Delicious LiveJournal Links for 10-31-2010

[andrewducker]

• Miniature human livers grown in lab
  (tags: science biology)
• HMRC state that vodafone's £6Bn tax bill is an urban myth.
  (tags: business mobile_phones tax uk government)
• Inventing Facebook - How Sorkin and Fincher created their alternative version(s) of reality for The Social Network.
  (tags: facebook movies writing thesocialnetwork aaronsorkin DavidFincher)

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Hmm but notice how the BBC article goes on to mention another large tax bill which Vodafone aren't paying...

[andrewducker]

Yes, because the Indian government wants it to pay for things which Vodafone say happened outside of India.

This seems to be a major problem with international tax law. I suspect you'll see the loopholes drawn closed on that kind of thing - but that it will take a few years for international agreements to be drawn up.

[miramon.livejournal.com]

But note that at no point do HMRC deny that they attempted to bill Vodafone £6Bn for doing their purchase of Mannesman through a dummy company in Luxembourg. They just say that their current position is that the tax liability was only ever £1.25Bn. Which is presumably what they agreed with Vodafone.

[andrewducker]

This is the problem with international tax law - the amount owed on transactions that occur across national boundaries depend on interpretation of what seem to be both vague and cotnradictory laws. This leaves plenty of wiggle room for companies and governments to make claims. HMRC may have decided to start off with the maximum possible (which they'd never be able to substantiate), with Vodafone claiming that none was payable, and then they'd haggle out an agreement.

Frankly, it seems like the whole thing is a mess. Sadly, it's a mess that some countries find useful (Luxembourg, Ireland, etc.), and thus it's not likely to be cleared up in the near future.

[andrewducker]

Aha!

Nice summary here:
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/11/01/why-are-there-protests-against-vodafone-a-simple-guide/#comment-191941
of the legal situation.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Miniature human livers grown in lab

Is it bad that my immediate thought was "ooh! cannibal canapes!"?

[andrewducker]

Dammit! Why didn't I think of that?

There's even an ObSF for it. A short story for which I remember neither the title or the author, but it's in a meeting for executives at a food corporation that makes artificial meat, and someone is explaining why their competitor's new product is so dramatically successful...