and i bet nobody goes to jail in the end, and ultimately they end up profiting after paying it back
You assume they’re paying it back and don’t do some pittance of a public service instead.
This article is basically their public flogging, they’ve paid their dues and can reenter society
For this to be criminal it’d probably require intent to be proven which is difficult without a “smoking gun” of an email being like “do this to avoid taxes or be fired”- CEO. For it just to be civil fines is a lot simpler to show. Their inevitable appeal and potential reduction in fine is a different issue.
Which is hilarious because ignorance is not a defence for poor people.
the poor are not, according to the american criminal system; ‘people’. mutually exclusive categories.
Of course they have intent. That’s not an issue at all. They’re trying to avoid taxes, which is in itself legal, and they aren’t denying that. Their theory is that the IRS is doing the math wrong.
It almost sounds like you’re saying corporations are not people. Don’t let the conservatives hear you say that.
16 billion dollars of money laundering isn’t an “honest mistake”…. criminal intent abounds
Sure but that’s a lot harder to prove.
With a wink and a nudge, transactions are often structured to shift profits from high-tax countries to low-tax countries to cut their tax bills. The most popular target for transfer pricing abuse is intangible property, including licenses for manufacturing, distribution, sale, marketing, and promotion of products in overseas markets. Since intangible property doesn’t really have a physical home—unlike, say, real estate—it’s easy to transfer it to countries that offer certain benefits, including more favorable tax treatment. (That’s what’s in dispute in the Coca-Cola case.)
Ugh
The intangible property for coke is a secret recipe that is preserved in some vault in the US. There’s no transfer of IP here and that’s not what’s in dispute.
The facts are centred around the profitability of concentrate producers that earn the super profits. Operating entities and the US makes a slim margin.
You can read a better informed analysis here.
The dispute centres on Coke subsidiaries in Ireland, Brazil, Eswatini and four other countries that manufacture concentrate, the syrup that gets mixed with carbonated water to make drinks such as Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite. The subsidiaries sit between the US parent company, which owns the brands, and the bottling companies that make the final product.
The company routinely shifted production of concentrate to countries with favourable tax rates, the US tax court found. The subsidiary in Ireland, which had a tax rate as low as 1.4 per cent, at one point shipped to bottlers in 90 countries.
Unlike independent contract manufacturers, which typically have low margins, an IRS analysis found these Coke subsidiaries were unusually profitable — earning a return on assets two-and-a-half times that of the US parent company that owns the iconic brands. By controlling how much the subsidiaries must pay other parts of the Coke network for use of the brands and marketing, and by setting the prices they can charge bottlers, Coke itself in effect decided their profitability, the court heard.
Those profit levels were “astronomical”, Judge Albert Lauber wrote in an initial ruling in 2020.
The company routinely shifted production of concentrate to countries with favourable tax rates
Manufacturing is different than IP transfers.
the US parent company that owns the iconic brands. By controlling how much the subsidiaries must pay other parts of the Coke network for use of the brands and marketing, and by setting the prices they can charge bottlers, Coke itself in effect decided their profitability, the court heard
IP is owned by the US. What they’re describing is transfer pricing. Subsidiaries are owned by coke hence by definition coke sets the prices under which the US charges for their IP. It’s tax advantageous to charge a low amount to shift profits to low tax jurisdictions.
Numbers look massive but overall not large enough. Coke is gigantic and the dispute spans multiple years. The IRS hasn’t always covered themselves in glory and they may still fumble a technical aspect on the burden of proof.
Interesting to see it unfold but coke has a history of environmental, business and humane malpractices. This is just another outcome of such business model.
Always preferred Pepsi anyway.
looks at Pepsi’s record
Ah shit
Removed by mod
You know, maybe all those hippies that have been home brewing their sodas lately have the right idea
You should try my craft fizzes. I’ve made a custom… ok I’ve already made myself want to jump off a bridge.
Removed by mod
I thought child slaves are good because more profit? /s
Water is not problematic (except for at least four fifths of bottled water)
Fun fact, these back taxes are higher than the share value of the entire company (~$11bn market cap).
Edit: I was misled by this site. The cap is much larger, and my fact was not fun.
Good. I hope it hurts.
