EU makes baby steps towards common consolidated corporate tax base

The Economist writes that “[o]n May 2nd the European Commission gave an upbeat report on its progress towards legislation on a common consolidated corporate tax base.  […]  Under the commission’s rough plans, companies would adopt a tax base for their EU-wide activities, rather than face a tangle of 27 different regimes.  The commission says that this will lighten compliance costs and boost the single market.”

According to Yahoo!News, “[t]he Danish Consumer Complaints Board has published evidence of a manufacturing defect resulting in power failures in some of Apple’s iBook G4 notebook computers. The board has already ordered the company to refund one Danish customer, and expects its findings to influence cases elsewhere, a spokesman said on Friday.”

In a different story, Yahoo!News reports that “[t]he Berlin city government, at a hearing Thursday, rejected demands by the Green Party to migrate computers in the German capital to free open-source software.  At the hearing, Berlin city officials reiterated their preference for using a mix of open-source and proprietary software products– for economic and performance reasons– and pointed to issues with the city’s public tender policy about mandating a full migration to any one software platform.”

Internetnews.com wonders, “[are] pitfalls ahead for social networks?”

Finally, the New York Post speculates about a possible merger between Microsoft and Yahoo.