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France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

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Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#181

Post by fauigerzigerk »

tomatocracy wrote: post #178
rayiner wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies don’t put strain in public infrastructure. They’re legal abstractions. People and their activities (employees, shipping, factories) put strain on the public infrastructure, and they can be taxed (income, real estate, and pollution taxes) at that point. The issue is that when Google shows ads to someone in the UK to monetize a search service used by the UK person, Google uses almost no UK resources.

Exactly. What a lot of governments seem to want is some form of tax on foreign companies for the privilege of gaining access to their local population/market. For physical goods we call that an import duty.

They do indeed want that, but what is it that has changed recently that makes this so much more urgent? People claim that digitisation has changed the equation, but I don't understand why. Google is for the most part a regular US exporter.

It appears to me that the only thing that has changed is that the US has left everyone else in the dust, which causes envy.

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#182

Post by kgwgk »

titanix2 wrote: post #46

Very good but where the 5% come from? I’m reading another article in French about it and they’re speaking of 3%.

“Son taux sera modulé en fonction du chiffre d’affaires avec un maximum de 5%.”

https://www.gouvernement.fr/taxe-gafa-que-prevoit-le-futur-p...

It seems they’ve decided to make it 3% now?

Edit: that’s apparently the case:

https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/budget-fiscalite/060...

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#183

Post by sparkie »

infinity0 wrote: post #152
lurker213 wrote: post #149

why are governments such parasites? wanting to stick their finger in every pie?

why are corporations such parasites? benefiting from the citizens in a country like France that are supported by its social services and infrastructure like roads, healthcare, a justice system that prevents the corporation's property from being stolen, but not contributing their fair share of the tax back and even arrogantly denying that they are benefiting from the infrastructure that they are taking advantage of fo…

A corporation is a person, but it's a legal fiction. The corporation is simply a gathering of non fictitious people who come together to collaborate and earn revenue as a collective. Each of those people pays taxes from their salaries like anyone else - they pay their fair share.

So what is a tax levied on a corporation? It's simply an additional tax levied on the human people who make up the corporation. They're already paying their share, now they should be paying more?

If you're just a lowly employee with no control or insight into a corporation's finances, you might think it doesn't matter to you. Wrong. You're part of the corporation too. Money the government is taking out of the corporation is money that could potentially be added to your paycheck if the corporation prospers and you play your role.

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#184

Post by AnthonyMouse »

BartBoch wrote: post #141
sbacic wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the imbalance is that an Irish company is more competitive than a French one, then no, not really.

In this case, this will be the race to the bottom and smallest countries will be able to charge 0% tax just for the sake of office space rented since their domestic market is small enough to not bring much of income tax (Luxembourg for example). The issue here is with omitting responsibilities. If a company makes hundreds of millions of income in a country, it should pay some taxes there. There is a huge push in Pola…

> There is a huge push in Poland now, to introduce non-refundable revenue tax (of 1.5%) on larger companies in place of income tax. This would solve the issue entirely.

Well, only if you're content with a 1.5% tax rate and a tax that punishes smaller non-vertically integrated companies.

They would probably be better off with something like DBCFT using a normal tax rate instead.

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#185

Post by infinity0 »

sparkie wrote: post #183
infinity0 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why are corporations such parasites? benefiting from the citizens in a country like France that are supported by its social services and infrastructure like roads, healthcare, a justice system that prevents the corporation's property from being stolen, but not contributing their fair share of the tax back and even arrogantly denying that they are benefiting from the infrastructure that they are taking advantage of fo…

A corporation is a person, but it's a legal fiction. The corporation is simply a gathering of non fictitious people who come together to collaborate and earn revenue as a collective. Each of those people pays taxes from their salaries like anyone else - they pay their fair share. So what is a tax levied on a corporation? It's simply an additional tax levied on the human people who make up the corporation. They're alr…

"A government is a legal entity, but it's also a legal fiction. [..]

So what is a tax that governments collect? It's simply an additional income that human people benefit from. [..]

If you're just a lowly citizen with no control or insight into a government's bureacracy [..]"

etc etc

Sorry, you can't have it both ways - pretend that corporations and governments are somehow different. The cognitive dissonance here is hilarious.

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#187

Post by ttoinou »

icebraining wrote: post #168
ttoinou wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or stop taxing "profits" By "profits" I meant to stop business being able to claim expenses and reduce the tax. We could replace complex taxation scheme only-on-positive-profit with a simple 1% (for example) tax on all transfers, on the total amount, no matter what is the purpose of the money transfer

That incentivizes the creation of vertically-integrated conglomerates over small companies, in order to reduce the number of transactions; is that what you want to foster?

You need to take into account all the simplification it would imply in tax collection / paperwork / regulations etc. The cost of our current ways of taxing wealth and profits is huge

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#188

Post by IanCal »

BartBoch wrote: post #141
sbacic wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the imbalance is that an Irish company is more competitive than a French one, then no, not really.

In this case, this will be the race to the bottom and smallest countries will be able to charge 0% tax just for the sake of office space rented since their domestic market is small enough to not bring much of income tax (Luxembourg for example). The issue here is with omitting responsibilities. If a company makes hundreds of millions of income in a country, it should pay some taxes there. There is a huge push in Pola…

That sounds like a version of VAT that favours large integrated companies. What are the proposed benefits?

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#189

Post by sparkie »

infinity0 wrote: post #185
sparkie wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A corporation is a person, but it's a legal fiction. The corporation is simply a gathering of non fictitious people who come together to collaborate and earn revenue as a collective. Each of those people pays taxes from their salaries like anyone else - they pay their fair share. So what is a tax levied on a corporation? It's simply an additional tax levied on the human people who make up the corporation. They're alr…

"A government is a legal entity, but it's also a legal fiction. [..] So what is a tax that governments collect? It's simply an additional income that human people benefit from. [..] If you're just a lowly citizen with no control or insight into a government's bureacracy [..]" etc etc Sorry, you can't have it both ways - pretend that corporations and governments are somehow different. The cognitive dissonance here is…

Governments and corporations are very different. A corporation needs to generate profit. If they don't profit, their shareholders don't get paid! If they continually don't profit, they go out of business and lose the investments they put into the corporation.

Government has no obligation to profit. Quite the opposite. Government enterprises simply spend (other people's) money. If government worked on a profit motive like corporations, everybody would love governments and there would be no complaints. Imagine that instead of paying taxes, you got paid a bonus when your country prospers?

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#190

Post by bobl »

chillacy wrote: post #123
bobl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is losing ~globalization and we are fighting over the scraps. Which European country do you think will be overall obviously better in ten years? And not in the sense that "everything gets better", but in the sense of having a high rate of success in converting progress to prosperity. I don't know of any.

From my travels it sounds like (some) Europeans don’t work that much compared to their American or Asian counterparts. Like, French citizens gets way more vacation than anyone I know. It’s obviously good to live a decent life and spend time with family, but at some point it cuts into your national productivity.

I don't generally think it is that big a concern. You are unlikely to outwork people, especially with something like 20%. Or more specifically there are always people with less to lose than you do. It isn't something that European countries can compete by, and especially not smaller countries. I think greater concerns are systematic defect. But there is no meaning to have a lack of education, apartments or other things that would mean good conditions for being productive. Those are the things you can't afford as a smaller country that wants to be competitive.
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