41–50 of 55 posts
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…
"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 larg…
This article is about International Companies avoiding taxation in Europe, which is, believe it or not, a real problem in terms of finance and ethics.
They make money out of EU citizens and get out of it with 0% taxes when EU business have to pay between 15% and 35% of their benefits in tax.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 go…
But still, a country lowering taxes to a point where it would attract most of the income of companies operating throughout EU is acting like a parasite, the host being the EU, the blood being the income.
Lowering corporate taxes should be made at the EU level. Because the EU was not intended as a playing field with EU countries competing against eachothers but rather as something more symbiotic where countries specificities would help compete against the rest of the world.
"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 larg…
Find another article to comment on with your fucking french bashing. This article is about International Companies avoiding taxation in Europe, which is, believe it or not, a real problem in terms of finance and ethics. They make money out of EU citizens and get out of it with 0% taxes when EU business have to pay between 15% and 35% of their benefits in tax.
"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 larg…
Find another article to comment on with your fucking french bashing. This article is about International Companies avoiding taxation in Europe, which is, believe it or not, a real problem in terms of finance and ethics. They make money out of EU citizens and get out of it with 0% taxes when EU business have to pay between 15% and 35% of their benefits in tax.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the solution is for .nl and .ie to close their loopholes, not create new taxes, no? .ie is the loophole, most of the time.
I think it'd be fair if companies like Google that have their corporate EU base in Ireland were taxed in the EU at Ireland's corporate tax rate, in full. It's low, but higher than what they effectively pay.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/ireland-business-blog-wi...
Disclaimer: I am Irish
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 go…
This is hypothetical. Irish people do have network infrastructures and French people do have a huge amount of redundant/useless bureaucrats. But still, a country lowering taxes to a point where it would attract most of the income of companies operating throughout EU is acting like a parasite, the host being the EU, the blood being the income. Lowering corporate taxes should be made at the EU level. Because the EU was…
Makes for good political rhetoric, but I don't think it bears much relation to reality.
Germany for instance is not 'shriveling up and dying' because of Ireland, and neither is France for that matter.
Also, the economy is, fortunately, not a zero sum game with a fixed lump of money to go around.
You only need to look at the US as an example: California and NY are not low-tax states, and yet... and yet... there are a lot of companies and a lot of business there.
And yes, US states compete.
The article is not replete on details on how this supposed tax would work. Personally, I'm in favour of taxing Internet companies, but I believe tackling such a complex issue affecting many countries on a national level is a mistake. Disclaimer: I'm French too.
> 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…
US states have a set of policies and compacts so that corporations doing business in multiple states pay taxes to each state divided according to a formula.
The corporation attributes income to each state in proportion to a weighted average of its sales in the state, its total employee compensation in the state, and its business capital and equipment present in the state. Then each state sets its tax rate and takes that fraction of the income attributed to the state. Over time, the states have created counting rules to prevent cheating the system.
Europe may need to organize such a system if the other nations are really tired of being scooped by ie. There's still the classic scheme of putting intellectual property in a tax haven and paying franchise fees to a foreign subsidiary there to avoid having profits. They may want to try closing that loophole, too.
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 and no. The services that Google provides are already priced at the supply/demand meeting point. Tax is merely reducing profits that are already made. Google is not going to insist on making X% net profit and will not put up it's rates just because a tax rate changes. You can't pretend that Google dropped their rates in the UK by a few percent when the corporate tax rates dropped last year?
End result : less sales, customers paying more, and Google earning less.
I do think you should consider that this will only raise prices for advertisers in France though. So it will be even easier for out-of-country advertisers to undercut France's local suppliers.
The problem is that most citizens don't realize just how big the state's take on a normal wage is. You believe it's ~55% of your income. Well, no.
In France, a business has to pay taxes to pay you, then you pay taxes on what you get (to make matters more complicated, these taxes are collected by your employer). In reality your bruto pay is about 130% of what you get quoted (just due to taxes). Out of that 45% remains (taxed at 55%). Then you have local taxes, since you have to live somewhere, these are at least 2% of income. And you add VAT 20% on most things you actually buy. This ignores various other things, like the fact that keeping track of all this requires people, and obviously the state doesn't pay for those, so they yet again increase costs for businesses.
But let's calculate. Out of what your employer pays you in France, you get to spend ... 100% * (100/130) * 45% * 80% = 27,6%. So the tax rate in France is 72.4%, for a person having a decent job in IT. We're not talking bank director here. And of course the French state is raising these levels. Also these are MINIMUM levels (for a decent wage), it's assuming you aren't investing in stock, assuming you don't own a house (or God forbid - more than one house), you don't own a car, ... If any of those are not true, you'll be paying even more.
I think it's beyond obvious that this tax level, even if it weren't going up, is not sustainable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Find another article to comment on with your fucking french bashing. This article is about International Companies avoiding taxation in Europe, which is, believe it or not, a real problem in terms of finance and ethics. They make money out of EU citizens and get out of it with 0% taxes when EU business have to pay between 15% and 35% of their benefits in tax.
Ad hominem in the first sentence and by a french person. So according to your logic american gift shops should pay tax to France also? Since they are making money from french citizens?
The problem is not the "citizen" part but the market or soil one.
The fact that I, as a french company, am able to sell products on the U.S. market is, in part, due to the fact that the U.S. as a country has a litterate workforce, infrastructures, a stable legal system, etc...
This costs money and tax is supposed to put some fairness in this. Otherwise, we would all be trying to make money in Afghanistan with a 0% tax on revenue.