I've wondered if Amazon co-locates its own stock with that of Fulfillment By Amazon stock which would mean you could end up with anything as long as it looks similar and has the same SKU.
This is the reason why I quit buying anything from Amazon anymore if I can help it. They're not interested in fixing it.
What I can't understand is this: even if they comingle, they must know which seller owns which item. If they didn't, how would they pay the right seller once a particular item is sold? And yet, there seems to be no accountability at all.
They don't need to know which product belongs to which seller, they only need to know how many.
If someone clicks your listing and buys a product, they ship it from the commingled inventory and then pay you your share of the sale and deduct one from your inventory tally.
Then, if the item they sent ends up being counterfeit, whether from your own stock, from another seller, or even from Amazon's own stock, they will take it out on your seller account for selling counterfeits.
Not necessarily, some items have only one listing for all sellers and you click the buy button that has the prime logo. Who are you buying from in this case as far as Amazon is concerned for their inventory accounting?
It's always been clear to me which specific vendor I'm buying from, it lists it right under the product. I can click on new or used in order to see other vendors and select one of them if I prefer. Based on my experience, the vendor defaults to Amazon if they have the product themselves, otherwise it is likely based on whoever they make the most money on. That is not a straightforward computation - they might make more profit on a more expensive listing, but then fewer people would buy it. I'm sure they use some proprietary ML algorithm to decide which vendor to show, but its always been very clear to me which vendor I'm purchasing from, both on the item page and also in the cart.
Yes, but that’s not I was talking about in my original post, at least. I was discussing the fact that even if you explicitly choose “Amazon.com” from that list of vendors, Amazon itself is shipping goods from other vendors and making it impossible for you to know that, which can lead to receiving counterfeit goods. There is zero indication, anywhere, that it’s being shipped from anyone else’s stock in these cases.
It already is. As you can see by everyone here talking about it, it's beginning to cost them sales. I imagine there will be a big campaign by Amazon in some years from now about them "trying" to fix this problem.
As a vendor you have to pay Amazon extra to avoid comingling - basically you have to get a new item number assigned and product you're selling all has to be tracked by that number.
It may not be possible but you could ask if a small part of the office (in the corner or more secluded) could be earmarked as a concentration "zone".
It's not for people to sit there all day every day and take up residence in this area, it's for when you need to do something that requires concentration and those around are doing the same i.e. no phone calls, no conversations, no eating snacks, like a library really. If you need to do any of those things, you find yourself a spot in the rest of the office.
Failing that, it's either get used to it, try and find the quietest spot you can, or ask if you can work from home/elsewhere.
Why not have a "loud zone" off in some corner instead? Why are the people that want to focus required to do it on a tiny laptop screen instead of their giant monitors?
Is there any reason why I should have any sympathy? From my basic understanding, these companies engineer their structures and finances in weird and wonderful ways to reduce their tax bill. Fair enough, they have the global reach and luxury of doing so and some aspects legitimately occur in other tax jurisdictions.
However I have no sympathy for their complaints that it is too expensive to repatriate the money. It seems unfair to expect the law should change because you made the decision to accumulate money outside of the country to avoid paying taxes that would otherwise be due. I might be naive expecting parity but just like everyone else corporations should pay their way.
Yes, Apple and other international companies have a real point. If they sell stuff in Portugal, for example, the pay taxes on the item to Portugal plus make some profit. If they then transfer the profit to the US, the US would like to tax the company a second time.
It's kind of questionable that transferring properly earned and taxed funds from another country into the US makes the US suddenly want to tax the funds.
This also has consequences. If the best place for Apple to invest some of its money is the US, but the tax makes it less profitable, Apple may choose to invest that money in a different country instead. So the tax code encourages US countries to invest overseas profits into overseas investments.
"They can claim a tax deduction of all the taxes paid globally on their U.S tax returns."
No - I don't believe this is true in the sense you mean it.
Effectively for corp. taxes - US companies are indeed 'double taxed'.
This means US companies are incented to leave zillions overseas and not bring it back to America.
The US tax code basically ignores the fact that the rest of the world exists. Most countries tax codes have to deal with the fact there is such a thing as 'international markets'.
The terrible thing is - there is any easy fix. Any President could pull it off I think.
If the US got rid of double taxation, and reduced the corporate tax rate - I think most business leaders would accept the closing of all the crazy loopholes.
The money paid will go to Ireland. Ireland allowed Apple to structure its tax affairs in a way that reduced their tax bill which is a great incentive to maintain a presence there.
