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Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

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Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#181

Post by openasocket »

amelius wrote: post #174
bluecalm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Income tax is more like a tax on revenue, not a tax on profit. And your boss would have to pay taxes on gifts, so while you might not have to pay for it, the government is still getting its due.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#182

Post by the8472 »

amelius wrote: post #174
bluecalm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Private use of corporate assets is considered income-equivalent for tax purposes.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#183

Post by rubber_duck »

amelius wrote: post #174
bluecalm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He can't, if he buys it as company expense then it's not your property.

But yeah same is true for income tax, my country has a really high wage income tax at top bracket (close to 50% with health&benefits) that kicks in really fast, but profit income tax caps at 20% because people would just take profits out of the country if it was higher. so a lot of people work around it by invoicing their salary as self owned company pay min wage and take the rest as profit.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#184

Post by leifg »

amelius wrote: post #174
bluecalm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is absolutely true. The reason why it's not discussed on the same level is the scale.

The profit out of salary (for most people) is just not big enough to justify an accountant to optimize.

There is a lot to be said about replacing income tax with a pure consumption tax (it is one possible financial model for the universal basic income).

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#185

Post by openasocket »

bluecalm wrote: post #169
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…

Can you have a progressive consumption tax though? Because otherwise the average corporation would have to pay a lot more in consumption taxes vs corporate taxes to keep things revenue neutral.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#186

Post by bluecalm »

Isofarro wrote: post #168
scatters wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like tariffs. If you want that - fine it makes sense. Just don't bully others to apply tax rate of your choosing on terms you want on business outside your country.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#187

Post by zhengyi13 »

snidane wrote: post #145

You're never gonna implement an income based tax system which would be fair to both corporations and employees. Corporations are currently taxed on profit, while employees on 'revenues'. So to make it fair you would: 1. tax corporations on revenue too. Which this thread is about 2. tax employees on profit. Food, gas, utilities, ... - these are basically cost of operation of a human being, aren't they? Income taxes wi…

If any given org is a monopoly, I'd fully expect that org to pass any new costs on directly to their captive consumers. Monopolies ought to be actively broken, not worked around.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#188

Post by mh8h »

amelius wrote: post #174
bluecalm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It really depends on the tax jurisdiction. In some jurisdictions, those perk are taxable benefits.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#189

Post by 0xfaded »

silvestrov wrote: post #167
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!

Well pointed out, consumer prices are irrelevant here.

Having said that, EU law is supposed to prevent governments from propping up local industry.

Can anyone expand on which knobs an EU country is allowed to fiddle in order to attract these types of projects? I believe tax breaks and direct subsidies are not allowed.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#190

Post by ambicapter »

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…

So what you're saying is, we shouldn't use laws to fix things?
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