Google - Not Paying Enough UK Corporation Tax - So What!!

So you may have heard that recently it has been reported that several large corporations including Google, Starbucks, FaceBook and Amazon have reportedly not been paying the correct amount of UK corporation tax, by working from Ireland and closing sales there, as it has a lower tax bracket and saves them paying UK Corporation tax.

So What Do I Think About This?

I think that whilst paying UK corporation tax is a legality and none of these large corporations are doing anything wrong, I think this whole thing being brought by the UK government is a lame excuse for the UK government to try to get extra revenue in, when they are doing so badly at fixing the broken economy.

I think that speaking from experience I have paid into the UK tax pot hundreds of thousands of pounds and what have I got back in return from the UK government. NOTHING. The government continue to screw over honest UK tax payers and waste billions of pounds every year on helping countries that dont need help, such as the £1bn every year sent to India. Now I am all for helping out countries and people that need it, but the UK government need to start helping more people at home and stop wasting money overseas, not to mention the millions spent every year on asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, such as Abu Qatada and his family (£1500 per month spent on rent for his council owned home)

Workers Coming Into the UK

OK and here is the main reason, well apart from the fact that I have paid in lots of money to the UK for very little return, that I think the UK government should leave Google alone and that is the continued fascination with countries such as India & Pakistan by the UK government. They continue to insist that people from India should come and work in the UK, this is leading to the UK population being out-bred by Indias. Not only do they come to the UK, but they always insist on pushing their religion on the UK population, if you dont like the Christian UK, dont come here. Not to mention that many people from India may work for less than their UK counterparts, but they are far less skilled. In many cases Indias / Pakistanis who live in the UK have dual citizenship which means they dont pay UK tax as they are non-domicile for tax purposes yet continue to use UK services such as the NHS, schools, etc. To prove my point if you take a walk down a UK high street you will see many Indians and Pakistanis with children, and you will also notice they always wear designer clothes and drive luxury cars, this is not because they are in high paid jobs, but because they are playing the system.

Ask youself this, how many Indias do you know that can afford to travel back to India several times per year, yet if you put the shoe on the other foot, the people who have moved to Spain for example, cant afford to travel back to the UK several times per year.

Allowing Work to Go Overseas

The other reason I think the UK government should leave Google alone is that I have personally been on the receiving end of not having a contract renewed because they outsourced the work to India, this along with hundreds of call centre staff. This continues to happen all being allowed by the UK government.

So after all this is said I think the UK government are just trying to fiund a quick fix to the economy they continue to wreck, and targeting the large corporations not only looks like a good way to get quick cash, but it also looks good in the media, as put it into context Google may have made something like £11bn or so in the last decade from the UK, yet only paid about £100k in corporation tax, even if Google pay full UK corporation tax it would only amount to around £2bn, now this may sound like a lot, but it is small in comparison to the £10bn+ that the UK government has spent funding India, not to mention the loss of hundreds of thousands of UK tax payers by continuing to allow outsourcing by UK companies.

Google Gives Alot to the UK and the World So Leave Them Alone

One other thing that the UK government need to look at is what Google gives to the UK not to mention the rest of the world, all for people to use for nothing. These are things such as

1. Google Search - which everyone online uses at least once a day
2. Yahoo - you can watch, store and share videos for no charge, not to mention TV programs, films, etc
3. Google Drive - You can share your files or store them on Google servers, again for free.
4. Google Maps - Now who hasnt looked at their house on Google Maps, plus it gives us directions not to mention the thousands of UK jobs created by third party companies specialising in Google mapping technology.
5. Google Mail aka GMail - You can check your email for free, again this is used in the UK by millions of people daily and in some cases as the main and only email account.

As you can see this is only the start of the Google list, and if we take into account the costs of running something as simple as an email account, which is around £20 per year per account, given that most of the UK population will have a Gmail account, that would be a cost of around £420,000,000 that people in the UK are not having to pay, just think of direct boost to the UK from this amount alone. Other areas such as companies working with Google technologies and the costs just go up and up.

So in short I think that before the UK government starts pointing the finger at Google and its tax affairs, it needs to start sorting the UK out first, such as the multi millionaire farmers, builders, plumbers, after all Google did not break the UK economy, nor did the banks, people did!!


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Sean J Connolly
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Google Checkout Becomes Part of Google Wallet

OK so today I attended the Google Wallet webinar about the intended changes to Google Checkout and its intended integration with the new Google Wallet system, so here are my thoughts on both systems and what the future holds.

Google Checkout

The first thing I will be is explain just what Google Checkout is incase you have never used it or heard of it.

Google Checkout is an online payment service provided by Google, and much like the other services available such as World Pay, Paypal, etc it simply allows you to buy good and services online by paying using a registered payment card. Just like the other services available with Google checkout not only can you buy goods and service but you can also sell goods and service via you own website.

