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I wonder how these "office raids" would work for remote first companies that don't have much of an office presence and with little or no physical documents and
by seiferteric 2y ago
I wonder how these "office raids" would work for remote first companies that don't have much of an office presence and with little or no physical documents and everything being stored in the cloud somewhere.
- nerdponx 2y agoIf you can get access to someone's laptop with SSO login access to the cloud storage (or their email inbox and Slack messages), then you have what you need.
- aspenmayer 2y agoIIUC email messages on cloud services older than 180 days don’t even require a US warrant(!) anyway. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/update-email-privacy-law-must-go-further https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/update-email-privacy-l... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Priv...
- Etheryte 2y agoI mean, that would be way easier for the government agencies, no? Just send a subpoena to the service providers, they hand over all the data and you're done?
- crest 2y agoIf everything is synchronised to third party could storage an "office raid" can be as easy as getting a court order telling the cloud provider to make a snapshot of everything stored available to the police.
- spwa4 2y agoIs there a product allowing for client-side encrypted mounts? Or just use a SAAS outside of the country that doesn't allow for exporting any data under any circumstances?
- playingalong 2y agoThe whole point (or at least the main point) of the tax paperwork is to be able to produce them to tax investigators. If you don't want to share anything, then it's easier not to do the accounting. Which I guess is severally illegal globally.
- HelloNurse 2y agoBeing unable/unwilling to produce mandatory records is fraud. Technical measures to be unable to produce records (e.g. offshore and encrypted archival) are evidence of criminal intent and possibly separate crimes.
- spwa4 2y agoSo why did every company in the world start auto-deleting emails ~10 years ago? I don't believe many people were sued for fraud. These days cloud services have auto-delete based on time functionality? It's called "object lifecycle management", because I guess fraud was too catchy.
- gruez 2y agoUsually tax laws have a cut-off date. You don't need to keep records forever, but you do need to keep them around for a few years.
- spwa4 2y agoStrange, because that sounds reasonable but the reasoning doesn't actually work, does it? Either "the law" can be trusted, and there's no point to deleting data after a cut-off date, or the reverse is true and you're no worse off getting caught deleting data. I believe the law actually provides a middle ground. You're liable for tax fraud for X years, but you're allowed to delete the data after Y years. Since X > Y you make it much harder for the tax office to sue you if you delete data. Plus make it pointless for them to use their other investigative powers against you, which is in reality more important, especially for smaller firms.
- s_dev 2y agoI'd imagine you'd get done for not being tax compliant. At least in Ireland you have to able to show all tax accounting for the last four years on request by Revenue. If you can't produce this and all the files 'have gone missing' or 'we can't find the cloud keys' I'd would expect to be fined out of existence and ordered to cease trading immediately. So that would be worse that getting dragged through the courts while you pay lawyers to figure out to mitigate any fines or sentences passed down. I think it can even result in prison time for the CEO and other company officers.
- dylan604 2y agoI'd expect it to something along the lines of "sorry Mario, but the princess is in a different castle" bit of shell game. "no no mister Revenue man, we have that information you want, but it's in a different office".
- s_dev 2y agoThere is only so much you can play whack a mole -- virtually nobody 'cheats' the taxman. There are plenty of legal loopholes etc. if you are smart enough to use them. If you aren't -- you'll find the enforcement end of the tax authorities in ANY country are pretty efficient. Even in third world countries where many services are falling down the tax authorities will be a well oiled machine as the stability of the entire country rests on the government even corrupt ones to collect taxes.
- avianlyric 2y agoThis is why companies are required to have registered addresses. As far as the law is considered, that address is where all your records can be accessed, and requested from. If the state turns up at that address, and you tell them they’re at the wrong address, then the directors start becoming liable for fraudulent behaviour.
- beeboobaa3 2y agosure but politely demanding some documents is not the same as raiding an office
- 2y ago
- diggan 2y ago> everything being stored in the cloud somewhere Sounds like it would make it easier for law enforcement. They no longer need a warrant against/for the company they're investigating, just the place where their data is stored. Get the warrant, raid the place and grab the drives, then continue the investigation. Done the right way, the company under investigation wouldn't even notice it.
- seiferteric 2y agoThat's why I wonder if these raids are really more for show, can't they do this pretty much already?
- belter 2y agoCompletely for show since they even make press releases about it. And its sad to see the atrocious quality of the BBC article. Even high school students learn that a journalistic piece, should make sure it touches the Five Ws of good journalism... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws The Hollywood Reporter has much better quality reporting including context: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-europe-offices-raided-tax-fraud-probe-1236053973/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/net...
- oceanplexian 2y agoThe data is stored on a server in another country where the warrant isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Now what?
- crossroadsguy 2y agoThat is why countries are increasingly demanding (and mandating) those data (of citizens and business done there or that involves that nation or its citizens) to be stored inside their borders.
- scarface_74 2y agoFirst the data is stored in another country. Second are they really going to raid and take the drives at an AWS data center that has other customer’s information? How will they know which drive to take?
- rty32 2y agoI don't know how it works in other countries, but in the US you likely still need to provide a real address for many purposes (tax, immigration if applicable, etc) The police could just find the correct targets and raid their home instead.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoI have a virtualmailbox.com address - all my banks, the IRS, state voting commission and USCIS (immigration authorities) are all perfectly fine with it.
- aspenmayer 2y agoWouldn’t your identity documents required to open a bank account show a residential address?
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoCan't say for sure. I opened all my bank accounts while still having a proper residential address, but after relocating to another country changed the address to a virtual one, no one said a word.
