Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 324 posts

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#81

Post by ionised »

EpicEng wrote: post #50
ionised wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we care whether they are making a profit or not? There are so many ways a company can legally and artificially lower its profit numbers.

>Why should we care whether they are making a profit or not? Because it is generally in everyone's best interest for companies to invest in themselves rather than increase margin at all costs. Growth is good. Many companies would simply go under if you tax them on revenue. >There are so many ways a company can legally and artificially lower its profit numbers Then you try to cut those off as much as possible. Like mo…

> Growth is good

Given our current economic situation and our effect on our environment I'm not convinced that it is that simple.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#82

Post by bsaul »

As a french, seing french government officials trying to impose their knee-jerk « let’s tax it » reaction to any kind of problem makes me absolutely sick. They’re just a bunch of jealous incompetent insufferable pompous politicians than don’t understand a thing about the private sector and so instead of trying to fix the numerous reason why we don’t have any competitor to google / facebook etc ( such as our best engineers fleeing to silicon for the last 30 years) , and how come all those companies HQ in europe are in ireland, prefer to add tax.

That will solve absolutely NOT A SINGLE ISSUE , but it’s just another income to feed the bureaucracy.

Thanks to the three countries that stopped this madness.

PS : i also find it outrageous that gafa don’t pay taxes, but let’s fix the tax heavens in Europe then. Don’t start making special taxes on revenue ffs.

EDIT : changed "income" to revenue.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#83

Post by adam_klein »

digianarchist wrote: post #45
tyu1000 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for them. France and Germany take endless steps to protect their domestic economic interests regardless of what any EU legislation or sense of fairness says, Ireland is well within their rights to do the same.

Ireland have already been given some lucky charms by the EU. For example, they were given permission to set their corporate taxes to a ridiculously low 12.5%.

Not given but negotiated, as a part of EU treaties. Similarly to the subsidies for French farmers or the access to Irish waters for Spanish fishermen.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#84

Post by ionised »

nradov wrote: post #74
digianarchist wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland have already been given some lucky charms by the EU. For example, they were given permission to set their corporate taxes to a ridiculously low 12.5%.

Why would a sovereign state even need permission from others about purely internal matters such as corporate income tax rates?

because that sovereign state agreed to an economic union with other nations.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#85

Post by ionised »

adventured wrote: post #80
digianarchist wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland have already been given some lucky charms by the EU. For example, they were given permission to set their corporate taxes to a ridiculously low 12.5%.

It's an increasingly low corporate tax rate world. Ireland's rate is no longer as unusually low relative to other EU nations as it used to. The average EU corporate tax rate is getting close to being in the teens. For example: Hungary 9%, Bulgaria 10%, Lithuania 15%, Romania 16%, Croatia 18%, Poland 19%, Czech 19%, Slovenia 19%, UK 19%, Estonia 20%, Finland 20%, Latvia 20% Even Denmark is at 22% and Norway is at 23%,…

I don't think the popularity of these low rates is a justification. It just highlights how it has become a race to the bottom.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#86

Post by this_user »

tyu1000 wrote: post #21
7000skeletons wrote: post #2

I didn't even need to click the link to know that Ireland was gonna be one of the three. It's like they have a vested interest, or something.

Good for them. France and Germany take endless steps to protect their domestic economic interests regardless of what any EU legislation or sense of fairness says, Ireland is well within their rights to do the same.

> France and Germany take endless steps to protect their domestic economic interests

It's not even that in this case, because it's not like there are serious European competitors to these companies (except maybe the odd Samwer clone here and there) that could even be protected. This is purely an attempt to rip these companies off, because the governments can.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#87

Post by kodablah »

gaius wrote: post #32
antidesitter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whatever jobs these companies bring, they are still a net loss to the country as a whole, the country would literally be better off if those people were unemployed! That’s quite the claim. Got anything to back it up?

That’s quite the claim. Got anything to back it up? Pretty easy really. Multiply the cost of unemployment benefits * number of company employees in that country. Then look at the tax evaded by the company. "You do the math". JSA in the UK is £73/week, or £3796/year. Let's say a company dodges £1Bn/year in taxes. How many people would they need to employ before the country breaks even?

Where does the tax paid by the company come in to play? And the tax paid by their employees? The real math is total company paid tax + total employee tax - societal costs of presence. That's rarely less than 0 and surely not less than the negative societal costs of unemployment if they, as you mention, are better off unemployed.

The folly so many keep making is they think every tax dollar is necessary to support every company present. That type of thinking makes even one cent of avoidance appear to be a net negative, when amount paid overall can still be a net positive compared to impact of presence.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#88

Post by divbyzer0 »

themihai wrote: post #36
divbyzer0 wrote: post #33

The EU was strongly against any trade tariffs. What differentiates this 'tax' from a tariff?

Everybody pays tax. The issue is that some companies avoid paying it in the EU, basically stealing from the EU citizens. The difference between the taxes and tariffs is that the tariffs target a specific country while the tax is same for everyone (working in a specific industry). Tech companies seems to be the most notorious tax evaders so this was just a push to make them pay a fair share of tax in the EU. >> Tradit…

I agree that tech companies do not pay their fair share of tax.

But this is an EU tariff against US companies. Will any EU company be affected?

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#89

Post by balibebas »

themihai wrote: post #36
divbyzer0 wrote: post #33

The EU was strongly against any trade tariffs. What differentiates this 'tax' from a tariff?

Everybody pays tax. The issue is that some companies avoid paying it in the EU, basically stealing from the EU citizens. The difference between the taxes and tariffs is that the tariffs target a specific country while the tax is same for everyone (working in a specific industry). Tech companies seems to be the most notorious tax evaders so this was just a push to make them pay a fair share of tax in the EU. >> Tradit…

Correction. You believe everybody pays tax.

> Traditional tax systems have so far failed to capture revenue from companies with global reach but limited physical presence, fueling anger from voters disgruntled after years of austerity and meager wage growth.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#90

Post by donaltroddyn »

calcifer wrote: post #78
nradov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a sovereign state even need permission from others about purely internal matters such as corporate income tax rates?

Because it's not a purely internal matter when you have the Single Market. You know, the one they have willingly and knowingly signed up to?

Ireland's corporation tax rate is purely an internal matter, even in the single market. In fact, Ireland rejected by referendum the Lisbon Treaty in 2008, and only voted for it the following year after a series of clauses known as the Irish Guarantees were added. One of those guarantees is:

> Nothing in the Treaty of Lisbon makes any change of any kind, for any Member State, to the extent or operation of the competence of the European Union in relation to taxation.

It's legally binding, and ensures that Ireland retained the right to set our its corporation tax rate.

All the other EU nations at the time (some have joined since) unanimously ratified the Irish Guarantees, so if anything, it's rich of them to now complain about an agreement that they willingly and knowingly signed up to.

Post reply on HN