171–180 of 501 posts
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20409591
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How, did you forgot how big US is? We are reminded here on HN how big US is, so it is natural that some US companies will also fall into that tax laws. What will Trump do? tax smaller companies so non US ones are hit harder ? Off topic, did the China tariffs had any good side effect so far?
Arguably the China tariffs are resulting in manufacturing being distributed to other countries. This could be considered a good side effect from a fault tolerance perspective.
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not sure what you mean
Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich. Companies like google can charge their profitable branches in other countries royalties to use Google software or platform moving the profits out of a higher tax country like France into Ireland where there's little to no tax. Even after they patched the Dutch part that allowed even the marginal Irish taxes to be avoided companies can still artificially lower their profit by transf…
> It is a protectionist / anti-tax evasion measure primarily
I never understood the logic behind taxing large internet businesses. The idea behind taxes is that you use some public resource and you pay for that service. You own a home in a neighborhood, you pay property tax that funds the schools. You drive a car, you pay gasoline tax that funds the streets. You hire workers locally, you pay the tax to pay back all the contributions public institutions made to adding the skill…
Why have 20% of Taxi revenue (or whatever it is) leave the country if basically all of the service is provided in country, and the internet taxi company takes the large cut over a sustained period through a combination of first-mover advantage an network effects? (Not that that's what's going on completely in the case of ride sharing, as Uber may still be subsidizing things at this point)
For other things it doesn't make sense, but in the case of many of these companies it is basically just citizens banding together through democratic decision making to not get taken advantage of through network effects that lock in certain services and shield them from competition.
I never understood the logic behind taxing large internet businesses. The idea behind taxes is that you use some public resource and you pay for that service. You own a home in a neighborhood, you pay property tax that funds the schools. You drive a car, you pay gasoline tax that funds the streets. You hire workers locally, you pay the tax to pay back all the contributions public institutions made to adding the skill…
> I never understood the logic behind taxing large internet businesses. > The idea behind taxes is that you use some public resource and you pay for that service. You own a home in a neighborhood, you pay property tax that funds the schools. You drive a car, you pay gasoline tax that funds the streets. You hire workers locally, you pay the tax to pay back all the contributions public institutions made to adding the s…
I think the real reason is that there will be someone to look after you when you're old and sick.
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How, they would also tax big companies "hidden" profits ? Some US citizens are asking for this already, the French tax is not target at a country.
They would tax digital companies doing businesses in the US.
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"What public resources did Amazon, a US company, use from France?" off the top of my head, I'm sure there are lots more: - a large set of well-off consumers who got there because of free public education, parental supports, et cetera - a safe society so drop shipping is possible - roads & infrastructure for shipping - a justice system that protects Amazon from cheating buyers and sellers - a stable, accepted currency…
>- roads & infrastructure for shipping Their whole point was that the shipper would pay taxes. Which they do. This applies to most of your points as well, they do get taxed on their warehouses. What I find most comical about all this is there's already a 20% VAT on everything Amazon sells there. They do pay taxes already, France simply wants more, and this tax is written in a way where it will have a much larger effe…
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Try bringing much more expensive items across a border and you will see what happens ( you will be taxed at the border ).
Yeah, I will pay VAT and maybe tariffs. Both are perfectly fine taxes. Google is already paying VAT on sells to France. France could increase those on electronic advertising if they want to and Google will pay that.
Google only pays VAT on purchases (for its own use) that it will sell on to customers.
I never understood the logic behind taxing large internet businesses. The idea behind taxes is that you use some public resource and you pay for that service. You own a home in a neighborhood, you pay property tax that funds the schools. You drive a car, you pay gasoline tax that funds the streets. You hire workers locally, you pay the tax to pay back all the contributions public institutions made to adding the skill…
I doubt French people will revolt against taxing Google or US Marines will invade France.