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> Are you aware of how many services Google provides for free that make my life (and probably yours) better?

Are you aware of how many services the NHS provides for free which make my life better, despite being cripplingly underfunded?

I'm not saying that google are evil for avoiding taxes, bit neither am I convinced that I wouldn't be better off if the money made its way into my governments hands.

I'm not. Could you list some, please?

This is just for England but you should get the picture: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/Pages/NHSServi...

You're not saying much of anything. Health care is good and killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan is bad. Google doesn't have much to do with one or the other. Nor is the company responsible for the distributional choices British taxpayers make when they elect government officials who decide to underfund public health in favour of blowing stuff up.

Why is this even a point under discussion?

"In absolutely no way is it a stretch to say that and I'm terribly surprised you have any upvotes. Are you aware of how many services Google provides for free that make my life (and probably yours) better?"

Not free. All of those things are paid for by Ads. Google is a for-profit company making billions of dollars.

There is nothing evil about doing legal things to pay less taxes (large public corporations are practically required to); but that doesn't mean that the government shouldn't fix the exploit. If i'm paying 30% taxes on my minimal salary, i think Google can cough up a bit more than 1% on its billions. (Billions which are made possible by government infrastructure, research, etc).

Which of the above services do you think wouldn't exist if Google avoided less tax?

There's an opportunity cost of private companies paying less tax too - either someone else pays more tax which marginally decreases their ability to be productive and enterprising or something purportedly socially beneficial doesn't get paid for. Even coupled with inspired management, the profit motive doesn't ensure that an acquisition of say, Dodgeball for the price of a hospital wing, is an optimal use of resources.

Which of the above services do you think wouldn't exist if Google avoided less tax?

You're going to have to explain to me how this is relevant.

What Google is doing is legal which means that you're trying to make this an argument about ethics. My point is that Google provides real value to millions of people around the world and has the resources, both human and monetary, to make real progress in many areas of technology which then benefit you and me. It benefits me more to have the money stay at Google than go to a failed school system or failing healthcare system.

By adopting the "Don't be evil" motto Google makes this about ethics. If you say that you are going to hold yourself to an ethical standard, that means you will be judged by your ethics, not by your adherence to the letter of the law.

But really, the continuing argument that because you like Google Maps it's therefore better that Google gets to keep all of its tax euros out of the hands of underfunded public services is close to incoherent.

Unless you can show that those services are in the same sort of existential danger as high-end cancer treatment is in the UK, the argument is specious.

But really, the continuing argument that because you like Google Maps it's therefore better that Google gets to keep all of its tax euros out of the hands of underfunded public services is close to incoherent.

Unless you can show that those services are in the same sort of existential danger as high-end cancer treatment is in the UK, the argument is specious.

a. I did not say that Google shouldn't pay any taxes.

b. Whether you believe something to be 'underfunded' is a matter of perspective.

c. Not funding cancer research is not equivalent to not doing good or creating value.

I think you do have a point in that Google's slogan does make this about ethics. I still maintain that Google can do more good with more efficiency than any government.

I still maintain that Google can do more good with more efficiency than any government.

That's fine, but there are plenty of other people who disagree with the assertion. If the money is in the hands of the government, at least those other voices get a say in how it is spent.

The opportunity cost for anything you spend $3bn on is very high. A government could choose to spend it on cancer research or space ships. Google can really only spend it on a very narrow range of products -- and can't combine it with other serious numbers required to do the really heavy lifting, like that required to fix the disastrous public plumbing in the US.

If Google paying its taxes would mean that it couldn't do all the stuff it currently is, that's one thing. But they've got $33bn sitting in the bank. They can more than afford to pay their taxes and continue creating Wave and AdWords.

If we're going to be strictly factual about it, Google is actually spending money on cancer research and spaceships; http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/oncampus/08/10/google.html describes one of a number of grants that are going to researchers on, among other things, cancer; Larry Brilliant himself suffered from thyroid cancer. Also, Google bought SpaceShipOne, which is now on display at the Googleplex. Presumably Scaled Composites is using the proceeds from the sale for spaceship research. Sergey is going to space in a private space flight next year, assuming all goes well: http://www.spaceadventures.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.vie...

There are many other investments in cancer research and space travel being made by individual Googlers.