The EU has now determined this was an illegal tax benefit provided by Ireland, so Ireland must now collect the tax as if it had done so at the time. There is no penalty but interest must be paid.
This is not your normal run of the mill tax avoidance case (or a fraud as you've mentioned) although it appears to look the same. This was Apple benefiting from decisions taken by Ireland that Ireland should not have made.
What I don't fully understand is why Apple is fined instead of Ireland.
Edit: Maybe "fined" is not the correct term for this, but my understanding is that Ireland had granted Apple tax benefits which they shouldn't have granted. Isn't Ireland in the wrong here, rather than Apple?
No fine for Apple. Apple can almost look entirely innocent on this, they asked Ireland to look at how they've structured their tax affairs knowing full well what impact this would have on their tax bill. However Ireland agreed to it, even though it shouldn't have.
The EU has now stepped in and clarified that Ireland should not have allowed this in the first place.
Shouldn't Ireland also take the blame here? If not, this sets a dangerous precedent for future governments who can sek companies to set shop but then back out once courts rule against. I mean, Ireland here comes out with no culpability.
Yes, the way I imagine most people will take this story is that Apple avoided taxes but really Ireland allowed them to contrive a tax structure that resulted in a lower tax bill. Apple must have known this would happen some day, I'd imagine they would have taken advice on it at the time and someone somewhere calculated that even if this happened, it was still worthwhile. So Apple isn't completely innocent but it's really Ireland at fault here.
There is no direct impact for Ireland e.g. a fine but it will create uncertainty for others already operating in Ireland and those considering investment. This uncertainty can be very bad for Ireland for years to come, so there will almost certainly be a penalty, albeit an indirect one.
Not quite. It's possible they'll feel the effect of the 1,000+ overseas companies with a presence in Ireland reassessing the pros and cons for their being there.
WHAT the punishment would be could be a matter of discussion. My point was there SHOULD be some punishment. I can't imagine a case where Ireland walks out of this unscathed.
To the European Union, I would think. Other European countries which are abiding to the rules are losing companies to those who countries offer unfair tax benefits.
The article literally says that EC told IRELAND to recover the due tax from apple. Apple is not being fined - Ireland is being told to sort out their tax system - it just happens that if they do, Apple will have to pay a lot of tax.
Imagine your country offers a tax refund for installing solar panels. Because of this, you decide to buy and install solar panels. Lateron, it is decided that your country shouldn't have offered this refund for this or that reason.
Would you feel that it is fair that you have to pay up, instead of the institution that wrongfully offered you tax refunds?
1) Apple would have sold their stuff in Europe whether they had to pay full taxes or not, they only wanted a discount. I would probably not pay for the solar panels because I can't afford them.
2) Solar panels are very expensive and would make a huge dent in my balance. That's not the case for Apple.
And ISIS are both terrorist and pedophiles (what happens to Yazidi girls is not for the faint of heart).You can kiss all of your civil rights goodbye the moment there is ISIS inspired attack on british soil.
I am not a battery or electronics expert but my understanding is that it is not ideal to simultaneously charge and discharge a LiPO battery, so most don't support passthrough.
I use a RAVPower Xtreme (26800mAh - though I'm not sure if I believe that rating) to power a dashcam and had similar requirements to you. However, I've implemented a DPDT relay and a 12V boost regulator to switch between the battery pack and car power (ACC), depending on the ignition status of the car. So when the car is on, the battery is being charged only and the dashcam is getting power from the car. When the car is off, the battery is only being used to power the dashcam.
I've not tested it with a Pi but there is not an interruption in power long enough to disturb the dashcam (the relay spec is 8ms operate time). The battery pack is charged using a 2A 5V charger. I can't properly assess the charge status/history of the battery as it only has 4 LED's and I don't want to take it apart but so far my commute and other driving is long enough to keep it ticking over.
Its definitely possible, think about the circuitry in your phone and how the batteries work with that.
As far as I'm aware, most modern phones can't turn on without a battery pack present in the phone, even when plugged in, which would suggest that the juice is actually coming from the phone battery at all times and not direct from the charger regardless of charging state.
I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding but I don't think they charge to export your data any longer. I remember they did (I refused to pay) but I recently purchased a Charge HR and found I can export everything, going back to when I had a Flex in CSV or XLS.
One of my sites was a victim of the negative SEO trick, I kept getting warnings from Google (Site violates Google's quality guidelines) that there were links to my site that violated their guidelines.
It didn't matter what I said in my reconsideration request to explain I had no knowledge or control over it (I've no interest in spammy link sharing or buying links), I kept getting similar canned responses.