But it’s only back taxes on profits we know about
Sure, it might be prudent to always assume any reported white collar crimes are at least one order of magnitude greater than we get to know. That said, I was really impressed with their stock ticker company description blurb where they strive to “honor God” in all their works.
Assuming they’re referring to the Christian God, a selfish, emotionally unstable mega toddler, their behavior would be appropriate.
Do people upvote these comments without checking anything? Does it sound reasonable for one of the largest companies in the world to be worth only $11 billion?
The Coca-Cola Company is worth $296 billion. I don’t think they’ve been worth only $11 billion since the '80s.
I’m going to stop using this site, as it currently states a market cap of “11,091,895,682” dollars. Thanks for the correction.
That’s a US bottling company that buys from the actual Coca-Cola Company.
The company was formerly known as Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated and changed its name to Coca-Cola Consolidated, Inc. in January 2019.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/COKE/profile/
These bottling companies are the ones that beat people up in developing countries, not the actual manufacturer. They can be confusing.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Well, I at least stand by my earlier point, that white collar crime is usually way worse than is ever reported.
This sort of stuff is why the corporate veil needs to be abolished. If they’re not criminals, then they can buy insurance.
The fact that there are so many legal loopholes to use to save from paying taxes, the fact they go this far to avoid taxes is disgusting.
When you’re a billion dollar company, It’s cheaper to bribe politicians than it is to pay taxes.
There’s a supreme Court judge right now who was giving companies favorable laws for like a pack of twizzlers.
How would that help! Coke sells cola, not Twizzlers! /s
it is just an inevitable consequence of money and lobby based politics. Whoever contributed to turn US elections into something like a pro wrestling match event is to blame
I wish they’d pay the taxes in the country the drinks were bought. Even if the US manages to scrape back some, that’s only one country seeing the taxes owed.
Fun fact, most laws are written by the corporations to which they apply. There’s no possible way for politicians to actually write all of the laws, so they rely on their corporate
paymasterslobbyists to go ahead and write them, then have their staff skim through it all, and then sign off on it before it goes off to the chamber for a vote.There’s no possible way for politicians to actually write all of the laws
Then they can ask nonprofits for help, or transition to liquid democracy, or just write simpler fewer laws. What they’re doing now is worse than doing nothing.
Anyone who tells me “there’s not enough money to go around” in the future is getting punched. I don’t care if I catch an assault charge. That propaganda was bullshit the first time I heard it and it’s always been propaganda.
Did you know it doesn’t even have cocaine in it anymore? What a ripoff!
Coca Cola ensured that international drug laws grant them an exception to use real coca leaves (with the cocaine extracted from them first). Oddly enough, they could still make their cola taste the same without the leaves. The reason they still use them is because they likely wouldn’t be allowed to call it “coca” cola if it had no coca leaves. The name was so recognizable that they asked for an exception to drug laws rather than change the name of their drink.
The other reason is they make a good profit selling medicinal cocaine.
Branding is one helluva drug
Sounds like an excuse to extract cocaine to me
Eh, works for me. BRB, making a new product called coca tea, for the… uh… tea.
When did they quit putting cocaine it? If I’d known that then I wouldn’t have been buying it anymore!
Around 120 years ago, give or take
I’m so sick of companies taking every opportunity to be egregiously shitty in the name of profit.
These are the incentives of the economic system. Are you up for radical change? We can’t rely on companies choosing to be moral and nice.
We need workers to own the economy.
We need workers to own the economy
We need an economic system that rewards acting in the common good. This system, but with the workers in charge is still this system which rewards all the bad stuff of modern capitalism
A single owner-dictator is less likely to make decisions for the common good than all employees owning their workplaces together.
Socialism, however it’s implemented (besides state capitalism a la China, which also isn’t socialist), necessarily moves us closer to what you’re saying.
You know there’s a range of options between unfettered capitalism and unfettered communism right?
Slap communism on a population that’s spent the past few generations training itself to reward cunts and you get the USSR on steroids.
Worker ownership over the economy doesn’t just mean communism. There are various socialist and anarchist approaches as well, and like you say a spectrum in-between.
There are even capitalist compatible options like workers cooperatives or novel solutions like mandating unions and union participation on the board.
I didn’t say we need to implement communism, you did. But I’m down!
