Twitter India’s MD Manish Maheshwari described Twitter India as an “independent entity”, claiming, “Twitter USA doesn’t have a single share in Twitter India.”
The submission was made by Maheshwari’s legal counsel in Karnataka High Court. The bench was listening to Maheshwari’s plea against UP Police‘s notice seeking his personal appearance in connection with a video of an alleged hate crime.
Senior Advocate C V Nagesh told the Karnataka High Court on Thursday that Twitter Inc is an independent organization and it is totally different, while Twitter India is a different entity.
Thanks to the tech giants for forming the global policies and practices before they enter any geography in the globe. Generally, most of the foreign company enter either through a holding company or through a chain of subsidiary company.
At present the companies operating in India either as its back office/ sales office or as its development center, reporting to either Asia Pacific, South Asia or a name and place to its region. So that the companies will pay just a minimum tax are not liable to pay the full tax on the sales or if any damage happened to the country, they have to go through the long list of subsidiaries, which are present in different countries, end of the day, a country gets as less as tax and saves a huge money from this practice. For example, even US is not getting the right tax, due to this practice.
In response he submitted that “We (Twitter India) have absolutely nothing to do with that company Twitter Inc.” He added “Twitter USA does not hold even a single share in Twitter India. It is totally a different entity.”
The order by Justice G Narendra is expected to be pronounced on Friday. As Justice Narendar sought to know whether the US-headquartered Twitter Inc could be called as a parent company, Maheshwari’s counsel C V Nagesh said, “Twitter Inc is a parent company. We have absolutely nothing to do with that (Twitter Inc). It (Twitter India) is an independent organisation and independent institution.”
When the judge asked about the promoters and the shareholding patterns of Twitter India, Nagesh said Twitter India is only an affiliated company of Twitter Inc. The judge then pointed out that there is no such thing like affiliated company. In normal terms, it is called a sister company or associate, depending on the shareholding and memorandum of association. The argument of the Judge is absolutely logical, but the International companies have been functioning with this type of practices as the tool to save tax and avoid from any kind of penalty against the offences made the company.
During the argument, Nagesh offered to place a memo on record on Friday that Twitter USA is not even a shareholder. Explaining the share-holding pattern, he said the Twitter International Company, headquartered in Ireland, has 9,999 shares, whereas Twitter Netherlands has one share.
So the chronology of the issue is very simple, Twitter is not paying the actual tax in any of the country,not even in USA, wherever they are paying is peanuts, whereas the actual money is getting stored in the tax heavens.
