Fuck'em
It's an activity where you sell your soul for a little money.
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Activision is creating Politicians? we have to stop them!
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Indeed.
(Also this about your other question https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUTnNKhF-EU )
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com
GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution platform service for video games and films, operated by GOG Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt based in Nicosia, Cyprus, with an office in Warsaw, Poland
https://support.gog.com/hc/ru/articles/212632089-User-Agreement
7 Florinis Street, Greg Tower, 6th floor, 1065 Nicosia, Cyprus
Office - Poland, payment - Cyprus
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Cyprus is a classic tax haven where you literally don't have to pay any income or corp taxes at all and additionally profit from various other lax laws... see "non dom cyprus" - though it isn't nearly as easy and profitable as it was years ago, granted. What Activision does isn't the exception, if you look up all the bigger companies (all around the globe) you'll find the same scheme everybody is using to avoid paying taxes they rightfully owe to not only the countries they operate in, but the people. Funny how easy life gets with friends in higher places ;>.
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What on earth are you on? :D Cyprus in in Europe, why do you even bring up US?
CD Project is a Polish company as polish people made it. But it's filed in Cyprus, and does it's taxes based on the laws in Cyprus. Which means they keep way more of the money than they would if they would be filed in Poland, and not just having an office there.
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CD Projekt is a Polish game publishing company, and does its taxes in Poland.
CD Projekt RED is a game development company owned by CD Projekt. I believe it also does its taxes in Poland.
GOG.com is a Cypriot company that's owned by CD Projekt. GOG's business model (negotiating contracts for international distribution of games over the web) apparently isn't supported by Polish law, but they still wanted their employees to work in Warsaw, so they had little choice but to shop a country that let them do all of that.
The situation with Activision is completely different. Activision is a Californian business that operates and pays taxes in California, but - according to the article - funnels their revenue through a Bermuda-based zero-employee company called ATVI CV in order to avoid having taxable profit. CDP doesn't do anything of the sort.
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CD Project includes 3 company
-CD Projekt RED
-GOG.com
-cdp.pl
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Skibby already explaned
Every big company do this, GOG too
You really dont understand why cd projects+gog take payments in Cyprus? 😱
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Actually CD Project Red is paying their taxes in poland. In 2015 they were under investigation by polish finance comision and their ivestigation showed no evidence of hidden profits. They had also receveied in 2014 financial aid from polish authority and one of criteria for that grand was that only company paying taxes in poland can receive it. GOG are on other hand just another hand is just ,,daughter company '' to CD Project which also own CD Project Red and they are spliting their taxation on Cyprus and Poland. I apologise for my poor english, it is just not my primary foreign language.
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Not exactly, CD Project (Mother company)> GOG.com = CDP Investment sp. z o.o + CD Projekt S.A (Former Optimus S.A.) > CD Project RED (Actuall game company ). They all started in poland but GOG.com was registered for taxes in Cyprus. They are basicly conduct all their oepration in poland but they are paying only minor taxes like VAT( Taxation for items) or gasoline tax. Rest of CD project daughter companies are paying all taxes in poland . I know it is a bit confusing but that is how things works in globalised world :)
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No problem mate. CAPTAIN OVER EXPLANATION FLIES AWAY !!! :)
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The video is actually pretty interesting, as are most of superbunnyhop's videos, and confirms things I already knew a bit about. US companies also commonly use Ireland as a tax haven, with very few employees in tiny offices, doing basically nothing.
Also the fact they are laying people off every year while their profits are going up is very annoying
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Yrah, Ireland's a legit tax heaven too, many companies operate from there and they just lease like ideas or they hire themselves to do jobs and things, mostly tax writeoffs.
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It's more that its easier to spot with US companies, over here at least. Tax havens are always going to be a thing with big companies
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In Cork city in Ireland, it is pretty easy to spot is what I meant, don't expect that' always the case at all
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again, those are just the obvious ones. Plenty that are nowhere near as obvious. I recall overhearing a conversation between two people I knew where they mentioned that they'd literally opened up thousands of companies in BVI without ever having set foot there
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They technically pay taxes, just not on income. If they want to spend this money they have to transfer it and pay a 12% tax, Also, as clearly stated in the video they started this practice in 2009, so blaming any of this on trickle down economics is a complete farce. This is pure bi-partisan corruption, plain and simple.
P.S. If you don't want your money going to shitty people, stop buying triple aaa games...
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How is it not ? How is tax evasion not inherent to a profit driven economy? How isn't it an unremovable part of the need these companies feel to maximize their profits?
You tell me mate.
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What does it have to do with the matter at hand? It's just an attempt to derail the thread. No one is arguing about the merits or problems of Communism here, it's him going full whataboutism on me.