I understand the value here, but I prefer to keep control over my business decisions. If employees are interested in having more influence, they should consider starting their own ventures. I believe maintaining direct control allows me to steer my business according to my vision and goals.
understand the value here. However, I prefer to keep control over my country’s decisions. If citizens are interested in having more influence, they should consider founding their own country. I believe maintaining direct control allows me to steer my country according to my vision and goals.
Democracy has been tried and failed, just recently France tried it again and reverted to Empire. If you don’t like where you are a subject, simply conquer some other territory. Let’s just reform monarchy.
Yes being a petite dictator is nice for you and nobody disputes that. Your ownership and profit comes at their expense.
Since they are giving up all of that control to you. You must be giving them most of the profits then right? Right? That would only be fair.
Or do you think you deserve more than them somehow because you had money to start a business and they only had skills and knowledge?
I started this business, taught the skills, and make the financial decisions based on what I think is best for the company. I value their input, but the final decisions are up to me since my name is on the line.
Again, if that doesn’t seem fair, maybe consider starting your own business.
So you do think you deserve more then lol
Making financial decisions isn’t a hard job dude. Every grown person is expected to do that in life.Your big benefit was that you had the capital to start the business. That’s why it’s called capitalism. The people with the money like you are like modern day lords. Only living off the privilege of having money when others don’t.
I would gladly start my business if I already had enough capital for it. But I need healthcare for my family and for some reason that is tied to my job, making it an insurmountable expense. Maybe that reason is to keep me working for oblivious people like you, instead of myself.
You don’t know how I started my business. I had only $300-$400 in capital while collecting unemployment, so don’t assume I had a lot of money. Making financial decisions isn’t easy when you’re broke.
As for free healthcare, you don’t need to change the entire economic system. Advocate for better policies and vote for leaders who will work to make it happen.
Yes you’re describing how capitalism works. Maybe you feel that you took a big risk and it paid off.
The risk you took was the risk of losing your capital.
There are many people out there who would not even notice that same amount of capital missing from their accounts.
That’s the thing with systemic problems. It doesn’t mean everyone participating in the system is causing those problems, it means the system results in those outcomes. Systemic racism doesn’t mean everyone with authority is racist, systemic inequality under capitalism doesn’t mean every business owner has a private jet.
Maybe you think you’re “a good capitalist” just like maybe you think there are good cops. That doesn’t mean capitalism and policing aren’t systemically problematic.
We need to destroy the system and that means getting rid of people like you too, whether or not you think you’re justified in skimming wealth from your employees because you were poor once.
deleted by creator
I’m equally sick of pretty much every sports stadium, event venue, theme park, cruise ship, etc. offering these companies’ beverages and all the consumers in the world that really don’t withhold from supporting these companies, despite their obvious shittiness.
Trust me… the astronomical amounts that they have found is nothing compared to what they didn’t find…
Mansions and yachts made of painted bill stacks
Coca Cola also sponsors this event:
Meta and Koch Industries to Sponsor Event Featuring Climate Denier Barry Cooper
Now do Cargill, Tyson, etc al.
A bit off topic, but US Coke tastes like shit
I’m pretty sure it’s because the use of absurd amounts of high fructose corn syrup. There’s 39g (can’t confirm, I got it from Google) of sugar in a 12oz (340ml) can. US soda is pretty much just carbonated high fructose corn syrup water with a bit of flavoring. There’s probably other significant differences too since the US has barely the minimum food safety laws.
Can confirm: HFCS makes everything taste awful and I feel awful afterwards. It also doesn’t satisfy my hunger/thirst the way cane sugar does, which is very concerning.
I only ever buy CocaCola (on special occasions) when it’s imported from Mexico, since that’s still made with cane sugar. This is nuts since it 1) costs more 2) is an American company whose product is being shipped back to us 3) is a superior product but has to be made elsewhere for “reasons.”
As if the US is the only country drinking flavored HFCS… 🙄
Quick googling shows that China, HK, Singapore, Malaysia, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Australia, UK, etc use real sugar
Yeah. Colombian is better.
Willing to bet the 16 bn is not really a year and a half of profits lol
deleted by creator
Thank you friend
I bet they won’t pay shit and we’ll just stop talking about it.