- isodev 2y agoIt depends on the type of business. In the EU, VAT registered companies are usually mandated to have a physical location and local representative within the country of operation. So you can be remote all you want, as long as your company and fiscal representative can be reached at a physical location.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoYes, but you can hire anyone as an administrator and promise them a whole of money if they end up having issues with the law. I would hire homeless people to “run” the company.
- betaby 2y agoIn Canada hire indigenous people as owner to save on taxes / get preferential treatment. See ArriveCAN (non-)scandal.
- isodev 2y agoA homeless person wouldn’t qualify as they don’t have a fixed address which is mandatory. Ultimately, if you really have bad intentions, you find a way. It’s a question of risk and responsibility if you want to put yourself in such a position or not.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoActually, in many countries, homeless people have IDs with their last address on. Having a home and having an ID with an address on it are two different things.
- _ink_ 2y agoThere was an interview with Anne Brorhilker, who used to be state's attorney and was investigating in CumEx cases. She stated that it is a huge pain, because you always need to ask the foreign agencies for assistance, which you sometimes simply won't get. It was a good listen. At first she needed to go empty handed, but then teamed up with competent tech guys. After that the smug faces stating, that the amount of data would be to much to handle for her little department quickly turned into concerned faces.
- tenacious_tuna 2y agoThat sounds fascinating, do you happen to have a link? (I'm getting a lot of German results, which unfortunately I don't have the fluency to parse to find the 'right' one.)
- _ink_ 2y agoHere you go: https://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/lnp500-zombiecalypse-im-grunewald?t=1%3A51%3A53 https://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/lnp500-zombiecalypse-im-grune... (it's in German, tho)
- tenacious_tuna 2y agothat's fine! I can handle translating an individual page (or interview) if I've high confidence it's the right/relevant one, just parsing search results is harder cross-language (for me, anyway). thanks much!
- asveikau 2y agoWhat do you think "the cloud" is? I'm reminded of an old meme, "the cloud is just someone else's computer". They could raid a data center and seize machines. They could also subpoena data they are looking for.
- lowkey_ 2y agoYou'd likely be seizing a bunch of other innocent people's data too, then, no? As an American, I'd be really surprised if we let that happen. I looked and found it apparently happened once, in 2009 in Texas: https://www.cio.com/article/278564/data-center-when-the-fbi-raids-a-data-center-a-rare-danger.html https://www.cio.com/article/278564/data-center-when-the-fbi-... It resulted in another company essentially being shut down, and suing for their data back. Crazy. There has to be a better way of doing that digitally (I assume there is, these days, and we won't see something like this again).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- asveikau 2y agoThe idea that running stuff in the cloud will protect you from a criminal investigation is totally absurd.
- lowkey_ 2y agoI wasn’t thinking about that at all and don’t think it would - I was mentioning how things have moved to the cloud these days, and what the implications are for innocent unrelated parties’ data, given that the cloud involves this overlap of data on one device.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- grecy 2y agoWhat if those machines are on another continent?
- oceanplexian 2y agoIt doesn’t. Especially with multinationals, and doubly so as crypto gains adoption. Hence why the governments of the world are in a panic. Decentralization is a huge threat to bureaucracy since their tools of intimidation and control are less effective.
- immibis 2y agoMultinationals yes, crypto not really. The problems with crypto are just an extension of the existing "war on drugs" that has never really succeeded at anything besides justifying why lots of tax money should be spent murdering citizens.
- Algent 2y agoThat's basically what happened when they tried (twice I think ?) to raid Uber offices in France, their boss pressed a kill switch and everything went down in seconds. It completely blocked the investigation. Afterward Uber helped Macron campaign who then ordered National Financial Prosecutor's office to "stop bothering them" so I don't think anything new happened since. Edit: Some sources in below replies for infos on both. Turn out I'm wrong for 2nd part it started earlier than his campaign.
- Muromec 2y agoSounds like obstruction of justice or what not
- nicce 2y ago> Afterward Uber helped Macron campaign who then ordered National Financial Prosecutor's office to "stop bothering them" so I don't think anything new happened since. Isn’t that kinda definiton of corruption?
- hulitu 2y agoNo. Corruption is when the others are doing it. /s
- Algent 2y agoI do need to correct myself, look like "friendship" started before his election: https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/18/a-privileged-relationship-with-president-emmanuel-macron-helped-establish-uber-in-france https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/18/a-privileged-relationshi... Pretty crazy to support a business designed to never pay tax. This bring nothing beside "precarious employment".
- grecy 2y agoWoah, slow down there citizen. It’s been rebranded to “lobbying” and “campaign contributions”. Much cleaner. Better optics.
- lm28469 2y agoAhahahah you fool, don't be ridiculous, in civilized western countries we call it lobbying
- badpun 2y agoThe authorities asks for access to these online documents? Similarly to how they ask to access to physical documents (they don't break down doors and break locks on file cabinets). If the personel of the company does not disclose some of the online documents, and these documents come up later (e.g. because they are referenced in some of the documents that did get disclosed), the people who did it get charged with tampering with an tax investigation.
- croes 2y agoThey just demand the data per warrant and if you don’t deliver you go to jail for obstruction of justice
- red_trumpet 2y agoIs that true? I'm not a lawyer but AFAIU, you don't have to provide incriminating evidence against yourself?
- bogeholm 2y agoIt’s more or less the dictionary definition of ‘subpoena’ eg. [0]: > under penalty (you shall bring with you) [0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subpoena%20duces%20tecum https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subpoena%20duces%...
- croes 2y agoThe IT guys aren’t the ones under investigation.
- gruez 2y agoHow does that work if it's a cloud system and you're denied access because the IT admin from another continent locked you out? Are you going to keep the executive around as a hostage in hopes of getting them to release the files?
- cynicalsecurity 2y agoWhat a funny naive thinki. Cloud services don't protect from the official authorities. Unless you want to go to jail.