> It's trivial to invalidate this non-argument
Apparently, it's not trivial enough for you to succeed in invalidating it.
“Aggression,” “malicious compliance,” and other such loaded terms in this context are, by their nature, subjective opinions, and opinions will never be substantive enough to refute an argument.
My paying a fine because the law says so, but doing it begrudgingly and not paying a cent more doesn’t make me “aggressive” or “complying maliciously”; it’s just me complying with the law.
I get it; you want your boogie, man, and you’re welcome to have it. But I’m welcome to point out that it doesn’t have any objective merit or value other than to soothe whatever feeling you have that compels you to broadcast it in the first place.
You bringing up VAT settlement betrays how in over your head you are. Not only have you embraced an extremely thorny topic by doing so, but it actively undermines the argument you’re trying to make, making your case all the less credible.
The tax subject is ultimately liable for VAT settlement. But because governments understand that it’s tough to enforce it on an individual level, they prescribe a set of practices for merchants that are, in principle, based on many assumptions. Some governments are more zealous in this than others, closing more possible enforcement loopholes than others; nevertheless, they all prescribe practices.
These assumptions mainly revolve around the country of origin and country of destination of goods and services, customer status and their nexus, and value of the goods and services.
An excellent example is if I, an EU citizen living in the US, visit my home country and purchase goods I intend to take home, then the merchant has to assume I’m subject to VAT and thus will charge me VAT. But when I depart, I can get the VAT back at the tax office at the airport.
Similarly, when I made purchases in my home country for my business when I still lived there, merchants specializing in B2B sales were allowed to sell me the goods without levying VAT on behalf of the government. Others who didn’t specialize in B2B and didn’t have the administrative logistics to handle B2B sales would levy the VAT, and I could then get it back from the government.
Sales tax settlement in the US also falls upon the tax subject, even though there are some fundamental differences between VAT and sales tax. On my tax return, I need to declare any purchases made out of state, and legally, I owe use tax if I purchased goods out of state tax for goods to be used at home.
Simply put, how Apple levies VAT for EU member states has little to do with what Apple wants and everything to do with what the law prescribes on how to treat users. Especially considering Apple acts as an intermediary in the majority of the cases and doesn’t levy VAT on behalf of their own but on behalf of other developers, which is another thorny dimension to this topic. As such, it’s entirely plausible that Apple levies VAT on users in certain situations who don’t owe it and who can ask for a VAT refund.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that it’s very plausible that if it were up to Apple, they wouldn’t levy any VAT because prices in VAT countries show the total after VAT price. It inherently makes it more likely that a sale occurs when that number is lower. They’re just not given much choice in the matter.
In contrast, the DMA provides an obvious provision on who the DMA does or doesn’t apply to. Reasonable minds can differ on how to read a minor part of that provision, but as far as legal language goes, this is about as clear as it gets.