To find out more about buying goods and services using Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com/

To find out more about selling goods and services using Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com/sell

Note - if you have a merchant account to sell your stuff you will most likely be redirected on logging in to Google Checkout to that account, to access your purchases just click the Purchase History link at the top

For more information about Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com

Google Wallet

Google Wallet is a new idea from Google to connect your cards that you hold in your wallet with both offline and online purchases, how this works is simple. After you create your Google Wallet account and have registered your credit cards to your account, you can then use your Google Wallet to make purchases, which them in turn are billed directly to your registered cards.

This means that when shopping online, where you see the Google Wallet logo (currently the showing as Google Checkout) you can use Google Wallet to make your purchase. The added benefit of Google Wallet over other providers currently is that you can also use Google Wallet to make real purchases on the high street, so anywhere you see the Google Wallet sign you can just take out your mobile phone with the Google Wallet application installed and make the purchase directly from Google Wallet. Thus allowing you in theory to leave your actual wallet at home.

So in short online Google Wallet will work just like any other online payment provider, however offline Google Wallet will work just like your real wallet, only via your mobile phone and the installed application / website.

For more information about Google Wallet visit http://wallet.google.com

Google Checkout Becomes Google Wallet

So Google has had Google Checkout around for a few years now and have decided to bring out Google Wallet, now they are taking this one step further and incorporating Google Checkout into Google Wallet, this will give you a single place online to manage your sales, purchases and any active cards you wish to use. A very well thought through idea.

What does the Google Checkout and Google Wallet Integration mean for you?

The only major change following the incorporating of Google Wallet and Google Checkout will be that you will have a single point of management for both your Google Checkout and Google Wallet accounts, in this new screen you will be able to see all purchase you have made, all sales you have made and edit or amend your chosen payment cards.

I already use Google Checkout on my website what changes will I need to make to my website?

Now if you currently use Google Checkout on your website, these changes in the short term don't really mean that much, all integration code, login urls will all continue to work as normal.

So as normal to login to your checkout merchant account go to http://checkout.google.com/sell and you will be able to continue to manage all your transcations there. However over time your will need to go to http://wallet.google.com to manage both your sales and purchases.

The only other changes you will need to make to your website will be to change the wording mentioning Google Checkout to mention Google Wallet instead, the exact wording will be issued by Google to your register email address in due course. You will not need to make any coding changes, including existing buttons provided by Google as these will be updated automatically by Google as they need to.

I have made purchases using Google Checkout what do I do now?

Now if you have made purchases using Google checkout again nothing in the short term will change, you can still go to http://checkout.google.com to check any purchases you have made, but you can now in addition go to http://wallet.google.com and you will see any purchases you have made using Google Checkout shown in your transactions screen. As you can now use the Google Wallet website to manage your credit cards and purchases, I recommend using the Google Wallet URL http://wallet.google.com from now on rather than the Google Checkout url http://checkout.google.com

The Future of Google Wallet

I have to be honest and say I think that Google Wallet is definately a step in the right direction by Google, as not only can you make online purchases but you can make offline purchases too, now whilst this may seem stupid to get out your mobile phone to make a payment on a card that is in your wallet. I think the major of this will be that if you use Google Wallet online for your website, shop or whatever and are building up funds in your online account, these funds are no longer simply for use with purchasing online, you can now make real offline purchases form this account. This puts Google at a huge advantage over other online payment providers as with Google Wallet what you make from sales online can now be used in the real world offline.

I see the offline and online link being a major selling point of Google Wallet, especially when you consider other online payment providers have payment cards you not only have to purchase in order to be able to use funds held in your online account in the offline world, but these provider have also stopped issuing these cards outside the US.

Google Wallet bank account integration

At the time of writing this you can not link Google Wallet with a bank account in order to fund your account, this is due to the speed at which Google wanted to roll out the new Wallet system and using existing card networks is faster and more secure than trying to incorporate all banking systems.

You can however still add your bank account to your wallet account in order to transfer funds out of your Google Wallet account into your real world bank account. I think that over time the ability to add funds via a bank account will be added, but for now you cant use your bank account to fund your Google Wallet account its credit cards only at least for now.

So in short good call Google, lets just hope that Google Wallet has a better uptake than Google Checkout ever did.


Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly

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Google Wallet Launched

Google today announced the official launch of Google Wallet, along with some exciting news. Although the cards at launch will be limited it has agreed with other card provider thats they can use they NFC specifications.

In reality this means that although a limited launch is happening, it should not be too long before Google Wallet is open to more cards.

Watch this space, and Good Luck Google.

For more info on this, check out the Google Blog

Thanks Sean J Connolly FaceBook Me - Visit AJAX Web Development Store BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

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Google + Goes Live to Public

Well after months of invites, BETA testing and alike the new kid on the clock has finally arrived. Google + is now live to the public. So what does this mean for you, me and FaceBook, LinkedIn.

In reality it means that with this launch there are now two big social networking sites to use for your social side of life, LinkedIn is still the only truely business social networking site.

 But what about Twitter you ask, well in reality nothing will change for Twitter as it is and always has been a social media micro blog or stream, simply put its like a hit of espresso to keep you up to date with stuff that interests you, unlike the more cappuccino like take a seat you may be here a while approach of FaceBook and Google +.

