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France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

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Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#221
post #15

I never understood the logic behind taxing large internet businesses. The idea behind taxes is that you use some public resource and you pay for that service. You own a home in a neighborhood, you pay property tax that funds the schools. You drive a car, you pay gasoline tax that funds the streets. You hire workers locally, you pay the tax to pay back all the contributions public institutions made to adding the skill…

> The idea behind taxes is that you use some public resource and you pay for that service.

That's pretty clearly not the operative principal behind most taxation. Even the examples you gave mostly contradict it: if the point were to make people pay for services they use, then public schools would just charge tuition. As for gasoline taxes, I mostly hear politicians discuss them as an environmental measure; it never even occurred to me that they could be a fee for using roads. And that's not to mention things like income taxes, where the the poor, who use the most public services, pay the least.

> The other theories of taxation is that it should be used to raise revenue from the best means possible. I disagree with that framework…

This seems like a very radical position. "x should be done by the best means possible" is almost a tautology. Can you explain what you mean?

I think that France should levy any taxes that would benefit its people. Some taxes are bad, because eg. they hurt the economy enough to outweigh the benefit of increased revenues. In other cases, it's the reverse. In any case, what matters in the end is the public welfare. Do you disagree?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#222
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits…

What about the money the French make by using Google services? Desktop search traffic originating from Google is 90% - presumably for a good reason. https://www.statista.com/statistics/220534/googles-share-of-...

How much of that money is money that was going to be spent anyways? It's only money Google "made" for the French if it wasn't going to be spent in France in the first place.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#223
post #102
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits…

> All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits to pay for the services which allowed the profit to be made. So any taxation is justified? > It's not arbitrary to expect businesses to pay for services they benefit from. Any digital company with revenue of more than €750m ($850m; £670m) - of which at least €25m is generated in France - would be s…

> That sounds arbitrary.

Administrative burden limits are not arbitrary. They are used in many places all over the world.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#224
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits…

> Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? Ignoring for a moment that this rationale can support any tax policy at all (including 100% tax rates)... This holds…

> Ignoring for a moment that this rationale can support any tax policy at all (including 100% tax rates)... This holds for all businesses, not just large tech companies. So why is the tax focused on the latter?

Other than the reasons the other replies have mentioned, it is also possible that enforcement isn't worth it for the smaller businesses (i.e. if they did apply to everybody they'd just lose money overall trying to get everybody to comply).

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#225
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits…

What about the money the French make by using Google services? Desktop search traffic originating from Google is 90% - presumably for a good reason. https://www.statista.com/statistics/220534/googles-share-of-...

Irrelevant.

You know perfectly well that this tax is exclusively to counter the tax burden shifting. If corporations were setting up companies in countries and paid reasonable taxes on profits generated in those countries... no one would raise the possibility of these taxes.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#226
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits to pay for the services which allowed the profit to be made. So any taxation is justified? > It's not arbitrary to expect businesses to pay for services they benefit from. Any digital company with revenue of more than €750m ($850m; £670m) - of which at least €25m is generated in France - would be s…

>so any type of tax is justified? That's a straw man. You're leaping from "some type of tax is justified" which is quite a bit more reasonable than "any tax". And if you want to say it's a slippery slope or some such, well, ever single action if extrapolated to the extreme can be a viewed as such. If 3% is reasonable and then it's proposed to goes up and up, fight the increase, not the initial reasonable action. Of c…

All taxes are a slippery slope. Name one that has ever been repealed. Income tax in the U.S. started out as a modest 3% on only the highest incomes and look where that has ended up: full on wealth redistribution.

We can argue whether that's a good thing or not, but not whether there's a slippery slope when it comes to implementing a new tax.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#227
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits…

> Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? Ignoring for a moment that this rationale can support any tax policy at all (including 100% tax rates)... This holds…

Just a reminder - some US states have sales taxes applied to Amazon purchases, even though they weren't charging them before. This is pretty much the same.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads don't make money from thin air; someone pays for those ads. Google accesses a market of French advertisers, and that market exists because of French government. (Also, arguably, French eyeballs are a resource belonging to France, which Google exploits.)

> Google accesses a market of French advertisers, and that market exists because of French government. Why don't you try justifying that one? Because I posit that if the French government didn't exist the market would exist anyway.

The market would exist, but it's value wouldn't be anywhere near valuable for online advertising.

Without a government the only way of maintaining your wealth is being a warring faction. Those rarely require advertising online.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#229
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can the eyeballs in France view ads if there was chaos outside, and gangs started to cut internet cables? How can eyeballs view ads if they didn't learn from French schools how to go to Google.com and enter search queries?

You missed the question. why is France charging tax to these particular companies? As opposed to all companies? Your answer makes no distinction between them so doesn't actually answer the question.

Companies providing services in France typically pay VAT, corporate income taxes or similar.

This tax is specifically on revenue that doesn't do that.

(Not that I am a proponent of this tax)

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I disagree with that framework but applying taxes arbitrarily hardly seems fair or the best way to raise revenue. There's nothing arbitrary here, in fact they're attempting to partially address a perverse incentive to take all your business online and do some jurisdiction arbitrage to minimize corporate taxes. This gives you an unfair advantage over, say, a brick-and-mortar store or a physical ad agency in Paris tha…

I'm trying to follow the argument in good faith, so bear with me... > This gives you an unfair advantage over, say, a brick-and-mortar store or a physical ad agency in Paris that's trying to compete online. Are you sure it's "an unfair advantage" and not just "an advantage"? Doesn't your position presume that the brick-and-mortar business model deserves special protection? If so, why? If not, what then is unfair abou…

"Are you sure it's "an unfair advantage" and not just "an advantage"? "

Good question. I thought there may be some kind of legal definition for this but it seems quite fuzzy.

You could take the view that these companies were paying all required taxes, so this would be fair. Or you could take the view that direct competitors were having to pay taxes that they were able to avoid, which would make it unfair?

I suppose ultimately its a moral judgement, so there isn't really a right answer.

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