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Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

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Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#121

Post by tim333 »

rb808 wrote: post #96
tim333 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero corporate tax would lead to a lot of avoidance and drops in government revenue. Say you are a consultant earning 100k a year who owns a house. You could just pay the 100k to your company and borrow against the house for living costs and pay zero tax for the time being.

Right but eventually they money has to get from the company to the consultant - either dividends or wages. Either way it'll be taxed.

Yeah maybe eventually. Though people try to find loopholes eg. move abroad, transfer the money offshore, lend the money to the consultant from the company rather than paying him or her, send the money to a company owned by an opaque offshore trust and so on. Big industries spring up to facilitate the avoidance that lobby politicians to allow the loopholes and so on. It can get kind of messy.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#122

Post by nwellnhof »

seibelj wrote: post #82

IMO the corporate tax rate should be zero, and then everyone would be on the same playing field. Right now the only companies that pay taxes are small ones without the resources and staff to get around it. With 0% corporate tax, all of these games and shenanigans would end. Also, corporate profits are double-taxed anyway, as taxes are paid once on profits then again as dividends / capital gains by the shareholders. T…

I agree that corporate taxes aren't strictly required. They are useful though, if you think about international capital markets. Without corporate taxes, foreign investors could extract all profits from a company, without paying any income tax in its country of residence. You are right about double taxation, but you can think of corporate tax as a part of income tax that is guaranteed to benefit the country where the company is registered.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#123

Post by Mirioron »

criley2 wrote: post #99
seibelj wrote: post #82

IMO the corporate tax rate should be zero, and then everyone would be on the same playing field. Right now the only companies that pay taxes are small ones without the resources and staff to get around it. With 0% corporate tax, all of these games and shenanigans would end. Also, corporate profits are double-taxed anyway, as taxes are paid once on profits then again as dividends / capital gains by the shareholders. T…

The 'double-taxed' argument is so lame. Money circulates in a system and gets taxed basically infinitely. Worker gets paid and pays income taxes and retirement taxes. Worker spends their pay, and has to pay sales taxes. Business gets revenue from that purchase, and has to pays taxes. Business gives it to employee as salary. Taxes. Employee spends it. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. There is no such thing as 'double-taxation'. I…

You're right, the current taxation systems are already very complex. Governments have done a very good job at obfuscating the tax burden. Sales taxes (VAT), income taxes, and payroll taxes are all largely the same thing - they are all essentially dependent on your income to some degree. If we added all of them together into one income tax (or sales tax) then people would probably find high taxation a bigger issue, but because people encounter these taxes one by one the problem doesn't seem as big. Although, I will say that this issue is much less of a problem in the US, where the tax burden is lower than in Europe.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#124

Post by scottlocklin »

sailfast wrote: post #84
dangerface wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans like me like America because they are very vocal about freedom and liberty but we are waking up to the reality that it's all talk. The USA behaves like Russia and China, they spy on foreigners, influence their elections, start unjustified wars for oil and generally have a very low regard for freedom and liberty outside of their soil. USA are not the good guys and Russia and China are not the bad guys they a…

I admit that some of what you say regarding wars and consideration of rights outside of US Soil are in decay of late, but please also inspect the extent to which the United States continues to protect the freedom and liberty of which you speak, generally, and some of the history involved in the current state of things. Our current president is not the United States, despite his tendency to speak as if he is. I would…

>While that might undermine the argument about America being a protector of liberties, I think it would be a mistake to believe that there is no belief held at all, or that America does not continue to fight for these beliefs.

What are these "liberties" and "beliefs" of which you speak? I'm an American and think the place is run by lunatics and mafiosos and has been for my entire life. It's more obvious now, and the lunatics are vastly less competent and more ham handed and corrupt.

NATO was there to keep the Russians out and the Germans down. I don't support this organization at all in current year; it is simply a tool of US imperialism, and is spectacularly dangerous as US power fades and they add more shitty non-countries to it so some ding dong from Georgetown can win an award.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#125

Post by zemnmez »

sbacic wrote: post #120

I have been seeing these headlines more and more lately and I have a nagging suspicion that somebody is pushing an agenda. What exactly that agenda is remains to be seen. As for the news article you mentioned, it should be noted that the £28m is corporate tax, not _all_ the taxes. I'm reasonably sure that FAANG is not shirking the government on VAT or payroll taxes. As for why they pay so little corporate tax, I'd gu…

> I suspect the victim here is the US (since the money should be going there instead of some tax haven) and not individual EU member states.

