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France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

reuters.com

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Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#161

Post by sgt101 »

Spivak wrote: post #115
zdkl wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the intent of the law is absolutely unmistakeable especially in tax-related domains. Bad-faith actors don't deserve the statutory crevices through which they divert their accounting. Fix the moral compass of their boards and officers or assign them a post-facto "we really don't like what you did there" penalty. Could be a fine, business restriction or mandatory supervision by the public authorities. The notion th…

> The notion that these companies should only be beholden to the strictest letter of the law is nonsensical. Right, they should be beholden to the letter when it benefits them and the spirit when it benefits them. Seriously -- you wouldn't want to live in a world where this isn't the case. * Nobody should have a technicality in the letter result in fines and punishment when they were following the spirit in earnest.…

I think that all relies on a lot of judgement and perspective. I think that the way to fix things is to shrink down (or expand) the letter of the law so as to catch the corner cases and to protect people appropriately (from the application of the law).

I think that the letter of the law must be applied generously and sparingly - but the rapid expansion of egregious evasion should be addressed because it is having corrosive social effects that will compromise this attitude and the norms that underpin it.

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#162

Post by sgt101 »

gribbly wrote: post #44
eloff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's illegal for a person to do, but legal for these big companies. Don't blame the companies for exploiting loopholes. Blame the law. Fix the law.

Why do you think that law hasn't been fixed ...

I have two sources and one line of reasoning.

1) Reading newspapers and watching the news gives me the impression that there are large numbers of people who are not happy with the current social contract.

2) Speaking to people in and outside of my community informs me that there are many people who are not happy with the current social contract.

The line of reasoning I have is that there are simple ways that could readjust the flow of revenue and capital to enable the removal of many of the perceived injustices that other people cite when I speak with them or read of their experiences.

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#163

Post by sgt101 »

thescribe wrote: post #134
KGIII wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxation may not be natural, but it is inherent in a society. To explain, you give some of your kill to the tribe. You share with your family, to provide for them. In return, you get a tribe or family. The independent person without obligation to return to the social good is largely a myth and, if done, would mean extinction. Additionally, I don't mind paying my taxes. I do mind how my taxes are spent. They are the c…

Taxes may be inherent to society, but so is crime. I believe we have a moral obligation to minimize both.

Also sex, sex is inherent to society. As is friendship, as are stable child rearing agreements (spartan or catholic - I'm not dictating, but you do need something to get babies to productivity).

Let's not minimize those, or poetry or theatre.

Your moral equivalence is not mine, perhaps other like you are a majority or even a significant minority, but perhaps not. In any case I think that for a functional society my equivalence has a higher utility.

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#164

Post by petre »

microcolonel wrote: post #2

The idea of a revenue tax of course contradicts the stated justifications for existing taxes on business: the funding of ephemeral services which contribute indirectly to the business's revenue. Google benefits from approximately no government infrastructure in France, Germany, Italy, or Spain, but they want to get their grubby hands on it nonetheless.

They do benefit from using the network infrastructure, but I sort of agree with you that this is just money grabbing to make up for ever increasing government expenditures. If they do it to the tech giants they'll do it to everyone else. This is an experiment, just like Cyprus was with taking sums in excess of 100k euros out of people's accounts.

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#165

Post by charlesdm »

sgt101 wrote: post #161
Spivak wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The notion that these companies should only be beholden to the strictest letter of the law is nonsensical. Right, they should be beholden to the letter when it benefits them and the spirit when it benefits them. Seriously -- you wouldn't want to live in a world where this isn't the case. * Nobody should have a technicality in the letter result in fines and punishment when they were following the spirit in earnest.…

I think that all relies on a lot of judgement and perspective. I think that the way to fix things is to shrink down (or expand) the letter of the law so as to catch the corner cases and to protect people appropriately (from the application of the law). I think that the letter of the law must be applied generously and sparingly - but the rapid expansion of egregious evasion should be addressed because it is having cor…

Avoidance, you mean. I think there are more distorting effects in the market at the moment than tax avoidance, such as extremely low interest rates and quantitative easing (outside of the US).

