France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by stale2002 » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 3:53 AM UTC

makapuf wrote: post #200

briandear wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a small country can afford a 0% tax, why shouldn’t they avail themselves to that competitive advantage? Unified tax rates amount to a tariff on more fiscally competitive countries.

They would have the right to do so. And other country might have the right to place a 150% tariff on this country goods. Or place those on the tax haven list. Other countries cannot stop them from applying a zero tax. But those same countries that provide all the markets, infrastructure, schools, manufacturing and support all the population to make it work can also choose not to trade with those.

> can also choose not to trade with those.

No, the EU and other trade agreements prohibit this.

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

#252

Post by RHSeeger » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 4:00 AM UTC

duado wrote: post #96

RHSeeger wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Tax laws should be simple and explicit. The people in charge change over time. I don't trust that the people later will interpret the laws the same way as the people today, or that either will interpret the laws the same way they were intended, or that the group of people that wrote the laws all had the same intent.

Crimes much more serious than tax evasion have grey areas specifically to create room for judicial discretion. Words like “with malice aforethought” or “forcibly” are used in statutes because the law can’t preconceive of every possible way to commit a murder or rape.

And crimes much less serious, too. There's a LOT of US laws that are intentionally vague and/or grant far too much leeway for the justice system. The grants extraordinary power because of edge cases they want the law to be able to handle ("think of the children"). Yet time and time again, it's the average Joe that has the law abused against him. These overly vague laws are used incorrectly, and yet we keep creating them because we don't learn that the people in power cannot be trusted; most of them are good, but it only takes one bad apple to ruin the lives of many people.

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

#253

Post by stale2002 » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 4:15 AM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #131

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.

The Eastern European countries have been growing consistently for years. If you only look at economics countries like Poland have been doing very well. You have to remember Western Europe has developed economies. They aren't likely to grow at the rate Asian countries are as those economies have a lot of catching up to do. Also European countries don't necessarily have the same priorities as the US for example. Most o…

Absolutely the eastern countries have been growing.

This is because they went from a system of extreme socialism, and moved towards capitalism.

They still might not be as capitalist as America is these days, but they are doing much better.

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

#254

Post by Gpetrium » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 4:36 AM UTC

fosk wrote: post #245

As usual, highly inefficient governments trying to expand into every wallet in their sight, in order to keep funding their inefficiency with no accountability. We need market de-regulation. End of government-sponsored monopolies. Accountability on budget spending. Enablement of profit-oriented policies that generate surpluses. Enabling equal opportunities to people of all social classes, and performance reviews to ke…

Although I can partially agree with you, I think it is worth looking at the other side of the coin to understand why things don't go the way you think is best. Below I will give you a few examples to consider (there will be ways to refute, but bare with me since the goal is to start/move a dialogue)

Government-sponsored (oli)monopolies - This is sometimes a policy tool to get the country's key strategic interest moving. Sometimes some goods & services are obscenely expensive without Gov support directly or indirectly (that includes g&s you take for granted). In another case, if you don't sponsor, but other countries do, the other countries will become more competitive in the global market, impacting your countries long-term economic success.

Equal opportunity for all classes - At what point would you create equal opportunity? Is it providing basic, quality educational institutions? How do you account for parents willing to pay for extracurriculars, tutor and any new technologies that come along? Will you forbid higher income parents to spend their hard earned money to get their kids ahead in the name of equality?

Accountability on budget spending - Most advanced democracies allow you to review the budget of your city, state, federal and even get involved in the process (via elections, open forum,etc). It is mostly someone's prerogative to get engaged or not. Also, since governments are usually required to help create jobs, etc through different forms of stimulus, you will see money being spent in different ways with different levels of return.

Performance review - Govs and private institutions have performance review, even politicians have it via re-election. How would you optimize it? How would you fix its issues to ensure people don't exploit it? What makes your solution function better than the ones already tried?

As I said, although I agree that we should strive to be better at some, if not all the points you have listed, I think we need to move past throwing the words out there, and become more engaged in our communities. This will help everyone to better understand how the world around them actually works and how to improve it

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

#255

Post by infinity0 » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

sparkie wrote: post #225

infinity0 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A corporation has to provide services people want to use of their own volition. A government takes money off people without asking. [..] Ultimately, they rely on that monopoly of force [..] Distinguishing having a de-jure monopoly on force vs a de-facto monopoly on something else is not a useful practical difference to make. Other quantitative aspects of the relationship are more important to the analysis, and you…

> Distinguishing having a de-jure monopoly on force vs a de-facto monopoly on something else is not a useful practical difference to make. It depends how the monopoly comes about. Many de-facto monopolies arise as a result of government intervention in the market. Some of it accidental (unintended consequences of other policies), and some of it intentional (enticed by lobbying money). Natural monopolies which arise a…

> [..] it's a mistake to try establish broad frameworks which try to deal the wrong causes of the problem [..]

