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Is Google Getting Greedy?
Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is known for frank speaking even when he says something unpopular. Recently, he was at it again, defending his company’s avoidance of British taxes. Documents show that the search giant earned £2.5 billion in UK sales last year but paid just £6 million in taxes. Google has also been revealed to have sheltered nearly $10 billion of its revenues in Bermuda allowing it to avoid some $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011. But Schmidt said such schemes were legitimate and the company paid taxes “in the legally prescribed ways”. “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate,” he said. “It’s called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this.” He also said they would not be following Starbucks in voluntarily handing more money over to the UK Government. Google has also announced it will now charge small business users for using some formerly free Web-based services, such as text-editing, spreadsheets and even Gmail. It will charge the more than 5 million businesses with 10 employees that use the services $50 per user per year in America, £33 in Britain. It says by doing so it would be able to provide better support to businesses, such as 24/7 tech support and larger in-boxes. Though there will be no charge for individuals, this is a significant … Continue reading
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IRS helps enable online tax fraud
Your friends at the Internal Revenue Service are eager to get everyone to do their federal taxes online. But in their efforts to make everything quick and easy, they’ve wound up helping Internet tax scammers, too. And it’s not a phishing scheme or involves hacking, but is based on filing false online returns and collecting the refund. So this tax season, the government is warning people of the dangers. Identity thieves are very busy – last year, the IRS identified nearly a million fraudulent returns to the tune of $6.5 billion. Over half of these were related to identify theft, which is three times the amount of just three years before. And those are just the ones caught before any refunds had been issued. The IRS can’t, or won’t, even estimate how much money they’ve actually sent to scammers. Tax fraud has become an epidemic especially in areas like South Florida, with some gangs replacing drug sales and robberies with online crimes committed with iPads. Gangs even hold work parties to teach each other and commit hundreds of crimes in a single session. So many local officials are complaining about the lack of governmental concern and effective action. Working the fraud, authorities claim, is quite simple, and there are even written tutorials for thieves. The criminals first acquire victims’ Social Security numbers and other personal information. Perhaps they buy the data from insiders with access to medical or financial records or … Continue reading