We're discussing how this capitalist society facilitates and allows shameless and consequence-free tax evasion from the most profitable companies, the ones that should, as per the Social Contract, support, as do the rest of the citizens, to the well-being and all that of the inhabitants of the coutries where they reside/operate.
You can't disagree with this.
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Alright, I can agree with the fact that capitalism might encourage said things; However in the end it is up to the individual people/groups of people and their conscience. Despite the flaws of capitalst society, I live in a country that suffered 40 years of communism reign, and the quality of life for majority of populace is much better than during those 40 years.
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I'm glad your standards of living have improved. Relatively, everone's mostly have, tho. We never were a communist counrty and people now live better. But I do agree that from a corporation point of view, collectivist systems have their problems.
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It being not new, or common, does not make it less bad, does it? I mean, in any case, it makes it waaaaaaaaaaaay worse a thing, right?
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You don't have to bribe anyone. There is a race to offer companies the best deal, as that attracts them to your (usually tiny) country, thus you get some crumbs. That everyone else loses more than they win, doesn't matter in that logic. Neither does it that other tax havens will attempt to offer an even better deal, in a race to the bottom.
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Then the rest of the countries should forbid those companies to operate in their territory if they pay taxes in tax havens. But they don't do that because those companies have lobbies in Brussels bribing everyone.
When I buy something on Amazon Spain they bill me from Luxembourg, they're a bunch of scoundrels.
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It's not. There are an army of very smart tax lawyers who can find any loophole and exploit them in full - and some loopholes are near-impossible to close.
I've seen tax breaks on insurance payouts exploited by hedge funds, tax breaks on churches exploited by real estate management, and tax breaks on charities exploited by entrepreneurs.
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The amount of things that are tax-deductible or can be circumvented is insane, especially if you exploit stuff like international loopholes, I too discover new things on almost a daily basis through what I do for a living... though much of the obvious exploits could easily be shut down if anybody truly cared. Just look at Europe, the amount of even sometimes contradicting tax laws of its member states is ridiculous, either it was planned from the beginning to be a clusterfuck or they were just too stupid to realize what they were doing. I tend to go with the latter, just out of experience ;D.
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"As is often the case with corporate tax avoidance, though, the loophole they're using is entirely legal."
Don't hate the player, hate the game? Okay, hate them both, but it doesn't accomplish anything.
Honestly, I'm just jealous. (You (collectively), too, right?) I'd do it if I could legally get away with it.
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I mean, I kind of enjoy it. The main reason being that without it I couldn't get medical care and law enforcement help.
It's not just me that I'd be affecting, I'd fuck so many others over.
While yeah, enjoyment might not be the best word, I wouldn't be such a massive arsehole and just deny others from actually having a chance at a livable life. Especially if I was rich or powerful.
I account for the taxes. I make decisions based on it. If I do so, I don't really have a reason to have a necessity for evading taxes. Yeah, it's not perfect, but sadly life isn't perfect. Otherwise, I'd be having sex with Mila Kunis while a few other hot celebrities would be begging to join.
It's unsurprising though. Most companies like to evade taxes though.
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maybe Topware Interactive (Germany)?
i remember this developers reply
And if you mean, that we ask for personal information like address and birthdate - we do this because we have to - we are located in Germany, EC and have a lot of regulations for VAT, for age rating and whatever more. For sure other companies have their store "supposed to be" somewhere offshore e.g.♥♥♥♥♥in Hong Kong or GOG in Cyprus, where you can do whatevery you want and an anonymous One Click Paypal checkout without personal data is allowed. But we get even 2000$ warning letters from lawyers, if we do not place a special age verifcation post stamp (which only costs money and nobody knows about) on every game we ship.
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Topware… honestly, I cannot, with good conscience, call them a large player. They published some games which were moderate hits and have some recognition, true, but still, they are mostly making some decent presence in the German/Central European market.
On the other hand, they have 100+ employees, so I guess they could fit the bill.
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This is normal in the business world, but it's only part of the story. That Dutch subsidiary would typically funnel the profits to another shell corporation in another tax haven. the Netherlands doesn't tax royalties on intellectual property, but otherwise has high taxes
Every business shifts profits from high tax regions to low tax regions. Luxembourg, Bermuda, panama, caymans, Isle of Man, guernsey, Liechtenstein, they're all used for these purposes.
Likewise, most ships are registered in Panama, the Marshall Islands, and Liberia.
Welcome to how the world works
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I don't see what's wrong with this. Millionaires getting more money they will never spend is obviously way more important than sick people getting healthcare they need to literally survive unless you're a communist. /s
Edit: Additionally, even if it wasn't, it's OK because others do it. Please also buy my book: How To Murder and Get Away With It: Point out thousands of other people are doing the same thing anyway and do we need to have a court trial every time someone dies? Because honestly it happens way too often to be a concern.
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No one pays taxes if they have half a chance or think that they can get away with it. 😑
It's the nature of the beast.