It's true that regulations sometimes are harmful, but this really depends on the specific circumstances, and I don't see an argument here for being anti-regulation in general.

A lot of governments especially those today, have come about via democratic revolutions or less-violent processes. As citizens of those places, many of them want their government to regulate corporations, especially since this is typically more effective than trying to boycott the corporation.

> I believe more competition would lead to better services than government (and corporations) offers in almost all areas. (To be clear, I'm not an anarchist, but the smaller the government, the better).

I also believe that competition is generally a good thing, but I don't believe that "small government" preserves competition. Those "natural monopolies" (as you defined, whatever that means) destroy their own competition by definition, and just because they are "natural" does not mean that they stay efficient, or that they don't abuse their own power.

That is not necessarily to say that I favor a large government, but in order to preserve competition, efficiency, and lack of abuse, we need to think of mechanisms other than simply "small government". If government regulations is the only mechanism we can think of for now, I'd rather we try that, than stick to "small government" for ideological reasons and let corporate power run amok.

> The biggest problem of government is that it simply wants to do more and more. Socialism gradually creeps in a step at a time, mostly unnoticed because each step is small and seems harmless.

This effect happens with large corporations too. First they provide good service, and everyone buys from them believing they will use their power well, and this seems harmless. Then sometimes they grow too powerful and start abusing their position (with or without help from government handouts) and consumers are negatively affected to different degrees.

> [..] big tech companies engaged in censorship, they're not essential services [..]

What is essential or not also depends on the context of history. It is not in human nature to require a banking system, but as you agree it's impractical to operate in society today without having access to banking services. It's also becoming very hard to operate in society without access to the internet and various other tech services that 99% of other people have access to.

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

#256

Post by throwaway_9168 » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

Nimitz14 wrote: post #161

throwaway_9168 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, thank you. Now, if I were to earn, say a total of $1000 [please feel free to substitute this with a more trivial number, however you may define trivial] for the whole year on online courses sold to EU residents (considering its a side gig, not too shabby), should I still register?

No https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-eu/selling-...

[flagged]

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

#257

Post by hanniabu » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 6:09 AM UTC

T2_t2 wrote: post #206

thoughtstheseus wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A VAT tax makes a lot of sense. It would reduce the incentive for large market quasi-monopoly seeking companies to optimize for no profits to avoid taxes. The current dynamic is- why pay taxes when you can spend it to expand your market share?

Except Digital sales take place in no-man's land, and are hard to tax. A federal tax hits Amazon, but would it hit Alibaba? The specifics are what make these ideas so difficult.

I think that's pretty simple. If the purchaser in this country, tax them for that sale.

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

#258

Post by hanniabu » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 6:11 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #211

thoughtstheseus wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A VAT tax makes a lot of sense. It would reduce the incentive for large market quasi-monopoly seeking companies to optimize for no profits to avoid taxes. The current dynamic is- why pay taxes when you can spend it to expand your market share?

VAT taxes are extraordinarily regressive. Next to lowering taxes on the rich, it's among the worst possible options. Increasing the income tax and taxing capital gains at regular income rates, along with bolstering estate taxes on the rich, are the ideal near-term solutions to the US budget problem. The US still has a lot of slack taxing capacity on the wealthy. That should be maxed out long before we look at a VAT.

Can you expand on why you think it's regressive?

> That should be maxed out long before we look at a VAT.

This is relative. The US government sucks at being efficient.

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

#259

Post by ttoinou » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 6:38 AM UTC

JimmyAustin wrote: post #250

ttoinou wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In the US, the IRS collected $3.33 trillion in revenue in 2018, with a total budget of 11.5 billion (2017). Thats 0.3453%, or 35c per $100 of tax revenue. Fairly minor in the scheme of things.

Monetary costs are a small subset of general costs (and the cheapest ones, easier to know and aggregate).

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

#260

Post by HNBRN » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 6:57 AM UTC

French guy here. I think a lot of comments miss the point of the new tax : Some US tech companies use fake transfer prices to avoid paying income taxes in France. Eg Irish facebook subsidary owns the Facebook brand for Europe and charges other subsidiaries for using it. The French Facebook subsididary was charged so much in past years that it didnt declare any benefits in France. This is fraud. But this is fraud at EU level and EU is not yet organized to face it. So French government is taking the lead and expects other countries to follow soon (very likely). You have to understand that French companies and French taxpayers a getting reasonnably upset for paying high taxes when some US companies dont.