Ed Sheeran pays more tax in the UK than Amazon.
Is this true? Edit: holy moly it is! https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/12/ed-sheeran-may-be-the-worlds-...
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Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
111–120 of 238 posts
Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#112I’ll remind every person here that you are taxed on your revenue, not your profit. It’s worth thinking about because it’s not always been the case in the past that companies had more rights than individuals.
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Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#113This will start out as 2% in 2020 but probably be 10% by 2030. That's usually how these things work in the UK.
Good
Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#114This will only hurt the people who live in the UK. Those companies will just raise their prices to cover the tax. Sure maybe the local companies could then undercut Amazon if they somehow don't have to pay the tax, but eventually they'll just raise their rates to match because why give up the profit margin if they don't have to? It doesn't matter anyway, the tax will never happen. They're just using it as a point of…
It will not “hurt” people in the UK. If that tax passes through and is applied, it’s possible that the price transfer will only apply to UK residents. In that case, the Treasury will have more money to spend on services for UK residents which would hardly be hurtful.
I take it you have never encountered the competence of a U.K. government-run service?
Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Those companies will just raise their prices to cover the tax How exactly will Facebook raise prices in a way that it will hit the average consumer?
More to the point, if Facebook isn’t selling anything to UK consumers, will it pay any tax?
It's selling ads. Its consumers are the (UK) businesses buying those ads.
Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#116I know this gets said a lot, but I live for the day the world sees innovation and quality tech companies from Europe instead of taxation and regulation.
Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#117I was scared for a minute. I thought this was about taxing consumer for accessing internet. It's fine. It's about taxing giant corporations who are evading taxes.
They aren’t evading taxes. If they were evading they’d be prosecuted rather than a new tax being introduced. They’re avoiding. Like we all do with our ISAs and pensions. If you misuse the terms it makes it harder for everyone to talk precisely about the issue.
They aren't necessarily evading taxes. When you participate in an ISA or pension program, you are using the tax code as intended. When a film production company decides to film in a given location due to favorable tax credits, that's using as intended. When multinationals set up shell companies in Ireland, the Caymans etc. whose sole purpose is redirecting revenue to avoid taxes it's arguable that in many cases this is evasion rather than avoidance. To the point that there are countries going after companies for back taxes related to some of these schemes now that its been made public and obvious that there were no 'real' business activities occurring in those locations other than minimizing taxes.
Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#118This is a pretty good idea. Tech giants make money in Europe paying little to no tax incorporating in Ireland, while all small to medium businesses incorporated in the UK pay the usual tax. Its simply unfair.
The global arguments about multinational tax usually conflate at least two issues: - total tax the corporate pays globally; and - share of the cake paid 'locally' vs in the home jurisdiction This measure seems to me to be more about the second of those than the first, but politically thats a hard sell so you see all the statistics about how much tax they paid 'in the UK' etc etc. Most people misread that. Politically…
The fairest way is to pay tax where you do business, you know, like you’re supposed to.
It’s not really different for tech companies or global companies.
Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#119Why would that bother anyone but the customer? Tech giants will just add it to the tab.
People have no idea how much digital service is worth so if they want it, they pay whatever is the price. I don't think 2% (or even 10%) price hike will cause them to not advertise online their one simple trick to improve health of your joints. What are they gonna do? Print newspaper ad?
Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax
#120This will only hurt the people who live in the UK. Those companies will just raise their prices to cover the tax. Sure maybe the local companies could then undercut Amazon if they somehow don't have to pay the tax, but eventually they'll just raise their rates to match because why give up the profit margin if they don't have to? It doesn't matter anyway, the tax will never happen. They're just using it as a point of…
> This will only hurt the people who live in the UK. Those companies will just raise their prices to cover the tax. If amazon could charge an extra 3% without losing customers to other suppliers, why wouldn't they do that with or without the tax? Currently if amazon charge £10 and argos charge £10.20, amazon wins, if amazon charge £10.30 (to 'recover' the new tax), argos wins.
Is Argos exempt from this tax? They certainly exceed the 500m in revenue threshold.
If they are, this tax seems to be more like a tariff than not.