In my view the launch of Google + going public will pretty much leave twitter untouched, but as for FaceBook there will be some people who more over to the new player, and others who stay put. I still think at present FaceBook is a bit more interesting than Google +.

I am going to stick my neck on the line and say FaceBook will continue to dominate this area for a while at least.

But what about the New FaceBook Changes?

As you may have noticed FaceBook's response to this go live of Google + has been to add new features to its platform, side news feed, larger photos, sharing etc. This is aimed at retaining FaceBook users, however I dont really see the benefit of copying Google +, after all that is just like admitting "yes it is better than FaceBook". I think FaceBook does know some users will leave to go to Google +, but I think overtime FaceBook will continue to have a larger continuous userbase than Google +.

So although Facebook feel it necessary to fight and copy the new platform, it seems daft to copy. Why not keep FaceBook as FaceBook and come up with new original ideas, not copied ones.

The Future

This is pretty simple really I think that the following will become reality for the platforms.

FaceBook - Continue to have the largest base of users on a regular basis, and introduce new features like video chat, etc.

Google+ - Will have the largest overall registered users, but a lower daily user rate.

Twitter - Will continue to be the daily aggregator of everything social, news and media. Users levels will continue to grow as people want and need instant updates without all the bells and whistles.

LinkedIn - Continue to have a large following with people keeping this platform solely for business and business connections. In most cases having totally different social circles than Google+ or FaceBook.

What About Me

Well at present I still use FaceBook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. My most used platform has to be Twitter (its the only one I use on my mobile), it gives me the quick hit of info I need on the go. I keep social side of my world to FaceBook and Google+ and my business side solely to LinkedIn.

Feel free to connect with me on which every platform you choose.

Follow Me on Twitter
Add me on FaceBook
Connect on Google +
Add me on LinkedIn

So as it what the future holds for social networking, only time will tell, but in the mean time please feel free to connect.



Thanks For Reading
Sean J Connolly

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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

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Google Wallet - Is it The Future?

So Google has just announced after months of discussions it is to launch Google Wallet.

You may be asking yourself, so what is this new Google service, is it another Google offering that is destined for the scrap heap, and at this point the answer is who knows. But to give you an insight into Google Wallet, it takes the attempt by Google at capitalising on and taking payments to the next level.

Google Wallet is put simply a way to use all your existing credit or debit cards via your mobile phone, all you will need to do is once they are registered is use your mobile phone to makes payments. Thus meaning the only thing you will ever need to carry is your phone.

Now at first Google Wallet will only be available to use with a Citi MasterCard or the Google Prepaid Card, yes a very American and limited launch.

My advise to Google is that it would be better using a more standard approach such as VISA. Although MasterCard is accepted in almost as many places, it normally connect to the credit card and not debit card systems, and rather than starting out with a limited audience THINK BIG, hold off on the launch and hit all countries at the same time.

What is Google Wallet?

Ok so if you have every used 'contactless' payments by VISA you will know just how Google Wallet will operate, simply each time you wish to make a payment you get out your phone "not your wallet" and fire up the application and make the payment simply by putting your phone near the terminal. This will them be deducted from which ever payment method you have setup on your Google Wallet account.

Will it be Secure?

I personally think that Google Wallet will be just as secure as using your normal debit or credit cards and especially as, at the time of launch it will be linked to prepaid cards, this will limit the amount you may lose if you phone goes missing.

But I think in reality that you are just as likely to have your wallet stolen and misused as you are with using your phone to make payments. So its really no more or less secure than current methods.

Is Google Wallet the Future of Payments?

In my opinion I think the methodology is definately the way forward, after all we all use our phones for everything today from banking to keeping appointments, so it makes complete sense that this is the way forward. The only question I would have is to whether Google can pull it off. We have all heard of Google Checkout, which in the real world has failed to make the dent in the Paypal armour. So will Google Wallet fair any better, well that depends. Yes if Google make sure that it is a world wide launch and not solely a US launch.

But as for the methodology, using our phones for making everyday payments is the future, so lets hope that Google doesn't mess this up by being too limited. As myself I do not use an android mobile I use a Blackberry, so word to the wise make this available!!

To find out more about Google Wallet and to register your interest please go to http://www.google.co.uk/wallet/


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Sean J Connolly -  FaceBook Me

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Google relaunches real-time search

Google has announced that it is to relaunch its real-time search results, the service was dropped in July following as Google and Twitter falled to reach an agreement. However, with the huge launch success of Google+, Google has decided that real-time search can actual be a viable option, this time based on their own Google+ status and activity and not twitter.

This means that all activity on Google+ and click of the Google Plus buttons will go towards more real-time results, such as up to date news stories, events and other interesting stuff as it happens.

So what does this mean for you, it means that by using Google+ and adding the Google buttons to your website you can now influence the Google search results within minutes rather than days.

So remember if you are not already on Google+ get an account now, and make sure to add me when your their https://plus.google.com/110572555643659060460 (SeanJC) and add the plus buttons to all your internet stuff.

Good luck keeping the world up to date.

Thanks Sean J Connolly
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