"An unexpected conclusion from Hines-Rice was that: low foreign tax rates [from tax havens] ultimately enhance U.S. tax collections; by paying little/no foreign taxes, U.S. multinationals had avoided building up foreign tax credits; the 15.5% Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 levy would prove this finding again in 2017"

Scott Dyreng; Bradley P. Lindsey (12 October 2009). "Using Financial Accounting Data to Examine the Effect of Foreign Operations Located in Tax Havens and Other Countries on US Multinational Firms' Tax Rates". Journal of Accounting Research. 47 (5): 1283–1316. doi:10.1111/j.1475-679X.2009.00346.x.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Hines_Jr.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#126

Post by solarhoma »

kazagistar wrote: post #97
solarhoma wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans (and Europeans) are very used to the idea that no matter your race or creed you can be just as American as anyone else. We many times forget that not every country in the world acts this way. China being one of them.

(Just ignore the racism and discussion of "not real americans" and whitewashing of violence of minorities and horrifying concentration camps.)

Are you speaking of foreign citizens illegally gaining access to the United States? Which are placed in camps (call them concentration camps if you will but they in no way resemble what China is doing to the Uyghurs, i.e. a true concentration camp). And once in these camps they are processed for asylum, refugee status, etc? Yes, they may be stuck in these ‘horrifying’ camps which is not where they want to be. But they need to be vetted before entry into the US. And consider they are not being brainwashed against their ideals and religion as is happening in China.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#127

Post by nightcracker »

tyzerdak wrote: post #63

I think taxes is already so high that half of person earnings goes to retards in government. Why do we pay taxes? I know many people that have close to 0 benefits from government. I would propose all governments to make taxes 5% or 10% and remove themselves from governing.

> Why do we pay taxes? I know many people that have close to 0 benefits from government.

I guess they never use roads, the electric grid, the police, garbage collection, don't call the fire brigade when their house is on fire, just assume the country is protected from foreign invaders, don't need a hospital when they're ill, clean up their own roads, plant their own parks, etc, etc.

Bullshit.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#128

Post by kazagistar »

nwellnhof wrote: post #54

Historically, it has always been understood that companies only pay income tax in their country of residence. BMW isn't taxed on its US income by the US, just like Google isn't taxed on its German income by Germany. I think it's more accurate to say that the so-called "Google tax" is actually a tariff on Internet services. Traditionally, tariffs were only levied on imported goods but the concept works for services as…

The concept of residence no longer makes any sense when a company is just a pile of associate shell companies across the globe and its residence is whatever tax haven lets them pay the least.

Maybe instead of retaliatory tariffs, we should try to actually tax the massive tax evading tech giants in the USA properly.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#129

Post by SirLotsaLocks »

seibelj wrote: post #82

IMO the corporate tax rate should be zero, and then everyone would be on the same playing field. Right now the only companies that pay taxes are small ones without the resources and staff to get around it. With 0% corporate tax, all of these games and shenanigans would end. Also, corporate profits are double-taxed anyway, as taxes are paid once on profits then again as dividends / capital gains by the shareholders. T…

corporations benifit from state funded systems, so they should give back to the state. The state funds the streets they drive on, the internet they use computers first created by the government, they use are defended by copyright LAW that the government made to protect companies from copycats, they use money regulated by the government, they use employees that were educated (mostly) by the governemnt, smaller companies benifit from antitrust laws set by the government, corporations benifit from a standardized mail system run by the government, they use a regulated traffic system run by the government, they benifit from a police department run by the government, and so so much more. all these things are run by the government and funded by taxes. it's only fair that they pay their taxes and we need to crack down on tax evasion.

Re: Spain planning on going ahead with ‘Google tax’ despite US tariff threats

#130

Post by sebsito »

dangerface wrote: post #60
vector_rotcev wrote: post #32

As a non-economist (amateur or professional), I get the impression that countries are losing their concern of the repercussions of displeasing the USA economically. Is this an accurate interpretation? If so, is it that they're less fearful of reprisals (tariffs?) or that they're less confident in the benefits of cooperation with the USA? Or a mix? Or something else?

Europeans like me like America because they are very vocal about freedom and liberty but we are waking up to the reality that it's all talk. The USA behaves like Russia and China, they spy on foreigners, influence their elections, start unjustified wars for oil and generally have a very low regard for freedom and liberty outside of their soil. USA are not the good guys and Russia and China are not the bad guys they a…

I'm not sure if the US freedoms are just talk because all those successful companies which Spain wants to tax were started in US not in EU.

So Spain with it's $12B of export can risk imposing tariffs (it's essentially a tax at mostly US companies) compared to e.g. Germany which exports much more.

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