
And occasionally, Google hands over files to the government in person, he said. (He declined to say when and why they use the manual approach.)
In other words, Google “pushes” information for the government rather than allow the government to “pull” information directly from Google’s system, Gaither said. He said the company has pushed back on attempts by governments to get more direct access, but he didn’t provide details.
“We refuse to participate in any program — for national security or other reasons — that requires us to provide governments with access to our systems or to install their equipment on our networks,” Gaither said.
He declined to say when Google began using its current data-transfer methods, and whether they apply to all law enforcement requests, including those that don’t involve secret orders by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes the government to request information from companies in the interest of U.S. national security.
Google’s disclosure comes days after the Washington Post and the U.K.’s Guardian reported that the federal government, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had established a “direct” access to the Web servers of Google Yahoo YHOO -1.93% Facebook FB -1.08% Microsoft Corp. MSFT +0.46%, Apple and others. The reports relied in part on leaked documents purporting to show details of a classified NSA program called “PRISM.”
All of the companies denied the reports, though the government acknowledged the general existence of a data-collection program on Saturday, noting that it targets foreign nationals who may be a threat to U.S. national security.
After its initial report last week, the Washington Post revised its article to say that special equipment installed at “company-controlled location” were able to obtain data for the program, though Google on Tuesday denied that such a mechanism exists.
Google on Tuesday also asked the U.S. government to allow it to publish the number and scope of requests it receives from the government after investigators get approval from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The company’s chief legal officer said in a public letter that “assertions in the press that our compliance with these requests gives the U.S. government unfettered access to our users’ data are simply untrue,” and that government gag orders on recipients of secret court orders “fuel that speculation.”
Speculation has run rampant in part because the Guardian last week published a classified order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, telling Verizon Communications VZ -0.56% to hand over data on phone records of millions of people.
Google CEO Larry Page on Friday said he was “surprised” by the “broad” nature of such an order, implying that Google didn’t receive similar orders.
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