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France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

bbc.com

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Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#131

Post by Avamander »

baud147258 wrote: post #120
peteretep wrote: post #5

I think the Brexit negotiations have probably shown Europe the power of sticking together, and presumably France feels that the rest of the EU has its back here.

No, EU isn't backing this, because in that case it would have been an EU-wide tax, not in just in one country. The EU tried to establish an equivalent tax, but there was pushback from countries that are taking advantage of it (Ireland, Luxembourg) Edit: From the French newspaper Le Monde [1], it was Ireland, Sweden, Danemark and Finland which opposed the idea. And from this article [2], Germany didn't help a lot, fea…

Ireland and Luxembourg are a small minority, fortunately or unfortunately.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#132

Post by baud147258 »

ezoe wrote: post #119

What happened to a company who has no physical presence in France refuse to pay the tax on the ground that France has no jurisdiction upon them? Ordering French ISPs to block the web service of that company thereby breaking the fundamental human right of freedom of speech and no censorship.

France is already censoring Internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_France

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#133

Post by greenyoda »

magashna wrote: post #85
alt_f4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> company that's selling ads to a French company that wants to show those ads to French users is doing business in France, end of story. yeah, so taxes make sense to pay for the roads, bridges and healthcare that these ads are using.

Completely ignoring the cables that carry their data.

Aren't the cables already paid for by the fees that subscribers pay to their ISPs for internet access?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#134

Post by WaylonKenning »

ezoe wrote: post #119

What happened to a company who has no physical presence in France refuse to pay the tax on the ground that France has no jurisdiction upon them? Ordering French ISPs to block the web service of that company thereby breaking the fundamental human right of freedom of speech and no censorship.

I'm not sure that fundamental right is correct, at least, outside of America. There's no fundamental human rights of freedom of speech and no censorship in New Zealand for example, as enshrined by law.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#135

Post by sarcasmOrTears »

Taxes are never fair, that's why you'll never agree on them. It's a game of coercion and the only thing that can be done is choose who's the sucker that's gonna pay.

Taxing big, multi-national companies is something that I can live with, strangely. I know it's wrong, but still less wrong than having poor/middle-class directly pay the bill. In the end they have the money to pay tax consultants and the money to deal with it.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#136

Post by pbalau »

baud147258 wrote: post #127
pbalau wrote: post #110

Who is this going to affect? The business: 1) between Facebook/Google and advertisers based in France? 2) between Facebook/Google and any advertiser as long as the ads are shown to people in France? 3) between Facebook/Google and any advertiser as long as the ads are shown to French people? If it is the first, then I don't really see a problem. FB and co can either stop doing business directly with French advertisers…

> Get the list with all ads shown by FB over a month along with who they showed the ad to so the gov can check if those people where in France or not? I think it would be closer to checking which French company bought ads from Facebook and for how much and taxing this.

This is the case no 1 in my post. What you quoted refers to points 2 and 3.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#137

Post by AznHisoka »

50656E6973 wrote: post #129
ripdog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits…

>How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? By showing ads. Ads only need eyeballs to make money.

How can the eyeballs in France view ads if there was chaos outside, and gangs started to cut internet cables? How can eyeballs view ads if they didn't learn from French schools how to go to Google.com and enter search queries?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#138

Post by liber8 »

Renaud wrote: post #93
tzs wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't that be covered by the 20% VAT that Amazon pays on goods and services sold to entities in France?

No. VAT is basically a tax paid by people. Companies don’t really pay VAT, they collect it from the end-customers and pass it to the state. Relying on VAT alone skews the burden of financing the state on the people only, which means no participation from the companies that make money without directly contributing to the country’s expenses they benefit from. It also disproportionately disadvantages companies that also…

...Who do you think ultimately owns these companies? Something besides people?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#139

Post by cstejerean »

Renaud wrote: post #93
tzs wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't that be covered by the 20% VAT that Amazon pays on goods and services sold to entities in France?

No. VAT is basically a tax paid by people. Companies don’t really pay VAT, they collect it from the end-customers and pass it to the state. Relying on VAT alone skews the burden of financing the state on the people only, which means no participation from the companies that make money without directly contributing to the country’s expenses they benefit from. It also disproportionately disadvantages companies that also…

And you think this new surcharge won’t be passed onto the consumers in France?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#140

Post by bagacrap »

dahdum wrote: post #111

This tax is on sales and not profits, so won't it just become another line on the bill for French consumers? I imagine they'll just break it separately from VAT. Retroactively they'll have to eat the cost though.

Yes, but only for larger tech firms, so this will somewhat level the playing field between large and small companies (offsetting the economies of scale that larger firms benefit from). This would hypothetically lead to greater consumer choice, which is probably a good thing.
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