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As long as it is legal - tax avoidance strategies makes perfect sense.

Why waste money on buying extra taxes?

Tax evasion does not count of course.




I just wish they would go back to making satisfying games.


Tax management as a strategy/puzzle game would honestly be a great time.


I knew a retired guy just like this. He had lots of investments and shares in subchapter S corps (and some influence in the distribution rate). His idea of fun was gaming out the different options he had for filing.


^ How you know you've become middle-aged.


Lucas Pope has made very successful games out of being a passport control officer and an insurance agent, so I'm sure he can manage a tax optimisation game too.


I could see it now.

Starbucks develops a "new brew". They fly the best coffee connoisseurs to a Liberian-flagged, Korean-built ship sailing from Saipan to Nauru, and develop a new formula there with equal parts Arabic beans and Robusta beans. They sell this new product worldwide, with marketing from a PR team domiciled in Malta, but operating in the Netherlands.

Where was the value created?


Blizzard's programmers develop a game in the US. It's hosted on US servers. It has an in-game currency system/DLC system, also hosted in the US, and processes card transactions in the US.

However, at the same time, they claim that the entity that runs the DLC purchase system is in Malta, where Blizzard has no employees, but uses an outside legal and accounting firm.

They claim all the value is in Malta.

I tend to disagree.


Bingo! This cuts right to the heart of the issue.


I don’t think any reasonable person disagrees.

We should send tax cases to juries for decisions.


They're not operating in The Netherlands. They're "operating" in The Netherlands. The "operating" refers to having a PO box. That's all they need to have a physical presence here.

See RamBam episodes (in Dutch, but contain some English too):

> S04E11 Nederland Belastingparadijs broadcasted 29 Apr 2015

> S05E05 Russische bedrijven in Nederland broadcasted 17 Feb 2016

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambam_(televisieprogramma)


Become non-resident for tax purposes and move to tax free jurisdiction.

Game over.


They are about to release one of their better games .. for the third time in a row, COD4MW.


Blizzard makes the games, Activision avoids the taxes. Synergy!




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