However, it is perhaps more to the point that both Google Search and Google Academic are crucial research tools for medical research and for aerospace engineering, as for many other fields.

Both directly and through its employees, Google is also funding substantial applied research in crucial areas such as renewable energy production, genomics, public health, and ground transportation.

I don't know what you mean by "disastrous public plumbing in the US". My experience with US municipal water supplies and sewers during the 29 years that I lived there was that they were inexpensive, reliable, safe, and efficient. My experience with water supplies (and sometimes sewers) in other countries has been much worse.

A personal note: I haven't ever tried to work for Google because of, essentially, ethical concerns: I am in danger of having to live in a world where a large fraction of our communications are intermediated by a single company, and I think Google's cultish secrecy is corrosive to the values of Silicon Valley. However, I think Google should only be dinged for its real faults, not imagined ones.

Sorry, that wasn't really the intention of my example, which was to show the range of government spending. Ultimately, though, it boils down to this: Google isn't doing anything with this money, except earning less than 1% interest on it.

Google can afford to pay taxes in the countries in which it operates. That it does not, while obviously legally defensible, reflects poorly on the other work it does.

Public plumbing: the US infrastructure is badly out of date, and unable to meet most projected demands for expansion. The US Geological survey projects that 1.7 trillion gallons of water are lost through leaks in the system each year -- about $2.6bn in value. http://www.epa.gov/awi/distributionsys.html

I don't know why you think paying taxes is morally commendable. So far Google hasn't, as far as I know, invaded any countries or funded any coups.

$2.6 billion per year is about US$9 per person. Another point of comparison, if you're worried about conservation of fresh water, is that the Mississippi River discharges 110 trillion gallons of fresh water per year into the Gulf of Mexico, where it turns brackish. So the plumbing doesn't sound like a disastrous problem to me, particularly compared with problems like 1% of the adult US population being imprisoned, companies being raided for selling chemistry kits to kids, a decaying passenger train system that commonly delivers passengers several hours late, and government bailouts to pay the bonuses of the bankers who wrecked the economy.

The fact that Google isn't doing anything with the money doesn't mean the money isn't being put to use. If the money is in standard banks, it is being used to fund mortgages and credit cards. If it's invested in the market, it is being used by other companies to expand their businesses. If it's invested in municipal bonds, it is allowing cities to develop infrastructure. If it's in various countries' treasury bonds, it is funding those governments directly (since many countries are funding themselves on debt instead of or in addition to raising taxes).

Google's only unique offering is search

All the other stuff, maps, email, translate, etc... were incremental improvements of already available and competitive free services.

You also neglected to list the dozens of flops that Google undoubtly spent millions, perhaps billions on. Remember Wave, Answers, Jaiku, Dodgeball, etc...? And how much of those billions of unpaid taxes went to buying out the competition and thus reducing the capitalist drive for improvement?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google

From an economic perspective, that's an argument in favor of Google. When private companies miscalculate or mismanage, their products and investments don't make profits and fail, thus freeing up resources for better uses. When government programs are poorly run, they go over budget and often use that as a justification for asking for MORE money. There is no incentive to be efficient or diligent when someone else foots the bill.

You make it sound like no government program has ever been cut or removed. You also make it sound like private companies can do no wrong, and that customers always act in their best interest like rational agents. This is a fallacy learned in every ECON 101 class.

Millions, even billions of dollars are siphoned off in people buying useless products like Acai Berry or junk bonds labled as AAA that do nothing for society or even themselves. Now imagine what other useless industries these people would invest given that a company like Google could make so many flops? That is essentially X times more waste where X is the percentage that these junk dealers reinvest.

As someone said more eloquently than I have: "Why do I need your government nanny state telling me how to build my cars? If people who drive my cars die, then they won't buy more cars. THE FREE MARKET WORKS PEOPLE."

Hey now, just because anti-oxidants aren't magical doesn't mean they aren't freakin anti-oxidants!

We seem to be going round in circles here. As someone who has received healthcare and education for free courtesy of the UK government I find the earlier claim that this is of less value to me than a search engine and associated apps, even though I use them daily to be fairly ridiculous. Taking your arguments about us being better off with Google managing more money to their logical conclusion, would you prefer to pay your taxes directly to them, without any say in what they spend their money on?

