Totally Tubular Tax Fraud

[Powder]

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxe...0821?cid=sm_fb

Yikes.

@any news site who should see my thread & take a liking to the title, it can be your article's headline for a mere $100.

[plastroncafe]

I am not so secretly hoping that the people in charge of this hole up in a Federal Building armed with Ninja Weapons to protest being caught in their own shenanigans. I'll even buy them their first Occupation Pizza if they do.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Wow. I hope things work out for Nataki.

[IndigoErth]

Glanced over that for a moment yesterday...are there any decent big companies left. At least there is was one honest person.

Really though, how dare you use the Turtles for your tax scheme. >.> Is that why you bought them? Rake in money, cut corners with consumers and avoid taxes; just get every little bit out of them (and other properties) as you can. Eric Sacks is basically symbolism for Viacom.

[ABrown]

I'm thinking that her claim is gonna turn out to be bogus. The TMNT branch is SOOOO HUGE, I just can't imagine that Viacom would want to jeopardize their profits. She's probably just upset that she lost her job and is looking to cash in.

[plastroncafe]

They're only jeopardizing their profits if they get caught, because otherwise...they make more money by cheating the IRS. And let's be honest, it's not like Viacom doesn't have the money to either bury this in court, or pay off the complaint.

Firing someone when they're out on Family Leave is SHADY AF.
Unless, of course, they've always been sticklers for accuracy in HR paperwork.

[CyberCubed]

It would be wonderful if this causes the Bay movie people to lose their license to make TMNT movies.

[Meow]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

It would be wonderful if this causes the Bay movie people to lose their license to make TMNT movies.

I didn't think of this at first but I just couldn't agree more with your opinion now reading it. No more shrek turtles being a farce to the entire creation would definately be a relief by heart

[neatoman]

I'm not sure I get it, if the plan was to make it look like a Dutch shell company was taking care of TMNT, why not just have a Dutch shell company handle it? I don't see much reason (from a business standpoint) to just do what they pretended they were doing, if it would really save money operating in the Netherlands they would have just done so...

[Commenter 42]

I get the feeling it was potentially a retroactive move. If I recall, the first year profits were far beyond anyone's expectations.

I think it's a risk v reward scenario.

[ProactiveMan]

I know the US has weird laws about parental leave, but I don't quite understand Viacom's angle here. Are they saying that they don't pay maternity leave if you're not married, or you get more money if you are married, or what?

Out of these two scenarios; vice president of finance is fired for leave irregularity, vs huge multinational tries to avoid paying tax, I'd say the latter is more likely.

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by ProactiveMan

I know the US has weird laws about parental leave, but I don't quite understand Viacom's angle here. Are they saying that they don't pay maternity leave if you're not married, or you get more money if you are married, or what?

Out of these two scenarios; vice president of finance is fired for leave irregularity, vs huge multinational tries to avoid paying tax, I'd say the latter is more likely.

It's mis-representing your relationship. She claimed to be married when she wasn't. It's a technicality.

[plastroncafe]

Employer subsidized health insurance benefits can only be changed once a year during a time referred to as open enrollment. There are exceptions, but they're few. You can change your health insurance information if you say, get married, have a baby, or someone in your family dies. Things that you can't really control the timing over.

My guess is that her paperwork got filled out claiming her domestic partner as a dependent during this time. If they're not officially married then she can't claim him on her health insurance.

For this alone to be grounds for termination is so sketchy. Especially given her allegation. Six years of employment, and the best that they can come up with is a clerical error?

I'll be interested to see how this plays out, but chances are good we'll never see the end result. If Viacom is smart they'll never let this go to court and will just pay out anything she asks for. Which is likely to be far less than the millions of dollars they're cheating Uncle Sam out of.