“When he’s not checking Gmail on his MacBook, Vladimir Putin’s new Internet czar can’t stop railing against American technology companies,” Ilya Khrennikov and Stepan Kravchenko report for Bloomberg. “Google, Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp., collectively worth more than Russia’s gross domestic product, have all entered German Klimenko’s crosshairs since he was named Putin’s first Internet adviser six weeks ago.”
“In a 90-minute interview peppered with expletives, Klimenko said forcing Google and Apple to pay more taxes and banning Microsoft Windows from government computers are necessary measures best explained in terms of barnyard economics and marital infidelity,” Khrennikov and Kravchenko report. “‘We are breeding the cow and they are milking it,’ Klimenko, who hasn’t had time to move into his Kremlin office, said in Moscow at the headquarters of his Internet group, which includes blog-hosting and statistics services.”
“Klimenko, 49, is pushing to raise taxes on U.S. companies to help level the playing field for Russian competitors such as Yandex and Mail.ru. His efforts mirror those of governments across Europe and beyond to squeeze more revenue out of Google, Apple and other multinationals with increasingly complex billing and ownership structures,” Khrennikov and Kravchenko report. “‘When you buy an app from Google Play or the App Store anywhere in Europe, VAT is charged at the place of payment, but not here in our banana republic,’ Klimenko said. The proposed amendment to the tax code is one of scores being debated by lawmakers seeking new sources of revenue to plug the biggest fiscal deficit in six years.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Looks like the “banana republic” of Russia, as massively bloated, infinitely voracious governmental operations are wont to do, is attempting to rake in even more cash by whatever means possible.
Surely once they get their mitts on it, they’ll spend it ever so wisely.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]