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There is welfare. While you don't make enough money to be taxed, here is several hundred a month for sitting on your butt pretending to look for a job in a place with dozens of hiring signs, and several hundred more dollars and tons of entitlements if you are living here illegally. Be sure to vote Democrat to keep receiving handouts.
Some welfare is ok, but not what we have right now.
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Oh yeah let me guess you got a job? lucky for you. It's so ignorant to think everyone on wellfare are just lazy and sit on their butt.
Not that i even meant that group, lots of people with a job that could barely get around, and if those don't pay taxes (which usually are too high) then they will get in problems too. And each country will differ, but governments love to tax each and every single thing, like 20-25% on just groceries, it's pathetic. And companies like a Star Bucks, can easily dodge millions of taxes, not called anything but greed.
Not even mentioning how many tax money is just thrown away on useless or failed projects.
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I got a job. Does that permit me to have an opinion? My taxes will support other people, so I have a lot of say in the matter. Always got to be someone who takes extreme offense at any criticism of welfare. There will always be welfare queens and people who abuse it where it exists. I am sure there are some people who really need it.
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Everyone has their own opinion but you are generalizing, that most people on welfare are just lazy. I would like to see you without a job, living on it and not being able to find a job no matter how hard you try and then to have that same opinion. Because i don't think you will.
And it's a very common remark by people with a job to call those without lazy, and that's not right.
Actually you don't have a say, because i don't think you even make millions to make even a slight impact nor does anyone really have a say where there taxes go, so you don't have a say in the matter. Nor does even 10% of all taxes go to those people you mention, if you would give everyone a base income you cut down so many bureaucracy it'd be even cheaper then giving out wellfare.
Anyway i am not in the mood for this, you got your opinion about it, i got mine. But to generalize all/most on welfare would be lazy that is just ignorant.
Governments would tax even on air if they could because they are just as greedy as the companies they defend.
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It's a common self-defense tactic to dehumanize the unemployed. Plays back into the latent fear that anyone is just a few bad beats away from being in the same situation.
People like cowbell don't realize that this is the unfortunate reality of a capitalist economy. There will not, and cannot, be enough jobs for everyone.
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Better than how Socialism utterly destroys countries like Venezuela. I was on welfare as well. It didn't pay enough, so I had to either cut back on spending or get a job, which is easy because I wasn't like those lazy people who turn up their noses at physical labor. Sad that people are convinced that others would never take advantage of free stuff.
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If you were both "on welfare" and "not lazy," you contradict yourself entirely.
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So you do admit to being both "on welfare" and also "not lazy," correct?
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Okay, so just deflection then. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Work-for-living-wage is becoming an outdated concept. Universal income will eventually become the norm, with or without the "-isms."
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It was proven during Obama's terms that if you open the flood gates to welfare, many more people would get off work and leech off the taxpayer. Tens of millions left work and tens of millions got on welfare. It wasn't a simple switch of the numbers, but the laws made it so easy to get free money. When you can get on welfare for saying you hurt your back and the government hands you checks without making sure that the pain was serious enough to be on disability, then yeah, I can generalize that so many people are abusing a free thing.
I would like you to succeed in life and to see that you help others succeed as well. Your attitude that only rich people should save a say in the matter because they are taxed so heavily, shows an utter contempt to those who are poor, despite that there are more than a hundred million who pay taxes in smaller amounts. Economies are built off of many people and not the very successful few.
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And one day i will succeed, just wanted to have said "my attitude" that only rich people should have a say is incorrect i never once implied that, in fact i think that's what the issue is and always been that a big companies have too much of a say (behind the scenes) it's also why they get tax deals.
All i did say is any average joe with a normal job does not have any say whatsoever, you can vote, you can air an opinion but frankly our governments could care less and do what they want in the end.
And for the rest i completely agree with doctorofjournalism, that it can always happen to anyone, that they will be left without a job and there aren't enough, and with everything getting robotized (or however it is called) and an increase of population that will only get worse.
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The tax industry is set up for companies to find loopholes to avoid paying as much in taxes as they should.
I work in accounting and have taken a few Income Tax courses.
If anything, you should go ahead and buy some Activision stock. They are doing quite well as a company.
A good chunk of my portfolio is invested in Activision and I have had some large gains.
This is why companies pay large sums of money for Tax Planning and guess what? That's all deductible as well!
The more you pay to find work arounds, the more you can deduct!
EDIT: Also, you failed to mention the many US companies (in all industries) who do this as well!
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I keep finding out more companies are using tax havens, but I never seen any of them receive punishments from their respective national governments.
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If the tax code was much more concise, there would be almost no room for loopholes. A few lines for a flat tax and another line telling companies that having tax havens would be punished with heavy fines, would close up corporate welfare very quickly.
