The US tax authority IRS wants to determine how sensitive data from the super-rich like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Warren Buffett could get to the public. "I can confirm that there is an investigation," said IRS chief Charles Rettig at a Senate hearing in Washington. The unauthorized disclosure of confidential government information is illegal, said a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department.

THESE 12 COMPANIES HARDLY PAY TAXES
DISNEY
In the last quarter of 2015 alone, Disney posted record profits of $ 2.9 billion . But as in the Disney fairy tale, the impossible becomes possible: Disney pays tax rates of sometimes less than one percent. Because Disney relocated its profits to Luxembourg, where the company founded an internal bank that taxed its profits at less than one percent . The offices of a total of five Disney offshoots are located on the ground floor of a Luxembourg house in which a Belgian works as a five-time director of the company. A single person administers societies through which billions flow.

MCDONALD’S
McSteuerflucht: Every employee pays more taxes than McDonald's itself. French authorities are investigating the fast-food mega-corporation on suspicion of tax fraud . McDonald's reportedly moved profits in France to Luxembourg. It's about 75 million euros a year. The EU Commission also initiated proceedings against McDonald’s because the group has "paid practically no corporate tax on its profits " in both Luxembourg and the USA .

GOOGLE
According to the Financial Times, the US Internet company Google moved license revenues of EUR 8.8 billion via Ireland and the Netherlands to the Bermuda tax swamp in 2012. As a result, the average tax rate abroad has fallen to around 5 percent . In France, police are investigating suspected tax fraud and raided Google's Paris office in 2016 . It is about possible tax back payments in the amount of 1.6 billion euros. In Italy it is about a tax back payment of 200 million euros, which Google Italia transferred to the parent company as “fees”. In addition, there are taxes on undisclosed profits amounting to 100 million euros. In total, Google owes Italy 227.5 million euros .

AMAZON
In 2012, Amazon paid corporate income tax of just 3 million euros in Germany for total sales of 6.8 billion euros. In the same year Amazon Germany directed 118 million of the profits made here to Luxembourg - so these profits were tax-free. Germany lost 35.4 million euros as a result. Since May 1, 2015, Amazon has been paying taxes on profits made in Germany, but the income is modest. Because Amazon artificially reduces its profits using subsidiaries that charge high fees for the use of patents and trademarks and thus reduce profits.

IKEA
The furniture manufacturer Ikea is a prime example of creating the most complicated group structures possible for the purpose of tax avoidance. According to a study by the globalization-critical NGO ATTAC, Ikea has created a nested group of jungles to hide the true level of sales. With a total profit estimated by ATTAC at 6 billion euros, the Ikea conglomerate paid a ridiculous 15% tax . The actual amount is likely to be even lower .

APPLE
With the help of the two companies Apple Sales International (ASI) and Apple Operations Europe, Apple reduced its tax burden to a ridiculous rate of 0.005 percent in 2014, thus cheating gigantic profits by the tax authorities. As ASI has no registered office anywhere in the world, it is not recorded for tax purposes. The EU Commission accuses Apple of violating EU law with agreements. Now Apple threatens a penalty of 13 billion euros to Ireland.

YOU ARE
The parent company of the Spanish textile company Zara, Inditex, has avoided an estimated 240 million euros in taxes since 2009 . As a result, Zara's profit grew rapidly: from 638 million euros in 2005 to 2.4 billion euros in 2013. Profits generated in Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain were transferred to a small subsidiary in Holland and subsequently to others Branch in Switzerland charged.

STARBUCKS
0 Euro taxes? For the US coffee house chain Starbucks, that's the pleasant reality. According to a report in the Handelsblatt, the group has never paid income taxes in Germany since 2002 and in France since 2004 . Again, the trick of paying license fees to a head office in the Netherlands works to depress taxable profit. Starbucks, for example, has reduced its tax burden on profits generated outside the US to 13%. Without license fees and interest, the German and French Starbucks subsidiaries would have made a profit of over EUR 10 million and had to pay taxes of EUR 3.4 million in the past two years. Starbucks advises that you only obey the law .


