We use Sphere ( https://www.getsphere.com ), and it’s the only good solution I know of for international VAT that handles everything end-to-end (registration, calculation, filing, and remittance).
We use Stripe Billing, and we actually use Anrok for US sales tax compliance. They’re solid domestically, but they don’t do international registration, filing, and remittance; they only do calculation.
There are also firms like VAT IT (vatcompliance.com) that can do this if you want to work with a more traditional service provider.
Hey, just curious, since you actually might know about this. My country (Norway) has extremely strict import rules. All items must have the VAT paid on them, and if they don’t, you have to pay the VAT plus an administrative fee in order to pick up the item. However, there have been plenty of times where I paid VAT to the store, but then I still get charged VAT upon pick up. According to the postal service, this is because “the company didn’t register their VOEC number electronically for the shipment” and then they tell me to get the company to refund the VAT, and I guess go fuck myself for the administration fee.
Leaving aside the utter garbage that is the Norwegian postal system, do you know what that means? Is that something that just happens as a matter of course when using Sphere? Is that a common feature among platforms that offer the service? I have no clue how unique Norway is or isn’t in this regard, but I imagine countries in general want to collect VAT for imports.
The Norwegian VOEC system[1] is modeled on the EU IOSS system[2].
As with normal import declarations, missing documentation means you cannot claim any exceptions etc. Thus if the store forgot to register the VOEC number when they shipped the item, the one filing the declaration, say the postal service, has to assume VAT hasn't been paid.
Now, if this had been a normal customs declaration, one could simply submit a corrected declaration with the correct documentation later. However, since such low-value goods aren't declared using a normal customs declaration, one cannot do this.
They also don't want spend their resources cleaning up someone else's mess, thus they leave it up to the shop that made the error to fix the problem by reimbursing you the VAT they collected.
And yes, as a customer this sucks, as the shop often will just shrug and claim they don't know or they did the right thing.
Sphere looks quite promising, and I haven't come across them before. Their coverage looks pretty good as well, and pricing sounds reasonable. It looks like they have a Stripe integration. Is that something you're using?
Sometimes, other times it's just wind farms are put in by companies who do wind farms and buy those rights, often from regular farmers, who continue to farm around the turbines. If you put in solar, then there's nothing left to farm. Though for grain crops solar is likely going to be more profitable on an acreage basis.
That's definitely part of it, but as solar panel prices continue to fall I suspect that the marginal cost of adding on solar panels to a wind installation will be low enough to justify it even in sub-optimal sunlight conditions. You've already got the land and the power transmission infrastructure taken care of, so it's just the additional cost of the panels. It could start making sense.
Exactly, anywhere plants grow you can put solar, Germany has one of the highest concentrations of solar but pretty dismal sun. Germany stopped building Neuclear Plants and didn't like buying Natural Gas from Russia, so they basically invented the modern Renewable industry.
A stalemate [0] occurs when the side to move has no legal moves but is not in check. Note that a stalemate is a special case of a draw: every stalemate is a draw but not every draw is by stalemate. In the final position, if Black captures the rook, it is stalemate. If he does not, White will keep giving check on the seventh rank and the game will soon be a draw by repetition[1].
This game is particularly special because before 46. Bb3 White has six pieces, all of which have legal moves, making stalemate apparently unlikely and checkmate inevitable from Black's aggressively placed Queen and Knights. It's surprising to a human that within a few moves, White is able to force Black to capture or block all 6 of those pieces and give stalemate. There are famous combinations from human play where one side manages to sacrifice "desperado" pieces for stalemate [2][3], but nothing so ingenious as this one.
Specifically, Queen to f4 forces Black to both capture the Queen and block the pawn on f3.
Bishop to b3 is forced - nothing else would stop Queen to d1 and checkmate. Actually, most of the game plays itself beyond 42 or so. It's remarkable that it got into that position, though.
(Have barely played chess since I was a kid, but guessing below until you get a better/accurate answer.)
White was in trouble before throwing away the bishop as the black queen was in a deadly position, so it looked to get any free pieces it had blocked from moving as a viable strategy at aiming for a draw.
As for the stalemate, I assume the 50-move rule, part (a)? It was either going to draw through losing the rook or via 50 moves without losing/taking a piece.
"The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if (a) he writes on his scoresheet, and declares to the arbiter his intention to make a move which shall result in the last 50 moves having been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without the capture of any piece, or [snipped]"
He's saying that while it may be more difficult to change strategic direction of a $50B company (Ford/Gm/etc.), once you do, you have a huge company and giant production line behind you.
FWIW, a lot of companies have non-solications in place to try and prevent this kind of behavior. They're far from fool-proof, and there is nothing stopping an employee from leaving of their own volition, but I would guess both of them have some sort of agreement in place not to poach talent directly.
a lot of companies have non-solications in place to try and prevent this kind of behavior
If you know of other companies engaging in backroom nonsolicitation agreements with each other, the responsible thing to do for your fellow STEM workers is to call the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and let them know that the Apple/Google/etc. settlement didn't achieve its intended effect.
The type of "no-solicit" that bfstein is talking about is very different from the one you're referring to. The no-solicit contracts that are common in Silicon Valley mean that you, as an ex-employee, cannot directly approach a current employee that you know there and offer them a job at your current employer. The no-solicits that they got in trouble with in the HTEAL were where the company's HR department refused to approach employees at other tech companies. The former is a contract between you and your employer, which is legal and enforceable. The latter was a verbal contract between competitors to the detriment of their employees, which is illegal.
In practice, what most big companies do is they ask incoming employees for the names and personal contact info (and only that) of good employees that they have worked with in the past, and then pass that info on to HR, for a corporate recruiter to make the initial contact. Has the same effect, but no contracts are broken, since the corporation does all the soliciting.
(just read the 2nd paragraph. the rest of the article makes the rather obvious point that, if you solicit based on confidential company information, 16600 won't save you.)
This article (and most of the rest of the information I found on the Internet) is referring to solicitation of customers, not solicitation of employees. The few sources I found [1][2] indicate that non-solicitation agreements for employees are very much enforceable, but only if the employee directly reaches out (if the current employee contacts a former coworker about a job, that's legal, and ditto for the former employee's new employer).
It's entirely standard at tech companies to have a non-solicitation clause in employment contracts that prohibits soliciting other employees up through a fixed period (e.g., one year) after you leave.
IANAL but I did some research on this and to the best of my understanding these are perfectly legal and enforceable in California.
We use Stripe Billing, and we actually use Anrok for US sales tax compliance. They’re solid domestically, but they don’t do international registration, filing, and remittance; they only do calculation.
There are also firms like VAT IT (vatcompliance.com) that can do this if you want to work with a more traditional service provider.