4 ms·

> US administration wants the company to do it's bidding regarding policy and algorithms for political advertising? Unfounded conspiracy theory? Just because

> US administration wants the company to do it's bidding regarding policy and algorithms for political advertising? Unfounded conspiracy theory? Just because they haven't gone after other companies, doesn't mean they shouldn't go after Facebook. They might believe the other companies are guilty but don't have enough evidence to win the trial. Facebook is clearly a US company. Founded and HQ'd in the US, so they should be paying US taxes.

harryh 7y ago
Facebook does pay US taxes. That is not in dispute. But facebook does business all over the world. The question is about the proper handling of overseas income. How much of that should face local tax rates vs US tax rates? It's a complex area of tax accounting and there are a lot of judgement calls to be made. This lawsuit is about one of those judgement calls.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
speleding 7y ago
> Facebook is clearly a US company. Founded and HQ'd in the US, so they should be paying US taxes. If most of the advertisers are outside the US, most of the users are outside the US, and most of the servers are outside the US, I think you will agree that it's not reasonable to say ALL of the profit should be taxed in the US. Which part of the profit should go where is an endless debate among pundits, politicians and academics.
- raiyu 7y ago
  Except Facebook makes most of its money from US users not from international users. Also hard to argue that their campus that houses the majority of their employees in the US isn’t the one generating the IP.
  - speleding 7y ago
    > Except Facebook makes most of its money from US users not from international users. Source? 96.75% of the world population is outside the US, of Facebook users it will be a smaller percentage, but it seems highly unlikely that most of the revenue will come from such a narrow base.
    - thfuran 7y ago
      Does China use facebook? Don't they have their own thing?
    - luckylion 7y ago
      What a weird way to approach that claim. The population inside or outside the USA plays a tiny role. a) China and Russia aren't involved, so strike 2bn from that b) it's not about people "existing", it's about people being a customer (or product, whatever view you prefer), facebook is obviously more widespread in a first world, high tech society where practically everyone has a smartphone than in some thirld world country where electricity is rare and unstable and c) revenue per user. statista [1] claims it's much, much higher than in the rest of the world. With that coming in at a 3:1 or 4:1 or even 5:1, that alone would make the US a heavy weight in revenue. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average...
  - harryh 7y ago
    Those things are true, but not really the point. 1) The entire issue here is about international revenue not US revenue. 2) Your second point is true but this IP was then sold to a subsidiary. The dispute is about the price paid in this sale, not about the origin of the IP.
- ahouse101 7y ago
  Most of their servers aren't outside the US, though. The majority (not plurality, the majority) of datacenters are here.
Mirioron 7y ago
The more I learn about what goes on in the world the more I ask myself "who does this benefit?" and many conspiracy theories seem to make a lot more sense. Governments and other large organizations have such a long and common history of doing shady things that it's really hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.

harryh 7y ago

Facebook does pay US taxes. That is not in dispute. But facebook does business all over the world. The question is about the proper handling of overseas income. How much of that should face local tax rates vs US tax rates? It's a complex area of tax accounting and there are a lot of judgement calls to be made. This lawsuit is about one of those judgement calls.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

speleding 7y ago

> Facebook is clearly a US company. Founded and HQ'd in the US, so they should be paying US taxes. If most of the advertisers are outside the US, most of the users are outside the US, and most of the servers are outside the US, I think you will agree that it's not reasonable to say ALL of the profit should be taxed in the US. Which part of the profit should go where is an endless debate among pundits, politicians and academics.

raiyu 7y ago
Except Facebook makes most of its money from US users not from international users. Also hard to argue that their campus that houses the majority of their employees in the US isn’t the one generating the IP.
- speleding 7y ago
  > Except Facebook makes most of its money from US users not from international users. Source? 96.75% of the world population is outside the US, of Facebook users it will be a smaller percentage, but it seems highly unlikely that most of the revenue will come from such a narrow base.
  - thfuran 7y ago
    Does China use facebook? Don't they have their own thing?
  - luckylion 7y ago
    What a weird way to approach that claim. The population inside or outside the USA plays a tiny role. a) China and Russia aren't involved, so strike 2bn from that b) it's not about people "existing", it's about people being a customer (or product, whatever view you prefer), facebook is obviously more widespread in a first world, high tech society where practically everyone has a smartphone than in some thirld world country where electricity is rare and unstable and c) revenue per user. statista [1] claims it's much, much higher than in the rest of the world. With that coming in at a 3:1 or 4:1 or even 5:1, that alone would make the US a heavy weight in revenue. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average...
- harryh 7y ago
  Those things are true, but not really the point. 1) The entire issue here is about international revenue not US revenue. 2) Your second point is true but this IP was then sold to a subsidiary. The dispute is about the price paid in this sale, not about the origin of the IP.
ahouse101 7y ago
Most of their servers aren't outside the US, though. The majority (not plurality, the majority) of datacenters are here.

Mirioron 7y ago

The more I learn about what goes on in the world the more I ask myself "who does this benefit?" and many conspiracy theories seem to make a lot more sense. Governments and other large organizations have such a long and common history of doing shady things that it's really hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.