Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants • Hacker News Board

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#161

Post by rusk » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #95

rusk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this reasoning I should only be taxed on income once food, fuel and housing costs are taken into account, or am I missing something? I end up paying VAT on a lot of these things as well ... I do get tax credits for some essentials but it's relatively speaking a miniscule amount. There's an interesting formula for a progressive tax regime if anybody wants to take it up ...

That's kind of the purpose of deductions; it's common for housing (particularly mortgage), education and health costs to be deductible on one's income tax, much like a business deducts its expenses to calculate profit. Taxing only your disposable income would mean that a person living in a mansion would pay much less than someone living in a small home, which is weird; arguably, the extra niceness of the house is "pr…

Tax credits == Deductions

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#162

Post by residentfoam » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

This is one of the reasons EU is never gonna fly. Countries like Ireland are allowed to offer lower corporate taxation but still benefiting of the EU common market. No wonder why most companies have/move their tax domicile in these countries (like Nederland). This is unfair competition and EU should stop this s*t show. Businesses should be taxed based on where the revenue is generated and not where their tax domicile is placed.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#163

Post by icebraining » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

pault wrote: post #160

icebraining wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the purpose of deductions; it's common for housing (particularly mortgage), education and health costs to be deductible on one's income tax, much like a business deducts its expenses to calculate profit. Taxing only your disposable income would mean that a person living in a mansion would pay much less than someone living in a small home, which is weird; arguably, the extra niceness of the house is "pr…

> Taxing only your disposable income would mean that a person living in a mansion would pay much less than someone living in a small home, which is weird; Just as weird as a corporation with billions in revenue paying a zero or negative tax rate? Or weirder?

Not as weird :)

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#164

Post by eiaoa » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #123

bsaul wrote: post #82

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 engi…

I'm from the US. You could just replace France with the name of my state in your comment and it would hold. We don't even have scooters yet and they're talking about passing regulation in case it becomes a thing. Some places are really used to using regulation to (attempt to) solve problems and when you've been swinging a hammer for the past several centuries it doesn't really matter whether the nails you think you'r…

> We don't even have scooters yet and they're talking about passing regulation in case it becomes a thing.

That's a good thing, not a bad thing. It means your regulators are paying attention to events elsewhere and are trying to proactively prepare for them, rather than flailing about in reaction to complaints and problems. When the scooters come, your jurisdiction will be ready for them, rather than having to ban them just so they can catch up.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-str...

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#165

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

bsaul wrote: post #82

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 engi…

[deleted]

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#166

Post by klez » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

xoa wrote: post #53

klez wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: why should I as a person be taxed on income (the closest I guess I can get to the concept of revenue) but a business should be taxed on profit? Can anyone explain to me the basis for such a distinction?

> the closest I guess I can get to the concept of revenue I don't think that is actually the closest you could get, even ignoring that you're asserting two wildly different things should necessary be equivalent. But even so: Do you literally never take any deductions at all? Never expense anything? No mortgage or whatever? Have zero capital gains income of any kind an in turn never have any losses of any kind there?…

> Do you literally never take any deductions at all? Never expense anything? No mortgage or whatever? Have zero capital gains income of any kind an in turn never have any losses of any kind there?

Well, welcome to a part of the world were software development doesn't necessarily mean big money. I don't own a house (I share a room with my SO in an apartment with other two people and a dog), and I don't have anything invested because I don't have money to invest, so no capital gains of any kind. The only expenses I could deduct are for prescriptions and my glasses, which I don't do because the burden is too high for the kind of money I would get (think > if you then simply slap a tax on the revenue again and make the margin go negative now the business dies, simple as that, and all the flows cease. Is that actually your intention?

No, I was just asking why am I not taxed based on what I earn minus rent, food and transportation.

> Why not just seize it then and take it all for the government directly?

Why not, indeed? I mean, I get that a lot of people in here are libertarian, but that doesn't mean it's the only way. I'm not actually advocating for State ownership, I'm just saying it's not necessarily impossible to have such a system.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#167

Post by silvestrov » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

0xfaded wrote: post #29

Apple and Facebook are currently building massive datacentres in Denmark, and Google has bought two plots for future datacentres. They have definitely been wooed to denmark, labour and consumer electricity prices are some of the highest in the world. https://facebook.com/OdenseDataCenter/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-denmark/apple-to-bu... https://stateofgreen.com/en/partners/state-of-green/news/goo...

> consumer electricity prices

due to taxes which companies don't pay, so that doesn't matter.

Look at the following graph (you need to expand it). Denmark has the lowest prices. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263262/industrial-sector...

Price of electricity in Denmark is less than 51% of the price in Ireland!

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#168

Post by Isofarro » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

scatters wrote: post #103

kachurovskiy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please help me understand why is it okay to tax people on income but not corporations?

Corporations aren't consumers, so corporation tax is passed on: to customers, employees, or shareholders. Levying taxes via corporations disguises the true level of taxation.

If US corporations hike their prices up to cover the tax, that would increase the competitiveness of local companies who have already been paying their fair share of tax. Perhaps that's the encouragement governments need to stimulate the local economy further.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#169

Post by bluecalm » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #147

Whether this policy is good or bad will depend on the details. But generally, in Europe, this kind of priposal is a populism magnet and a dancefloor for cheap politics. "Standing up to multinational corporations and making them pay their fair share (ra! ra!)" is exactly the type of rhetoric our most generic politicians love. An American equivalent might be some "government out of your hair" initiative to reduce profe…

This is because taxing profit is a very bad idea. It leads to situations where two companies doing exactly the same thing pay different taxes because one uses less efficient (and often more polluting) technology or just chooses to buy luxury cars for the employees instead of showing profits. The tax on profits is a tax on honesty in accounting and even if accountats are honest it's still impossible to determine fair value of things like offshore licensing.

Once you accept taxing corporate profit is a very bad idea the solutions magically appear: tax consumption and things we don't want (pollution, land usage etc.) It's very easy to make consumption tax progressive if you want that (higher rates for luxury goods, refunds up to X amount per month, funding social services with it etc.).

There is no reason to debate what a company based in country at the end of the world should pay or how your neighbors choose to tax their companies. If they do business in your country the revenue is collected by consumption tax. If your country is nice to live in people will move and pay tax there. The incentives are right for the politicians: make your country businesses friendly and a nice place to live and for the companies who move to places which are more business friendly and better to operate in as tax rate isn't an issue anymore - everyone sets their consumption tax rates and everyone who sells there must oblige.

The countries setting their corporate tax to near 0% have the right idea. I hope they won't be bullied of their position.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#170

Post by mabbo » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

friedman23 wrote: post #37

mabbo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an intriguing concept. What effect would a tax purely on size (income rather than profit) have on the world economy, if everyone were to adopt such policies? It would discourage large companies and encourage small ones. It seems like employees do better when there is a bigger and more diverse marketplace for work, ie, many smaller companies. So they would win out, hopefully. Customers may or may not do better. I…

>What effect would a tax purely on size (income rather than profit) have on the world economy, if everyone were to adopt such policies? It would discourage large companies and encourage small ones. How so? Your argument makes 0 sense because the tax is proportional regardless of size. What it will encourage is high margin business and it will discourage low margin business. Larger businesses are able to increase thei…

No, taxes are based on profits. I work for Amazon, which notoriously has nearly zero profit most years. The company pours money into investments instead. That's how it's gotten so big.

What I'm saying is that if there were a small additional tax on giants based purely on their company value or gross sales, it would 'level the playing field' for incumbents who don't have the efficiencies of scale that the big companies have, which I think is beneficial to society.