Fuck you, pay me. (Photo: flickr.com/s_w_ellis/)

Guess the august lawmakers of the United Kingdom aren't impressed by face computers, future cars and Star Trek inventions. Bloomberg News reports Google's outpost in merry old England is under siege from Parliament, which wants to know why the search company is barely paying any U.K. taxes.

Google claims that the London operation mostly handles marketing, and all the closers are in Ireland. But U.K. officials say they've got evidence Google ought to be playing more taxes locally, and, by God, they want their cut. According to Bloomberg News:

“Your company says you don’t do evil; you do do evil, you use smoke and mirrors,” [Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret] Hodge told California-based Google’s vice president for sales and operations in northern and central Europe, Matt Brittin. Hodge said Google practiced “devious, calculated and, in my view, unethical behavior.”

How many times a week do you reckon Larry Page has that motto tossed back in his face?

(Photo: ITechBook.net)

Here's something to soothe the pain for anyone who's going to have to cut the IRS a check next month. CNN Money got a team of California accountants to calculate the taxes due on Mark Zuckerberg's 2012 business dealings, and they concluded that he'll owe more than a billion dollars come April.

Cha-ching!

That's because of the stock options Zuck exercised during the IPO, purchasing 60 million Facebook shares at 6 cents a pop. CNN Money says:

Even if those shares are never sold, the IRS treats them as ordinary income at the time the options are exercised. The rationale is that such options are a form of compensation, just like regular wages.

For Zuckerberg, that means reporting income last year of nearly $2.3 billion from his stock options alone.

He's already budgeted for the bill: He sold 30.2 million shares in the IPO, earning him $1.135 billion, most of which Facebook has said he'd use to cover his taxes.

Of course, none of this highly theoretical math accounts for deductions, and that kind of fortune buys the best money men available. He'll probably end up writing off his political action committee and paying a lower rate than the proverbial Warren Buffett's secretary.

Drake's off-site business retreat

TMZ has written the only tax story you'll ever need to read. Rappers like The Game, Jim Jones, Bizzy Bone, and Daz Dillinger tell the site that they plan on trying to deduct expenses on their income tax filings for making it rain at strip clubs.

The logic is two-fold. First there's the write-off as an advertising/publicity expense:

The Game tells TMZ ... making it rain "is good for business and promotion that comes with the lifestyle of a rapper.  They bump our music in a strip club, so me giving the girls a little bit of change to shake their ass -- that comes with the business.  Everybody wins."

But if that doesn't sway the IRS, there's always the philanthropic angle:

Jones is not alone.  Bizzy Bone tells TMZ, "I'm giving charity to females who need their light bills paid.  So, of course, that's a write-off.  You write off your kids, don't you?"

Apparently, it's feasible. Lil' Flip told TMZ the government approved it as a deduction.

We're not watching another damn H&R Block commercial unless it features Drake unboxing $50k to support the "pole athletes" of Charlotte.

(Photo: flickr.com/kla4067)

In a talk at DLD, Ben Horowitz revealed that his VC firm had closed (non-seed) investments in a mere 24 companies, most of them created by “college dropouts with insane ideas going after tiny markets with no way to monetize.” [TechCrunch]

France is considering creating an Internet tax, levied on the collection of personal information. As far as French ideas go, we prefer the croissant. [New York Times]

Speaking of Waterloo: Atari's U.S. arm has declared bankruptcy in an attempt to escape its French parent company. The second plank of this plan is presumably to time-travel back to the late 70s. [L.A. Times]

Some poor kid's been expelled from Montreal College for daring to discover a software vulnerability that left 250,000 students' information exposed. [National Post]

Graph search is a "privacy test" for Facebook. Given that users of the site freak out at phantom privacy crises, this'll be fun. [New York Times]

Which is to say, Google's overall effective tax rate was 21 percent in 2011, down from 28 percent in 2008, and almost half the rate paid by the average U.S. company.

That's according to Jesse Drucker, the Bloomberg reporter who made accounting fun again back in 2010 when he introduced us to tax strategies known in the business as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich."

The game goes something like this:

In Google’s case, an Irish subsidiary collects revenues from ads sold in countries like the U.K. and France. That Irish unit in turn pays royalties to another Irish subsidiary, whose legal residence for tax purposes is in Bermuda.

The pair of Irish units gives rise to the nickname “Double Irish.” To avoid an Irish withholding tax, Google channeled the payments to Bermuda through a subsidiary in the Netherlands—thus the “Dutch Sandwich” label. The Netherlands subsidiary has no employees.

And even as European governments make more noise about such tax dodges, Google hasn't dialed back on such schemes yet. Per Mr. Drucker, the company avoided about $2 billion in worldwide taxes in 2011, almost double the total from 2008, and an increase that more or less parallels the company's overseas revenue growth.

We've reached out to Google and will update if we hear back. Google told Bloomberg that the company complied with all tax rules and supports the national economies in which it invests.

Meanwhile: Is it lunch time yet?

These people have monies. (Photo: Wealthfront)

You work hard for that six-figure salary. Heads down and standing desk up, evening coding sessions bleed into all-nighters with the ease of a mouse click. So when it comes time to hand over some of that hard-earned cash to the government for taxes, it's understandable that you'd be a little ruffled. "Why can't I find tax loopholes like that guy Mitt Romney?" you might wonder angrily as you zip down the 101 in your company-leased BMW. "Life is just not fair."

