{"id":24742,"date":"2014-05-07T10:29:47","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T09:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=24742"},"modified":"2014-05-07T10:29:47","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T09:29:47","slug":"google-wants-its-shareholders-to-vote-against-ethical-taxation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2014\/05\/07\/google-wants-its-shareholders-to-vote-against-ethical-taxation\/","title":{"rendered":"Google wants its shareholders to vote against ethical taxation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Domini Social Equity Fund in the USA and its partners have submitted\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/investor.google.com\/pdf\/2014_google_proxy_statement.pdf\">a shareholder proposal<\/a>\u00a0to Google for its annual meeting on May 14th\u00a0urging it to rein in its tax abuses. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxjustice.net\/2014\/05\/03\/petition-google-pay-taxes\/\" target=\"_blank\">There is\u00a0a petition in support of this proposal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The shareholder resolution, whose supporting documents contain a wealth of canny analysis, goes like this:<\/p>\n<div title=\"Page 1\">\n<blockquote><p>\u201cShareholders request the Board of Directors adopt a set of principles to address the impact of Google\u2019s tax strategies on society, with particular focus on Google\u2019s employees, customers and suppliers. In addition, the board should publish annual reports to shareholders, at reasonable cost, omitting proprietary information, discussing the implementation of these principles, beginning December 2014.<\/p>\n<p>We recommend a vote FOR this proposal on the following grounds, for which we provide more detail below:<\/p>\n<p>1. The proposal asks Google to establish principles guiding its approach to tax\u2014 this is not a vote on tax reform, or on how much tax Google should pay.<\/p>\n<p>2. Corporate tax avoidance threatens economic growth and innovation.<\/p>\n<p>3. Even if they are within the law, aggressive tax minimization approaches pose\u00a0regulatory, reputational and financial risks.<\/p>\n<p>4. Adoption of tax policy principles is a recommended responsible tax action.<\/p>\n<p>5.\u00a0Other companies have adopted tax policy principles.<\/p>\n<p>6. Google\u2019s tax strategy should be consistent with its stated objectives and policies\u00a0on social and environmental sustainability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It's hard to see what there could be to oppose in this but\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/investor.google.com\/pdf\/2014_google_proxy_statement.pdf\">Google\u2019s response<\/a>\u00a0looks like this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxjustice.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Google-against.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Google against\" src=\"http:\/\/www.taxjustice.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Google-against.jpg\" width=\"709\" height=\"146\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>NB: Thanks to Domini and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxjustice.net\/2014\/05\/03\/petition-google-pay-taxes\/\" target=\"_blank\">TJN for links to this<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Domini Social Equity Fund in the USA and its partners have submitted\u00a0a shareholder proposal\u00a0to Google for its annual meeting on May 14th\u00a0urging it to<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2014\/05\/07\/google-wants-its-shareholders-to-vote-against-ethical-taxation\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-tax-avoidance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}