Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the sole reason multinational corporations can avoid paying taxes, that they “have to” pay surprisingly large royalties to some sister company in a tax haven that “owns” all the rights to the mother company’s trademarks and other IP? Isn’t this the reason that a company like Google mysteriously isn’t able to turn a profit in most European countries? And if I’m right, couldn’t we make that illegal? Couldn’t we for instance require a company to prove that the IP it licenses is owned by someone who is not controlled by the same entity that it is itself controlled by?
Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
171–180 of 324 posts
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#172As 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 mean this is a tax problem first and foremost isn't it? The problem being that it's hard for countries to enforce regulations in a virtualized, globalized economy. It's true that it's not just about tax, you also have issues regarding what is and isn't legal in a given country (nazi apology is illegal in France for instance, but good luck enforcing that on the web. Similarly the super harsh "no nudity" rule on amer…
having a uniform tax code would pretty much doom the small economies to not having opportunity to grown unless it was "granted to them" as a favor by the same union government.
the ability of member states to set their own taxes is about the only protection they have handling down turns and getting new industry. their currency was given up and without the ability to print money they need other means to mitigate adverse changes to their economies. it is one reason Greece was trapped so long in their misery, bound up by EU laws and stuck with a currency they had no control over.
In the US it works by forcing states to compete on regulation and taxes which benefits everyone. because onerous taxation on one group will certainly follow with others because once that line is crossed it becomes to easy to keep doing so. Indirect taxes are a politicians best friend because you have ready bogeymen and no apparent affect on the public though in reality they are paying the end result
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#173As 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 mean this is a tax problem first and foremost isn't it? The problem being that it's hard for countries to enforce regulations in a virtualized, globalized economy. It's true that it's not just about tax, you also have issues regarding what is and isn't legal in a given country (nazi apology is illegal in France for instance, but good luck enforcing that on the web. Similarly the super harsh "no nudity" rule on amer…
I’m pro europe, but let’s face it, if we can’t get any kind of cooperation between state members regarding taxes, then maybe it’s time to rethink the inside mechanicsm of the union ( which may include restart from scratch with fewer countries).
This revenue tax won’t change anything. It’s just ransom, and i hate feeling like my representatives make me look like a lazy thief.
I’d even prefer something like what china is doing : since google is a monopoly in europe, which makes it impossible for competitor to compete, let’s impose tarifs or prevent them from doing business in europe as long as they haven’t split, or a true local competitor has emerged. At least this would be very specific to one very particular case. Not the kind of gigantic tax on a whole economy.
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#174Whether 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…
> This is because taxing profit is a very bad idea.
Wouldn't the same argument hold for income tax then?
I mean, I can evade income tax to a certain extent by making my boss buy me a nice car, computer, bicycle etc.
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#175Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the sole reason multinational corporations can avoid paying taxes, that they “have to” pay surprisingly large royalties to some sister company in a tax haven that “owns” all the rights to the mother company’s trademarks and other IP? Isn’t this the reason that a company like Google mysteriously isn’t able to turn a profit in most European countries? And if I’m right, couldn’t…
But they should be able to pay something to sister or parent company because they actually use the software developed there. The question is how much. Probably not all of the profits. I guess it's really hard to determine and define strict and fair rules in this area.
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#176As 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…
France has a competitor to Google and that's called Criteo, one of the biggest ad business in this continent.
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a French, I totally support this tax. It's easier and more expedient to do it this way than to reform the taxation policies of every European countries. Also, why is it wrong to tax the income of corporations?
I support it too. Big corporations pay almost no taxes in our country; instead it is individual and small and medium entreprises that are heavily taxed. This makes it very hard to start and run a business in the long term.
They pay VAT for sells in your country. It doesn't matter if it's consumer or a company paying the tax, the amount is added to the price. If you want them tax then increase that. Why do you feel entitled to profits of the company that isn't based in your country?
It's like thinking the company should pay 5m in tax in Ireland based on sells in France while being ok with them deducting expenses from unrelated business in Ireland which you shouldn't care at all. If they paid that rate you should be happy even not even one dollar more made it to your country.
The whole idea doesn't make any sense at all. You want companies to pay more in your country? Tax exactly that - consumption of their goods in your country. It's not your business to decide how other countries choose to organize their tax code. Seriously fuck you for trying to force them. Ideas like that make EU much less popular idea that it was in the past.
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please help me understand why is it okay to tax people on income but not corporations?
The best analogy is that taxing corporations on revenue would be like taxing you based on the # of hours you work, irrespective of your wage rate. Folks that work low-wage or volunteer jobs would suddenly have negative income. The only viable jobs left would be bankers and software developers.
I am, essentially, taxed based on my revenue, because my taxes don't let me deduct my rent, my car payments, my gasoline, or my groceries [1] - all of which are essential expenses that I need in order to continue working.
Corporations, for some reason, only get taxed on revenue - expenses.
[1] Whoop-dee-doo, I can claim a $3,800/year deduction. As if anyone in the United States can live on $3,800/year.
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Urgh, No? Zero Corporation Tax allows multinationals to make huge profits and just chuck the money back home, even if that's outside the Union. Yeah, they're probably paying tax on it somewhere , but it's not taxed in the place it was earned. That's the problem here. Countries are losing cash and tax revenue to this. Your trickle-down economics is similarly unproven.
I think the idea is that governments should tax things which aren’t as mobile (personal incomes, land, consumption etc) in order to minimise the distorting effects on the market tax can otherwise have. There are positives and negatives to that but it’s not totally obviously bad.
When most of your income comes from being an owner, as opposed to a worker, your 'personal income' is incredibly mobile.
Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please help me understand why is it okay to tax people on income but not corporations?
Sorry, the project is actually about taxing "revenue", i fixed it, thanks. Taxing on revenue means a corporation that actually loose money because its expenses (salaries, investmenst, etc) are larger than its sales would still have to pay taxes, making it loose even more money. It doesn't make any kind of sense unless you're targeting a very particular set of companies that you know are making money. In which case yo…
It does make tons of sense. What doesn't make sense is running a business that doesn't bring profits. Taxing revenue is one idea end accounting shenanigans and unfair practices like price gauging
to eliminate competition which is now tax advantages strategy.
Iam not a fan of it for other reasons but it does way more sense taxing profits which is just non workable idea.
EDIT: replying to child (not possible to reply directly): your argument about high cost industries is bogus. A system without tax on profits would just make those services more expensive as they should be (they are mostly high cost because they are very environmently unfriendly). It would also make higher margin services cheaper (cause they can afford it and there is less spending power). Once you actually think about it and analyze various scenarios you will realize that taxin profits from the very beginning was based on intellectual laziness and lack of ability to predict outcomes of such policies.