Re: [tlug] perl? (was: Employment for "oldies")

[Benjamin Kowarsch <trijezdci@example.com>]

Off topic, but ...

On 16 August 2016 at 22:52, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

There's only one metric that can't be gamed, and that's profit.[2]

[2]  I mean at the organizational level we're talking about.  Of
course whole companies like Enron and LiveDoor gamed profit, but they
could do that because they could rewrite the accounting system.

There is no need for that. You can game profits in a perfectly legal manner. The magic trick is called transfer pricing. All the large multi-nationals are doing it.

File a trademark for Turnbull Coffee in country A at a cost of about 200-300 bucks per annum filing fees. Own that trademark in low-or-no-tax country B and charge exorbitant royalties to yourself in country A. Export coffee from country B at immensely inflated prices to yourself in country A. Et voila, profit gamed.

Every multi-national corporation is in this game at various levels of agressiveness. Apple and Starbucks are amongst those known to be using it most agressively.

Starbucks have used it to never make any profit in the UK (and may well do so in other countries). As far as their tax returns are concerned they have been giving out coffee to the British public at a loss. How nice of them! Only last year did they volunteer to pay some taxes in the UK after the public got wind of the scheme and people were calling for a boycott.

Apple have used it to cut down their tax bill to 1.9% on worldwide revenue (this figure was reported for 2014).

All of this is perfectly legal. No meddling with accounting systems required.