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I hate to come off condescending, but your statement indicates a lack of understanding about how taxes (or tax evasion, to be more precise) works
1) any deduction can be abused. "legitimate business expenses" are very open to interpretation
2) flat tax or progressive tax makes no difference in this respect. Plus, a far bigger issue is treating different classes of stock differently
3) "having tax havens" isn't the right answer, because (a) "tax haven" is a very questionable term, and (b) if we do trade with any other country, there's a possibility for revenue shifting, which can be abused.
4) there are plenty of other ways to alter one's tax burdens that aren't even based on tax laws
Yes, the tax code should be more concise. And there are some ridiculous things in there (e.g. NYS used to give tax deductions to buyers of SUV cars). But any tax code will always have "fairness" debates, and as long as government uses taxes to enact policies there will be abuses thereof and taxes can be an effective way to enact policy. Likewise, as long as we want to have trade with other countries, there will be the possibility of abuse.
basically, any policy/ law, tax or otherwise, will always have unintended consequences. The better question is whether those unintended consequences are worth it
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the more legislation, the more loopholes.
The less words that go into legislation, the more lawsuits to figure out what the legislation actually means basically, more words means more specificity, means less ambiguity. The more ambiguity, the more lawsuits
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Agreed with the first sentence. The number of lawsuits only means that money or power changes hands and having more of them means there is more to get. Many lawsuits end up being baseless, but lawyers still get paid.
The second Amendment of the Constitution is clear cut, but in an effort to weaken the Constitution, many lawsuits were made to challenge that the people deserve to be able to protect themselves with firearms.
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funny, I think the second amendment is the worst-written of them all, mainly because of the first half, which is a qualifier:
Had it simply said "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" it would have been clear cut. Adding the language about a well-regulated militia seems to indicate some kind of limitation. Intent language can be used to clarify purpose or indicate meaning in a statute. Furthermore, the language is less direct.
"because of X, Y shall not be limited". But now there's room to argue the reason of X, or what it means to limit Y.
compare that to the first amendment:
"congress shall not to X, Y, Z". No loophole, no limitation, no argument. plain language.
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oh, and that's the other thing, the 2nd amendment does not say that people deserve to be able to protect themselves with firearms, nor was that the intent. The purpose of the amendment is to allow people to form a militia, to collectively protect the town.
The backdrop is that there was a fear that the newly formed government could end up being just as tyrannical as the old one don't comment to this, and so the states wanted a guarantee that the local militias would not be disbanded. The modern equivalent are the state guards.
See e.g. Jade Helm when Texas deployed the State Guard to monitor the military training exercise that was taking place in Texas and Utah - after rumors spread that the government was planning a takeover again, please don't comment on the validity thereof
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Freaking taxes.
Couldn't governments make more money another way?
Just seems like anybody with any real taxable income is smart enough to NOT pay taxes, while the rest of the noobs can barely afford to pay taxes.
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Governments don't "make money." Taxation is how government is funded.
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Actually some governments do f.e. The American government when they took down the most notorious drug dealers in South America and replaced them with puppets of their own.
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That's quite a stretch, as the allusion was more to a store-front ideology. But to play into your example, said incursions were funded by tax dollars and the ultimate goal was never profit in and of itself.
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Haha, okay that is actually really funny. Got me 😆
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Yes because clearly, this is a shock and very new trend of U.S. companies evading taxes though really they are not evading they just find ways not to pay it legally.As to evade taxes means to not pay what you owe.Funny how this OP uses the Steam platform that is run by Valve the same corporation that also does things to avoid paying taxes.So, in fact, the OP supports the same scum that is Activision
Crazy I know.....
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So apart from the whole this is what heaps of other major companies do (thinking of Apple and Google in Ireland here)
Trump will rewrite the tax code soon. He will slash taxes and let companies like his own remain entirely US based, but not pay much tax at all.
Activision can go home soon :)
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In 2009, [...], Activision assigned its intellectual property – that is, ownership of its games – to the Dutch-basement-dwelling ATVI CV.
[...]ATVI CV, a company with no employees whose management lives in Bermuda, was able to receive some €4.3 billion in royalties and turn a profit of €2.3 billion
Profits on which Activision paid precisely zero in tax. [...] Ironically, during that same five-year period Activision US wrote off another €141 million in tax for its R&D expenses. For games that – on paper – are “R&D’d” by a Dutch company.
Sooo, trickle down economics, right? Invisible hands. Thank god, activision is creating jerbs.
Anyhow, they are scum and should pay taxes. When you go buy a lootbox in OW don't only consider how it's despicable gambling geared towards children, but also think they are taking your money and laughing with it on their way to the bank.
Cheers.
SOURCE: https://thecorrespondent.com/6942/bermuda-guess-again-turns-out-holland-is-the-tax-haven-of-choice-for-us-companies/417639737658-b85252de
and in video form if you don't like reading
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFKnv1YzI3k
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