Continuing to restate that Google provides a significant amount of value as acknowledged in my original post (and profiting directly from most of the value-adding-services to the extent that such services would continue to be invested in at a much higher tax rate) fails to defend the original bold assertion that "Anyone who thinks that England would do a better job with the money than Google hasn't been to England". As I'm a British citizen who has not only been to England but actually lives there and uses both Google and our government funded services, I feel I'm in a good place to dispute that claim.

Right now the principal problem with UK public services is a shortage of money; not a problem for Google and their profit-generating services. Google is not going to die if it takes them a little longer to generate shareholder return; people are going to die if they don't get hospital beds. Believing in the benefits to humanity from successful, innovative free enterprises != believing they and their investors should keep all the money.

Moreover even if one accepts the claim that Google and people smart enough to invest in Google are on average better at allocating resources equitably than the government I think it could be argued to be ethically dubious for them to pay lower tax rates than less profitable companies with equally ambitious and beneficial goals. Someone still has to foot the tax bill

Here in the UK, we do not have a failing healthcare system, I would like to see corporations not waste their money paying people to do utterly non-productive work (like finding and exploiting tax loop holes).

You almost seem to be proposing that, had this loophole not been available, you would have Google government funded for the same amount because the services Google provides are better than those provided by the government.

On a similar note: I'd trust Google to put its profits to more effective use than any government.

Which of the above services do you think wouldn't exist if Google avoided less tax?

Easy: how many of the above services are profitable? The more taxes Google is forced to pay, the less they can invest in experimental and long-term projects.

And with hospitals, what exactly do you want more money for? More beds? More nurses? More money for the uninsured? Are you sure that will fix our nation's healthcare problem? I'm not an expert by any means whatsoever on this topic, but as far as I know, the quality of America's healthcare system, bad or good, is largely a function of governmental policy.

Just in case you hadn't noticed, the post you are replying to is about the NHS, which is not affected by US government policy.

"If you are not paying for it, you are the product".

Who said this thoughtful quote?

To say any of these things have made anyones life better is quite a stretch. Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really? Choose your words carefully. Indoor plumbing and electricity made life better. Gmail has not. Your email was fine before Gmail.

And Google should pay their F-ing taxes. I do.

Has gmail improved your quality of life? Really?

The ability to access my email from anywhere, organize, and quickly search through thousands and thousands of emails in seconds has improved my quality of life. Maybe not as much as indoor plumbing, but it has.

Your enthusiasm for gmail has blinded you to the reality. Sure it might be the best thing to you since sliced bread, but in every market estimate, gmail still trails behind hotmail and yahoo mail which means that for most people, gmail is not a radical improvement.

http://www.quantcast.com/profile/trafficGraph?wunit=wd%3Acom...

http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/gmailvs-hotm...

Of course, since you are only a college freshman, I don't blame you for not knowing that there were dozens of serviceable webmail clients long before the existence of gmail.

What does his being a college freshman have to do with the argument? I call ad hominem.

It has everything to do with the argument.

He thinks that Google invented or revolutionized webmail, maps, etc... when it is clear to anyone who's been on the internet for more than 8 years that they were only incremental updates.

It's all subjective, but for me the usability enhancements of GMail are far, FAR more than evolutionary.

It's curious that you mention college freshmen because GMail saves Universities boatloads of money in infrastructure costs.

I think it's curious that you would try and argue this.

Before Google sold gmail to colleges, my college and many others used squirrelmail and pine which was more than adequate. Any sizable college that had an IT department that could support email anyway.

you know, something like yahoo mail...

Everyone that uses gmail (or any other Google service) does so because it's better (in some way that we can't know) than the alternatives. The very fact that people have chosen to use it rather than those alternatives means that it has made their lives better.

And Google should pay their F-ing taxes. I do.

By all accounts, Google is paying the taxes they're legally obligated to. If you don't like the way those obligations play out, then you ought to be talking to your legislators, the ones who are architecting byzantine tax systems. Their efforts to control our behavior, pander to buy votes, etc., by giving preferential treatment to some, is what created the problem.

I do talk to my legislators. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of spare cash to bribe my legislators into making the laws work for me becasue I'm paying my taxes.

The point of this comment is to provide perspective. Of course GMail has contributed to an improvement in life but compared to these other things the improvement is small. We are also assuming that had GMail not been created another company couldn't do it.