Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

rudebaguette.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 55 posts

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#31

Post by kubiiii »

davidw wrote: post #15
seszett wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe tackling such a complex issue affecting many countries on a national level is a mistake. This sounds like the main problem here, to me: EU law makes it easy for a company to do business anywhere in EU and only pay taxes in its headquarters, on the assumption that it doesn't matter a lot where the company pays its taxes as long as it's inside the EU. But at the same time, EU law doesn't regulate corporate…

> so some countries can easily take advantage of that by lowering them (or completely removing them) so companies will be attracted there. God forbid anyone try and make a country a good place to do business. I'm for closing the various loopholes, because big companies should have to pay the same taxes that smaller companies do. But I am also very much in favor or countries trying to compete and improve in order to a…

Let's imagine the following situation. A big EU country heavilly invests in digital technologies and ensures all of its citizens have access to fiber for exemple.

This kind of investment would heavilly rely on taxes, but would also create the ideal conditions for internet giants to make lots of business.

These internet giants chose to put their headquarter in a small EU country that chose to lower the taxes to attract companies. This country doesnt care for fiber, and doesnt make investment at all, but its no big deal, it only represents a tiny part of the EU ppl.

This is a nonsense to pay taxes in a country for business made in another one. Unfortunately this nonsense is part of the UE.

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#32

Post by tbarbugli »

Shivetya wrote: post #5

I had to kind of laugh at the seeming distress expressed in the article the Google merely passed on the taxes to the consumer, as in who do politicians and journalist think pay all taxes? Business taxes are merely an indirect means of taxation on the populace, it is done to fool the general population into believing someone else carries the load.

yeah, its all connected man, cant you see it?

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#33

Post by lispm »

pms wrote: post #10

Maybe this kind of taxation could be a way of coping with NSA surveillance of European citizens? (That's just a provocative sentence, so please keep on reading.) Currently, Europe is at data disadvantage comparing with USA, and this disadvantage is used by USA not only for security reasons, but also to protect interests of USA. (That's what Snowden claims himself.) In such case, shouldn't Europe also protect its inte…

Most of these US companies are huge tax avoiders. They use very trick to avoid paying ANY taxes. For some reasons these companies have tricked the countries to be able to. About time they get taxed at all.

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#34

Post by atmosx »

The article is kinda poor, but the subject is interesting. Once again technology is way ahead of the justice estates all over the world (for good or bad).

Google and Apple (among others) are renown in Europe for paying virtually no taxation[1]. And while once upon a time no one really cared, now it's hard to swallow for voters being crashed by the financial crisis, so either this will change or some political figures might lose additional points in the next elections.

I'm not angry with Google. I'm angry with our corrupted politicians who've done nothing to fix this, all over Europe, not just in France and not just for Google.

Since we have the technology to tackle the issue at hand, everything else sound like an excuse.

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2549379/Fresh-questi...

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#35

Post by digitalengineer »

"For now, the tax is just a rumor, A rumor that is a symptom of a very real problem. And that problem is Taxation on Internet Companies. Expect this problem to be solved in the next 10 years."

A very real problem indeed. But it's not a Google problem. It's a France/Hollande problem. France is in recession (agian or still).

French private sector contracts as Germany’s grows Business activity in the eurozone’s two largest economies is diverging sharply, with France’s private sector contracting after two months of growth while in Germany it accelerated to a 10-month high, according to a survey. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/87e4a572-5285-11e3-8586-00144feabd...

French officials warn of social tinderbox as economy contracts again The latest data show a continued erosion of France’s industrial base and export share. It risks shattering the credibility of President François Hollande, who has been talking up recovery for months. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10450889/...

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#36

Post by flyinglizard »

colechristensen wrote: post #24
yodsanklai wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? how google being taxed has an impact on my own income?

It's a bit of a stretch but it has some truth... On one extreme, Google keeps it's prices static and it's customers don't change their buy resulting in the tax coming only out of Google's profit. On the other extreme, Google raises it's prices exactly proportional to the tax, it's customers buy the same amount of ads and raise their prices exactly proportional to the increase and you pay them for service or good $x.…

Then, of course, Google has shareholders which are none other than the public (either by direct ownership of stocks or through funds of various sorts). Whatever taxing Google can not offset by raising prices, is passed on to the shareholders in the form of reduced EPS.

