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Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

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Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#151

Post by dtf »

bepotts wrote: post #145
chongli wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of innovation and quality tech in Europe. We just don't see it because Europe has much greater diversity of language and culture than North America. This means that companies can target a niche in their country that has zero relevance to Americans. Not everything of value needs to be a billion dollar unicorn. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

English is the business language of the world. I highly doubt there's some tech epicenter near Brussels that would rival Silicon Valley (or even New York City, Seattle, or Austin) if only those companies spoke English. And sure being a Unicorn is everything, but it sure as hell isn't nothing. I have no doubt there there is a company in Europe doing something amazing, but Europe doesn't have a culture that continues t…

It’s the second biggest economy in the world. They’re not that backward.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#152

Post by neffy »

deergomoo wrote: post #149
bcheung wrote: post #144

Discrimination aside, isn't the UK providing the favorable tax haven to begin with (Double Irish)? Also, how is revenue classified? If someone buys ads on Facebook do you now have to count and prorate clicks based on where the user comes from? And now with GDPR (or whatever the equivalent is in the UK) What if the user does not accept tracking where they come from? Then there's the clause that says the business must…

> Discrimination aside, isn't the UK providing the favorable tax haven to begin with (Double Irish) The Republic of Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom

That´s not... exactly... what was being referred to.

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

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#153

Post by mattmanser »

bepotts wrote: post #145
chongli wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of innovation and quality tech in Europe. We just don't see it because Europe has much greater diversity of language and culture than North America. This means that companies can target a niche in their country that has zero relevance to Americans. Not everything of value needs to be a billion dollar unicorn. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

English is the business language of the world. I highly doubt there's some tech epicenter near Brussels that would rival Silicon Valley (or even New York City, Seattle, or Austin) if only those companies spoke English. And sure being a Unicorn is everything, but it sure as hell isn't nothing. I have no doubt there there is a company in Europe doing something amazing, but Europe doesn't have a culture that continues t…

I remember some tech crunch reporter claiming they'd never heard of a nine figure tech sale in Europe, the same day as a local business in my home city (Nottingham) was sold for over £100 million.

It's not that we don't have a tech industry in Europe, it's just that US tech reporters are often insular, ignorant and lazy.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#154

Post by nailer »

martinald wrote: post #73
nailer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have a negative impact on our domestic businesses (traditional brick and mortar, as well as home-grown digital businesses I have a home grown, UK based digital business. This is going to affect me negatively more than the continued existence of the FAANG companies.

You do more than £500m a year in sales in the UK?!

Sorry you're of course right. I did a bunch of research before starting my company to work out whether HMRC had a tax on digital goods (currently it doesn't even have this concept at all) and understood they'd changed that, for all companies.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#155

Post by raesene9 »

scotty79 wrote: post #125
raesene9 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure still achieves the UK.Gov goal, raise additional revenue, don't directly impact citizens.

It will directly impact people who buy advertisement online in UK because Google and Facebook just raise price by 2% for them.

yep sure and I'd guess that not many individual UK citizens purchase Google or Facebook ads :)

Companies do, but it's just a small bump in their advertising revenue.

The UK gov are alll about raising taxes that aren't obvious, so they can raise more cash whilst claiming to be reducing things like income tax.

Remember the UK has a really low rate of corp. tax (19%) compared to most other countries, so hitting internet advertisers for a small amount of their budget isn't a big thing.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#156

Post by apapli »

bepotts wrote: post #116

I 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.

Only a couple of data points, and I recognise these are not a trend, but:

1) Estonia have been doing some interesting things recently. In fact, they contributed a lot to Skype in the early days.

2) a significant portion of developers etc for Upwork are European.

3) SAP

4) Trust pilot

5) Zendesk

Cheers!

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#157

Post by microcolonel »

Daishiman wrote: post #142
bepotts wrote: post #116

I 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.

So... that means that the restauranteurs, skilled tradesmen and everyone else should be bearing the burden, and not the extremely profitable tech companies? I don't know how you arrive at that logic.

Unlike in the U.S, those lower mid earners are the people bearing the tax burden in much of W/NW Europe. The overall tax rate for a person earning less than median income is over 50% in Sweden (granted some of that is about mandatory charges for services like health insurance, which differ in being technically optional to Americans in the 5-45th percentile, and somewhat universal to those below).

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#158

Post by liftbigweights »

chongli wrote: post #138
bepotts wrote: post #116

I 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.

There's lots of innovation and quality tech in Europe. We just don't see it because Europe has much greater diversity of language and culture than North America. This means that companies can target a niche in their country that has zero relevance to Americans. Not everything of value needs to be a billion dollar unicorn. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

> There's lots of innovation and quality tech in Europe.

I agree.

> We just don't see it because Europe has much greater diversity of language and culture than North America. This means that companies can target a niche in their country that has zero relevance to Americans.

But then how come american companies are able dominate europe and even the world? On the flip side, how come canadian companies aren't dominating? How are american companies overcoming the challenges of language and culture in europe?

There might be some merit to you diversity of language and culture claim but the more I think about it, it seems like a crutch or an excuse for europeans. I think europe has a lot to offer, but they aren't living up to their potential. Could it be lack of capital/funding or cultural aversion to risk taking? Or maybe other commenters are right, there are more to life than being the top tech producer.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#159

Post by bbbobbb »

Aqua wrote: post #136
scotty79 wrote: post #119

Why 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?

And how would that work? Google and Facebook could charge more for ads which impacts mostly the advertisers, Amazon could in fact increase the prices impacting average Joes in the UK, but they would lose the advantage over smaller competition unaffected by this kind of tax. This is a globalisation tax that would most likely not affect "normal" people while still bringing quite a few pounds to the national budget.

> Google and Facebook could charge more for ads which impacts mostly the advertisers

How does that work? There is no level of indirection after which the money somehow comes from some magical place. This is still paid for by the consumers in the end. Somebody pays for the ads and the cost of that is factored into whatever the ads are for.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#160

Post by w1nst0nsm1th »

bepotts wrote: post #145
chongli wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of innovation and quality tech in Europe. We just don't see it because Europe has much greater diversity of language and culture than North America. This means that companies can target a niche in their country that has zero relevance to Americans. Not everything of value needs to be a billion dollar unicorn. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

English is the business language of the world. I highly doubt there's some tech epicenter near Brussels that would rival Silicon Valley (or even New York City, Seattle, or Austin) if only those companies spoke English. And sure being a Unicorn is everything, but it sure as hell isn't nothing. I have no doubt there there is a company in Europe doing something amazing, but Europe doesn't have a culture that continues t…

Sure. Let's oil tankers spil remaining oil in the ocean as it pleases them. And let's facebook print partisan ads and fake news paid by Russia in local election.
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