Luckily, a startup called Wealthfront is here to ease all your wealthy person woes. Wealthfront targets fresh-faced tech workers with six-figure bank balances and uses algorithms to help manage their money. Wired reports that the company announced today that it has developed an automated service that can help budget-conscious tech workers legally skimp on their taxes. Hey, didn't you see a post on Hacker News about hacking the tax code?

The new service allows clients with more than $100,000 in their portfolios to partake in "tax-loss harvesting," which can save them a bundle of dough. Wired explains:

"Say you own shares in two mutual funds. One goes up, and you sell for a profit, which in tax terms is considered a capital gain. Meanwhile, the other fund goes down. So you sell that too...

...When you sell the tanking mutual fund shares for a loss, you can write that off against the gain you made selling the other shares. At the same time, you can take the remaining proceeds from the shares you sold at a loss, then turn around and reinvest them in a different fund of comparable value. In essence, you’ve sold shares for a loss but still own the shares. You’ve 'harvested' your loss, but you haven’t lost your crop."

If the financial jargon hasn't caused you to nod off, then congrats--by enrolling with Wealthfront's tax-harvesting service, the company says you'll be able to increase after-tax returns by 1 percent/year.

That may sound laughably small to 47 percenters, but when you're building your golden nest, every little bit counts.

Mr. Saverin (therichest.org)

It may look like Eduardo Saverin, international playboy and man of very few public pursuits, renounced his American citizenship in favor of a lesser tax bill, but that's just a coincidence, you guys. A very unfortunate coincidence. Mr. Saverin actually filed to renounce his citizenship way back in January 2011, because there's no way he could have had the slightest inkling that Facebook might go public soon, being a cofounder and all.

“I’m not a tax expert,” he told the New York Times, while refusing to offer any other explanation for why he'd agree to a move that could mean he is never allowed back into the U.S. again. “This had nothing to do with taxes," he insisted.

Okay then.

But perhaps more interesting than Mr. Saverin's arguably sketchy tax practices, is his flighty nature--and the fact that despite his sizable net worth, he has yet to choose any particular pursuit to funnel that money towards. The Times paints a portrait of a wealthy, capricious manchild, who flits about Singapore flanked by pretty ladies and swigging bottles of champagne. In some circles that might be known as swag, but in the Times piece, it translates to vaguely pathetic.

"Of all the founders, Mr. Saverin has had perhaps the greatest difficulty figuring out how to build on what is likely a once-in-a-lifetime experience," wrote the Times.

"It’s a misperception, especially the playboy,” Mr. Saverin told them. “I do have a Bentley. I do go out. I’d rather not go into personal details."

Maybe don't mention your Bentley when you're trying to convince us you're not part of the global glitterati.

Mr. Saverin is set to gain a few billion from Facebook's IPO, so perhaps he's waiting for that windfall to thrust revolutionary business ideas upon the unexpecting public. We're not holding our breath, though.

Mr. Saverin, baller. (therichest.org)

If you're a dual citizen, and you think the U.S. helps itself to far too large a chunk of your hard-earned cash, here's a new lesson from Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin: renounce your citizenship, and you, too, can avoid a hefty tax bill.

Bloomberg reports that Mr. Saverin, a Brazilian-born resident of Singapore, has decided to forfeit his U.S. citizenship days before Facebook's IPO, in "a move that may reduce his tax bill." They pulled the information from a list published by the Internal Revenue Service that names people who have decided to renounce their citizenship as of April 30th.

According to Bloomberg:

Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship, a move that can reduce their tax liabilities in this country....Saverin won’t escape all U.S. taxes. Americans who give up their citizenship owe what is effectively an exit tax on the capital gains from their stock holdings, even if they don’t sell the shares.

Conveniently, Mr. Saverin's country of residence--Singapore--doesn't have capital gains tax, though he will be subject to a tax on the income he earned while living there. Poor guy.

Braeburn Apples (flickr.com/deborahfitchett)

Apple is famously innovative on the product side, but what of the corporate accounting team? Not a discipline known for its “Think Different” ethos, right? Well, judging from this New York Times piece outlining in excruciating detail how the company reduces its tax liability, the accountants may be the most creative people on the payroll.

The numbers: Last year Apple reported $34.2 billion in profits and paid $3.3 billion in cash taxes globally, which works out to a tax rate around 9.8 percent. (Wal-Mart paid something more like 24 percent.) That stands out even among other technology companies on the S&P 500, who report something like a third less taxes than non-tech companies.

The difference, in large part, is due to creative maneuvers like the old “Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich,” which involves patent fees, multiple Irish subsidiaries, and a loop-de-loop through the Netherlands. The company helped engineer the strategy back in the 1980s, though due to a 2006 reorganization its not clear whether they're still using it.

More current techniques involve things like Braeburn Capital, a Reno-based subsidiary that invests company revenue into stocks, bonds, and the like. Nevada, of course, has rather more generous tax policies than California. On a global scale, Apple also runs many of its iTunes transactions -- as much as 20 percent of worldwide sales -- through Luxembourg, which offers a more lenient rate.

Apple provided the Times with a statement claiming that the company  “pays an enormous amount of taxes, which help our local, state and federal governments,” and insisting that it “has conducted all of its business with the highest of ethical standards, complying with applicable laws and accounting rules.” Anonymous executives also made the case that paying more would be unfair to shareholders.

Betabeat wonders whether it would perhaps be possible to hire an Apple accountant for some long-term personal financial planning? Asking for a friend.