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#37

Post by davidw »

seszett wrote: post #30
davidw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not that Ireland does not want to import corporate tax from France and Italy, it is that they substantially lowered it, expressly to take advantage of the other EU countries. Good. That's called competition. They want to attract companies to their country. There are plenty of things Ireland can't compete on, like having a decent climate (IMO), so they do what they can. > You can also see that I didn't advocate…

> Good. That's called competition. I believe competition has no place, or should have no place, between EU countries. But that's my personnal opinion, which seems less and less shared accross Europe. > Then why doesn't France lower theirs? "Harmonization" is just a way of saying "they should raise their taxes". Huh, I'm not part of the Ministry of Finance, so I don't think I have to justify myself for France not lowe…

> I believe competition has no place, or should have no place, between EU countries.

Wow.

How would you harmonize the weather between, say, Ireland and Sicily so that people wouldn't be attracted to the better weather down south?

No competition is unrealistic and unhealthy. Competition, within limits, makes people/countries/businesses/whatever improve.

It doesn't necessarily lead to a "race to the bottom". Look at California in the US, which is not the best state to do business in, with the lowest taxes. It still does pretty well, though.

> France still has some kind of industry, while Ireland didn't then

That doesn't sound fair. Did France offer to send its industries to Ireland to help out, and avoid competing?

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#38

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Shivetya wrote: post #5

I had to kind of laugh at the seeming distress expressed in the article the Google merely passed on the taxes to the consumer, as in who do politicians and journalist think pay all taxes? Business taxes are merely an indirect means of taxation on the populace, it is done to fool the general population into believing someone else carries the load.

Yes, taxes on businesses are a proxy for taxes on individuals. But business tax does not necessarily pass along to the consumer - that only happens for businesses with pricing power, i.e. with leverage. For companies with less pricing power, e.g. a small commodity processor, a business tax will more likely pass along to owners via a hit on margins.

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#39

Post by davidw »

kubiiii wrote: post #31
davidw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so some countries can easily take advantage of that by lowering them (or completely removing them) so companies will be attracted there. God forbid anyone try and make a country a good place to do business. I'm for closing the various loopholes, because big companies should have to pay the same taxes that smaller companies do. But I am also very much in favor or countries trying to compete and improve in order to a…

Let's imagine the following situation. A big EU country heavilly invests in digital technologies and ensures all of its citizens have access to fiber for exemple. This kind of investment would heavilly rely on taxes, but would also create the ideal conditions for internet giants to make lots of business. These internet giants chose to put their headquarter in a small EU country that chose to lower the taxes to attrac…

Sounds like a very hypothetical idea, and a bad reason to call one country a "parasite" because they choose to make things a bit better for businesses. Note also that I'm not agreeing with the various loopholes, just the idea of lower corporate taxes.

Should other EU countries have to import Italian bureaucrats just to even the playing field some? I bet the Germans wouldn't be so competitive with the addition of a good selection of public employees from Rome.

Re: Is there logic behind France’s rumored €1 Billion Google Tax?

#40

Post by seszett »

davidw wrote: post #37
seszett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good. That's called competition. I believe competition has no place, or should have no place, between EU countries. But that's my personnal opinion, which seems less and less shared accross Europe. > Then why doesn't France lower theirs? "Harmonization" is just a way of saying "they should raise their taxes". Huh, I'm not part of the Ministry of Finance, so I don't think I have to justify myself for France not lowe…

> I believe competition has no place, or should have no place, between EU countries. Wow. How would you harmonize the weather between, say, Ireland and Sicily so that people wouldn't be attracted to the better weather down south? No competition is unrealistic and unhealthy. Competition, within limits, makes people/countries/businesses/whatever improve. It doesn't necessarily lead to a "race to the bottom". Look at Ca…

> Did France offer to send its industries to Ireland to help out, and avoid competing?

You can read up on the history of Arianespace and Airbus to see how France did play the Europe game.

But that was in another era, at a time where EU countries were trying to integrate their economies rather than directly compete against each other.

 

Apart from that, the "within limits" part of your comment is exactly what I've been talking about all along our discussion.

Post reply on HN