Gmail Crash: Google Shuts Gmail Down to Hide Tax Avoidance Story (Satire)

Impact

While Gmail, Gchat and Chrome have been failing, it was revealed that Google avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011, by shifting $9.8 billion in revenues into a Bermuda shell company, reported Bloomberg. 

The increase in the company's revenues sent to the tax shelter, thanks to which Google effectively cut its overall tax rate almost in half, set the alarm in the European Commission — which is looking to create "blacklists" of global corporation that avoid paying taxes and adopt "anti-abuse rules" (tax evasion reportedly costs the EU €1 trillion a year). 

“The tax strategy of Google and other multinationals is a deep embarrassment to governments around Europe [...] the political awareness now being created in the U.K., and to a lesser degree elsewhere in Europe, is: It’s us or them. People understand that if Google doesn’t pay, somebody else has to pay or services get cut," said Richard Murphy, an accountant and director of Tax Research LLPin Norfolk, England.  

Read more on Bloomberg.

Weigh in: should the EU and the US close corporate tax loopholes?