FACEBOOK
After years of excessive “poor math”, Facebook wants to pay more taxes from 2017 - at least a little, and at least in Great Britain. Although the UK is Facebook's second largest market after the US, taxes in 2014 were just £ 4,327 . Now Facebook wants to pay taxes on profits made by the company from advertising revenue in Great Britain, instead of booking sales for the largest advertising customers via Ireland as before. The profits that Facebook makes with the numerous small advertising customers, however, continue to flow through Ireland in a tax-friendly manner.

LUTZ
The furniture company XXXLutz set up a tax-saving model in 2007 with a subsidiary in Malta. This set off licenses for the brands of the Lutz group, for which they paid only 5% tax in Malta using a tax credit. In this way, the company saved millions in taxes in Austria. The former supervisory board member and previously managing director was today's ÖVP finance minister Schelling.

RAIFFEISEN
Those who are particularly talented not only pay no tax, but also receive a credit from the state. This was achieved by the Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien, which added up from 2006 to 2008 not only did not pay a single euro in taxes with a profit of 739 million euros, but also a credit of 21.6 euros from the state To reap millions of euros . During this period, all Austrian regional Raiffeisen banks made a profit of 1.9 billion euros and paid taxes of around 19 million euros. This results in a tax rate of exactly 1%. However, the official tax rate for Austrian banks is 25% - the Raiffeisenlandesbanken alone would have had to pay EUR 475 million to the state.

DEUTSCHE BANK / COMMERZBANK
German banks are actively helping foreign investors with tax avoidance and have caused damage of around 5 billion euros since 2011 . The banks used a tax trick: Shortly before the dividend was paid out, foreign shareholders lend their German shares to domestic banks, which - unlike foreign investors - can offset capital gains tax. The shares are then returned and the tax saved is shared.

That login form on the right hand side of the index gives me auth mismatch but still logs me in.

Inconvenient - but at least it works.

So this will probably come as a surprise to no one but once upon a time I had a youtube channel back in the simmania days.

a lot happened and I stopped doing it... except recently I started to get back into it!

been doing a let's play of ecco the dolphin and I'm always open to take requests and suggestions as I'm now in a position to actually have fun trying to do youtube again.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWhyfOV...HRhHdF06sA

I am Caprisun29 known as Greg I could not find my old account and I just came across this site again hoping to see some old friends Brian55 and Darth also Spooky and who ever is on is there a chat or anything on Makestation ? also long time no see as well my friends !

Moto3 rider Jason Dupasquier has passed away from injuries suffered at Mugello on Saturday.

Jason Dupasquier has tragically passed away from injuries sustained in Saturday's Moto3 qualifying accident at Mugello.

The 19-year-old Swiss rider, competing in his second grand prix season, fell on the exit of Turn 9, with the following Ayumu Sasaki and Jeremy Alcoba caught up in the aftermath.

After lengthy treatment by doctors at the scene of the accident, a medical helicopter arrived to take Dupasquier directly to a hospital in Florence. Sadly, his injuries proved too severe.


R.I.P

More

Microsoft isn't funny, joke of the year


Microsoft is now claiming the performance crown in the desktop browser battle. The software maker has been gradually adding new features to Edge over the past year to improve performance and launch times. These additions have allowed Microsoft to claim itself the performance winner, even as Google releases Chrome 91 today.

HAHAHAHA
Source

Microsoft isn’t talking about its big Windows plans at Build 2021 this week, and that’s because the company is preparing to detail what’s next for its PC operating system separately. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella teased this announcement during his Build keynote this morning, revealing he has been testing “the next generation of Windows” in recent months.

Source

A preview version of MyBB 1.8.27 expected to address numerous reported issues is now ready for public testing.

During this phase we welcome board administrators, developers and our Community to verify installation, upgrading, compatibility, and general stability using test and/or staging environments before an official upgrade is released and applied to live boards.


https://community.mybb.com/thread-232472.html

Congratulations to @tc4me for being named May 2021 Member of the Month!