The question about DocWagon in the Missions forum got me thinking, AA and AAA corps obviously have extraterritoriality, but does this apply to any property they own/rent? Do they not pay any taxes? And I don't mean using legal tricks to reduce their taxable income to zero but actually being not taxable as they are not part of the country their sites are located in. Who do the employees pay taxes to? Do all of them live on Corps land?

How much of the world's economy is in the hands of the Megacorps?

This post from the previous topic should answer this question.

The restrictions mentioned in the linked post are hardly any. As long as an office with a sign on it is rented by the company it automatically makes that office stand apart from the surrounding country with all that entails.

Well it's not like corporations pay a lot of takes now. But i have a vague memory of one of the things corps are expected to do by the CC is be good corproate citizens which also includes paying appropriate local taxes.

I would presume their employees pay taxes based on where they live and I would presuem the corps themselves pay taxes on the land based on some formula laid out in the business recognition accords. So therefore an employee who lives in en enclave likely still pays taxes tot he parent nation.

The Extra-territorial COrp has to have it's name slapped on there.

For instance, if Aztechnology owns the place and advertises as such, it's an Azzie facility.

But StufferShack, a wholly-owned Aztechnology subsidiary, doesn't advertise this. As far as it shows, it's just Stufffer Shack, and, thus, does NOT have extra-territorality.

Some companies, like Shiawase, put their name up in big bold lights pretty much everywhere. Others, like Aztechnology, disguise their subsidiaries more often than not. It all comes down to perception and security needs. If you're doing illegal bioresearch on metahumans, do you want to risk your name drug through the screamsheets? If, instead, "Bob's Bones n Things" is some small-time business "Which clearly has no connection to Universal Omnitech", then you're safe from backlash and what they're doing.

I always saw it differently. More like US Embassies. You can get them marked as extraterritorality, but it takes alot of paperwork and bells and whistles. You can't buy 500 miles of Maine put a fence around it. A sign that says 'Aztechnology" and suddenly have a 500 mile sovereign part of the corp.

Like Embassies they're well defined and have to be agreed on by the country they're being basicly taken from. This would usually be completed by the corp offering the country large sums of money and the promise of more money in the future.

Like the Arc in Seattle. Sure it was huge but they paid the government billions and billions to build it, then promised ongoing billions just from having it there in the city. It wasn't just 'We hung out our sign so we cann shoot you in the face now" sorta thing.

You have to buy or lease the land from the original owners, as that helps stimulate the economy and keeps flowing around. But after that's done, the nice, tall hedge that hides the chainlink fence with Monowire strands on the top with the AA- or AAA-Level Corporation then have extraterritoriality on it and can do whatever they bloody well please as long as it doesn't leak past that fence.

If it does, or has the very public chance of doing so (The reason the UCAS stepped in during the Renraku Arcology Incident), well then, eminent domain kicks in. And even the Corporate Court doesn't argue that matter too much if the problem is big enough. (How many nuclear reactors were under an unknown person's control in the SCIRE again?).

I always thought it would be the other way around. You would only do truely illegal work in extraterritorial establishments. Apart from possible media coverage you don't risk indictments and punishments for your valued researchers. Deniability works only if you can keep your hands on your profits. Those profits would probably be seized during an investigation.

Pretty much yeah, that's how it works.

There is probably paperwork that needs to be filed for a property to become extraterritorial.

These are megacorps we're talking about. There's always paperwork.




-k

There will probably be, but still I ask what would keep the Corp from doing so? That's what they have a bunch of lawyers for. Also the benefits surely outweigh the bit of work involved. They won't have to pay any more taxes and are not accountable for anything they do within their property unless it concerns the corporate court. Why would they not do this?

Alternately why are countries not opposing this? Simply because they don't have the power or are there benefits for the surrounding country?

You don't agree to the extraterritoriality of a AA- or AAA-Level corporation, the Corporate Court refuses to do business with you.

That means no AA- or AAA-Level business. Or their subsidiaries. Or A-Level Corporations if they know what's good for them.

What does that leave? Yeah, I thought so. If a country opposes it, or, worse, actually fights against it, it's committing economical suicide. If you think your 30% unemployment rate is bad, let's see how you feel about 80%!

On the flip side to that, if the Corporations can just throw up an extraterritorial zone at will the nations loose out anyway. Corporate citizens living in corp enclaves don't pay taxes etc etc. The thing is, and it's been stated before int he books, the corps do want the governments around their an efficient means to put a layer of deniability in between the corps and the people and they can handle all the non cost effective stuff like garbage collection and road construction.

Here's always m suspicion, the business recognition accords give nations still a lot of power on paper, because why the corps could cut some of those powers and increase their margin a slim percentage overall nations as a concept are too valuable to their overall goals.

Further the CC doesn't walys act as a unified front, many corps have their pet nation, Aztechnology and Aztlan. Ares and the UCAS (and to some extent the CAS) SK gets almost everything in europe, all these corps have a vested interest in keeping the local government solvent and in their pocket, cheaper to pay their taxes and let the governments rubber stamp the building plans for new arcologies then risk something else taking their place and the resources it would take to fight that.

It's a delicate game of politics, that's for certain.

Which is why Shadowrunners are so popular and in demand!

Note that when a corp purchases land, it is clear whether or not that land will be extraterritorial(based on which corp "owns" it), and a government may have rules and laws about how much land and where certain corps own land.

And how much the Corporate Court obeys these rules and laws depends on the power of the country in question.

Try to bad mouth Aztechnology in Aztlan sometime and see how far that gets you, despite not being on AZT land.

Aztlan is the exception not the norm though lets not hold it up as the other way around.

There's a difference between owning land and having extraterritoriality there. Just owning land doesn't exempt you from being under a government.

But the corporations also lease extraterritoriality. They don't get taxed, but they pay a fee for the extraterritoriality.

They can't just unilaterally declare some land they own extraterritorial, but on the other hand the government can't deny it too often or without good grounds either, if they've signed the Business Recognition Accords.

Out of curiosity, why the assumed adversarial relationship between governments and corporations? If a corporation doesn't want to pay taxes, it can pay the officials instead. If it doesn't like the laws, it can get new ones passed. Corporations have enough influence to adopt an attitude of "We don't kill people, we co-opt them."

What the people want the corporations provide. What the corporations want, the government, in theory, provides. By keeping the corps happy, they keep their people happy. If you're going to have a rough spot, it's that the government is the provider of an external infrastructure that everyone wants but doesn't want to pay for. As a result, the external infrastructure is a mess.