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#166

Post by sgt101 »

charlesdm wrote: post #165
sgt101 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that all relies on a lot of judgement and perspective. I think that the way to fix things is to shrink down (or expand) the letter of the law so as to catch the corner cases and to protect people appropriately (from the application of the law). I think that the letter of the law must be applied generously and sparingly - but the rapid expansion of egregious evasion should be addressed because it is having cor…

Avoidance, you mean. I think there are more distorting effects in the market at the moment than tax avoidance, such as extremely low interest rates and quantitative easing (outside of the US).

Yes - agree, sorry sloppy language. I agree that both of the other distortions are important and difficult too - but I think imposed on authorities by circumstance.

Also having other things in play doesn't mean that this thing shouldn't be fixed...

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#167

Post by charlesdm »

sgt101 wrote: post #166
charlesdm wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoidance, you mean. I think there are more distorting effects in the market at the moment than tax avoidance, such as extremely low interest rates and quantitative easing (outside of the US).

Yes - agree, sorry sloppy language. I agree that both of the other distortions are important and difficult too - but I think imposed on authorities by circumstance. Also having other things in play doesn't mean that this thing shouldn't be fixed...

Yes, agree, but I just think in many cases the resources and effort it requires for tax authorities to win these cases often makes it not worth it.

A full tax case can easily run for 5 to 10 years, and the upside will be relatively limited. A lot has already been done in recent years and for a lot of EU companies the actual tax rate they pay has gone up with a few percentage points. But now most of the low hanging fruit is gone.

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#168

Post by Houshalter »

Nokinside wrote: post #105
Houshalter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've vastly confused cause and effect. Rich economies can afford high tax rates because they are rich, and poor economies have to compete for what businesses they can get. Another obvious confounder is that richer states tend to be more urban, and urban places tend to be more liberal. Which vote for higher tax rates and social programs. Rural states are more conservative which favor smaller governments. Thi…

Many rich economies started poor. Systematic investment to education and infrastructure have provided the tools to become a rich economy. Becoming rich country with low level taxation is possible only for countries with lots of natural resources, like oil.

Governments in most rich countries today are vastly larger than a century ago. American in particular was basically an extreme libertarian system until relatively recent times. These countries were already rich, or well on their way to becoming so, when their governments bloated up. Rich societies cause big governments, not the other way around.

Additionally, things like education and infrastructure are a tiny fraction of government spending (although they tend to keep growing despite not getting any better.) Almost no one disagrees that the government should fund those things. That's not where the vast majority of your high taxes are going.

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#169

Post by candiodari »

plandis wrote: post #51
sddfd wrote: post #16

This is not about taxing revenues instead of profits. This is about taxing EU-wide profits in EU countries proportional to the revenues generated in that country. At the moment, many big tech companies use bookkeeping tricks to make it look like all their profit is generated in, for example, Ireland, while the revenue is generated in other EU counties. Unfortunately, Ireland has special tax rates for these companies…

Yes, this is the (I think) a step in the right direction. Don't have special judgements about taxes (i.e. Apple in Ireland) because companies try to minimize the tax they pay. Actually change the laws so it's consistent for all companies.

And if Hell would freeze over every summer it'd be excellent : free airco if you just dig a hole in the ground.

Re: France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues

#170

Post by candiodari »

markvdb wrote: post #138
jaredklewis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this system is enacted, will the benefits of staying in the EU out weigh just moving all the shell companies to the Caymans or wherever? I wish countries would give up on corporate taxes. They are either easily circumvented, or you need a massive regulatory body to analyze all corporate transactions and determine if they are "fair." All the same tax revenue can be gained through much better systems that are not tr…

Much of the profit generated in the EU by these multinationals actually ends up largely untaxed in Bermuda/Cayman islands/... subsidiaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

But that would not be able to happen if it wasn't for the EU. Then import taxes would compensate.
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