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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

#171

Post by candiodari »

danmaz74 wrote: post #145
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…

In all fairness, it's not just Ireland. Luxembourg and - partially - the Netherlands also participate and benefit from this.

And the guy who helped set that up - and personally made it worse by making custom tax deals for several multinationals - is now the head of the EU commission !

This will get a lot worse before it gets better.

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

#172

Post by candiodari »

rtpg wrote: post #123
dwaltrip wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds way too easy... Is there any extra sleight of hand required? I'm surprised they can get a way with such blatant maneuvers.

My understanding is this structure is also possible in a "legitimate" setting For example if Apple France is really just a distributor, and they buy their products at low margins, then it is what it is I think a lot of tax agencies simply don't have the muscle to push forward on this

The most powerful politician in the EU - Jean-Claude Juncker - is personally responsible (not by himself, of course) for setting up these sorts of structures, and making sure they stay in place [1].

A quote from [1]:

"The president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, spent years in his previous role as Luxembourg’s prime minister secretly blocking EU efforts to tackle tax avoidance by multinational corporations, leaked documents reveal."

So:

> I think a lot of tax agencies simply don't have the muscle to push forward on this

No. They do. They're just prevented from doing so by the "socialists" (hah !) Europe "elected" (just pointing out that the leadership of the EU commission, the only organisation with real law-giving power in the EU aren't directly elected at all).

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/01/jean-claude...

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

#173

Post by seanmcdirmid »

eloff wrote: post #142
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No countries tax foreign income but the USA and Eritrea.

Not true at all. Canada, for example, taxes your worldwide income. USA and Eritrea are unique in that they will tax your worldwide income even if you no longer live in those countries (are non-resident.) No other countries in the world have the brass balls to do that.

Only if you are resident in Canada. A lot of countries do that. The USA will tax you even if you aren't resident as long as you have at least a green card or other immigrant visa.

How many people are collecting income from a full time job while living in Canada anyways? Doesn't foreign income (vs. say capital gains) generally imply non residency?

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

#174

Post by agumonkey »

wslh wrote: post #64
agumonkey wrote: post #26

I find the whole system lame. I feel web giants of today are not making the web better, just different, more structured and massive. Instead of taxing them to grab a share of their earnings (whether it makes sense or not), I'd be happier if more people would write longer and denser web page as it was until the late 90s. Give incentives for people to produce.

> Give incentives for people to produce. Even in US there is only one Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, etc. It seems like these global monopolies are a new phenomenon that requires to rethink past economic ideas.

Is this new ? USA split Rockefeller empire which was unbelievably huge too.

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

#175

Post by charlesdm »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #173
eloff wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true at all. Canada, for example, taxes your worldwide income. USA and Eritrea are unique in that they will tax your worldwide income even if you no longer live in those countries (are non-resident.) No other countries in the world have the brass balls to do that.

Only if you are resident in Canada. A lot of countries do that. The USA will tax you even if you aren't resident as long as you have at least a green card or other immigrant visa. How many people are collecting income from a full time job while living in Canada anyways? Doesn't foreign income (vs. say capital gains) generally imply non residency?

Directors of Canadian companies who are living abroad is probably one example.

Also, people who, say, commute from CA to the US on a daily basis will generally be exempt from Canadian taxes because the work is performed in the US (just an example, I have no idea whether you can commute from CA -> US on a daily basis)

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

#176

Post by NicoJuicy »

petre wrote: post #156
NicoJuicy wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, UK was never part of the EU ( fully). I'm glad that's over now, i don't think UK will benefit on the long term and I hope the responsable politicians will be punished. But at least the will be no more exceptions for participating members of the EU. The EU was a good concept, but exceptions to members states ( not only UK, but also for Belgium eg. To much debt), made it a lot less usefull Damned politicians.…

People in the UK voted to join the EC, not the EU. British leadership (Margaret Tatcher) was very straightforward from the begining about not joining the EMU/Eurozone.

But they were in the EU, it's not about the intention of not being in. Also EC is a predecessor of the EU. It also started with the BeNeLux before that

Exceptions on joining, but not participating 100% shouldn't be allowed in the first place

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

#177

Post by wslh »

agumonkey wrote: post #174
wslh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give incentives for people to produce. Even in US there is only one Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, etc. It seems like these global monopolies are a new phenomenon that requires to rethink past economic ideas.

Is this new ? USA split Rockefeller empire which was unbelievably huge too.

Yes, it is new because it is global, Rockefeller was a local phenomenon. Before you have monopolies per country and now these monopolies (or call them as you want) are centralized in US.

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

#178

Post by FormFollowsFunc »

dmichulke wrote: post #117
Iv wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the main criticism about how the EU was made: freedom for funds goods and (mostly) workers to move around in the EU zone, without tariffs or constraints but no fiscal harmonization has been done. Therefore countries with low taxes (Ireland but also Luxembourg) attract a disproportionate amount of big companies HQ. Ikea, for instance, is officially declared in Luxembourg. Why so many people in EU rejoic…

Fun fact: There is no IKEA store in Luxembourg

Another fun fact: There are no Apple stores in the Republic of Ireland.

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

#179

Post by jaclaz »

eloff wrote: post #142
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No countries tax foreign income but the USA and Eritrea.

Not true at all. Canada, for example, taxes your worldwide income. USA and Eritrea are unique in that they will tax your worldwide income even if you no longer live in those countries (are non-resident.) No other countries in the world have the brass balls to do that.

>USA and Eritrea are unique in that they will tax your worldwide income even if you no longer live in those countries (are non-resident.) No other countries in the world have the brass balls to do that.

But to be fair there is a rather large exemption, around US$ 100,000 per year, the nuisance is that you have to file some tax forms anyway:

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-c...

https://www.americansabroad.org/us-taxes-abroad-for-dummies-...

>The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE, using IRS Form 2555) allows you to exclude a certain amount of your EARNED income from US tax. For tax year 2016 (filing in 2017) this exclusion was $101,300.

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

#180

Post by imdsm »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #176
petre wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the UK voted to join the EC, not the EU. British leadership (Margaret Tatcher) was very straightforward from the begining about not joining the EMU/Eurozone.

But they were in the EU, it's not about the intention of not being in. Also EC is a predecessor of the EU. It also started with the BeNeLux before that Exceptions on joining, but not participating 100% shouldn't be allowed in the first place

Remember, people voted to join the EC, and politicians then signed the UK up to the EU without asking the people. The UK was never meant to be part of the EU. The UK & US helped start the EU to prevent Europe from falling back into war, but it was never meant to engulf the UK, who as Churchill said, is too incompatible to ever be a part of it.
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