Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
1–10 of 87 posts
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#2Does amazon even have a presence in austria? I thought it is handled from other countries.
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#3Part of this makes an intuitive sense, a sausage stall has one trivially accessible "throat to choke", whereas Austria's access to e.g. Jeff Bezos is much more difficult.
Starbucks, though, I'm assuming they've got retail shops in Austria? That just means they can afford better tax lawyers.
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#4Part of this makes an intuitive sense, a sausage stall has one trivially accessible "throat to choke", whereas Austria's access to e.g. Jeff Bezos is much more difficult. Starbucks, though, I'm assuming they've got retail shops in Austria? That just means they can afford better tax lawyers.
Being able to pay tax lawyers that are so great that you basically don't have to pay taxes kind of breaks the concept of taxation though.
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#5Guess he forgot about the point of the EU’s single market.
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#6Tax heavens like law breakers may have critical roles in a stable system allowing it to adapt. But one can not let them run the show as a whole.
International trade is not a new problem. Car manufacturing has been internationally for a while. Rules for transfer pricing have been established. The challenge is with this construct of intellectual property where arbitrary valuations disconnected from any underlying real trade are easier to get away with.
It used to matter less. It matters more now and tax innovations are getting more scrutinized.
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#7Does amazon even have a presence in austria? I thought it is handled from other countries.
Searching for Amazon Austria brings up Amazon Germany's website, that site also serves the Dutch it seems.
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#8Does amazon even have a presence in austria? I thought it is handled from other countries.
Living in Austria right now, I know two Austrians out of the like five I know well that have amazon prime.
I only know about it from those people because they order so much on amazon.
They may be using amazon.de, but so are most central euro countries.
In Denmark, people generally either buy from .de or .co.uk.
Certainly people order less from amazon than in the states, but the presence is still pretty huge.
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#9Part of this makes an intuitive sense, a sausage stall has one trivially accessible "throat to choke", whereas Austria's access to e.g. Jeff Bezos is much more difficult. Starbucks, though, I'm assuming they've got retail shops in Austria? That just means they can afford better tax lawyers.
Maybe it has changed recently, but an interesting factor is the Austrian Starbucks have been run by an Austrian master franchisor, not by the company.
Re: Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall, says Austria
#10Does amazon even have a presence in austria? I thought it is handled from other countries.
They don't. Orders are handed over to their couriers abroad or transported by truck from Germany to the Austrian post at Allhaming.