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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

#181

Post by ben_w »

pyrale wrote: post #58
ben_w wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view tax codes like buggy software, lawful tax minimisation like zero day exploits — only difference is that the law is not above itself, so if the tax loophole is legal, then it's legal. That said, just because something is legal doesn't make it moral, but even though I think we agree on that, I'd have to argue loopholes are totally in the domain of legislators to fix — if I understand correctly, UK law requires t…

> I view tax codes like buggy software, lawful tax minimisation like zero day exploits I have it you view lobbying as having a hand in the code you subsequently exploit, and therefore a major ethics breach ?

Pretty much.

I view corporations as non-human intelligences, so while it's totally unethical for a human to manipulate the law to their own ends, it's also something I expect corporations to perceive as acceptable, in as much as that makes sense (they will not shun each other for it) and in much the way we humans generally agree it's wrong to kill but we don't shun people for amputations or appendectomies.

This is why I prefer democratic corporations, rare as they are, to pure capitalist ones — at least the metaphorical appendix has a vote.

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

#182

Post by seanmcdirmid »

charlesdm wrote: post #175
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Well, I was "taxed" on my Chinese income, but never paid a dime. Foreign tax credits and foreign income exclusions mean most of us pay nothing (well, we pay Chinese taxes, just not US taxes).

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

#183

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sgt101 wrote: post #157
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.

From what I understand they will rebate your tax based on the local taxation you have paid, provided you can prove that. Alternatively you can give up your citizenship... I think very few people with US citizenship ever do that.

You actually don't have to prove anything, you just state that you paid taxes and how much you paid (if taking a foreign tax credit). As for rebate, that is something else, meaning those taxes were already withheld by the IRS for some reason.

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

#184

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jaclaz wrote: post #179
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.

>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.a…

And in most countries, you can just take the Foreign Tax credit and still owe zero given that their rates are higher than the US's.

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

#185

Post by frostburg »

Spivak wrote: post #124
frostburg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think paid for the bulk of the infrastructure that makes internet access work in these countries? You're talking like a parody libertarian.

So what I'm hearing is that if you operate a website that is accessible to any person in France you should get a bill from the French government since you benefited from their infrastructure. And Netflix should probably be getting billed from Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, L3, WOW, etc. too since they can only access their customers through their infrastructure.

We're talking about taxation here. If you're generating profits there you're probably going to have to pay taxes, yes. But of course you're just deliberately misunderstanding.

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

#186

Post by otp124 »

candiodari wrote: post #169
plandis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Was this comment really necessary? Couldn't you just address the OP, versus unrealistic sarcasm?

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

#187

Post by dogma1138 »

rtpg wrote: post #81
dogma1138 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal corporate tax can be up to 35%, which is the highest in the world outside of some literally banana republics. Delaware has a corporate tax rate of 8.7%, California has 8.84. So yes no one is incorporating in Delaware becuase of taxes, WA, TX, NV and a few others have zero corporate tax.

Isn't this a misrepresentation of the global state? I think the corporate tax rate in France is 33% of profits, which isn't far from 35% Not sure how state tax rates interact with the federal one though

Yes but iirc France has a system of tax credits that reduce the liability for large companies especially. You can deduct 7% from those 33% from the payroll tax credit alone as long as you pay your workers more than the minimum wage.

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

#188

Post by eloff »

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?

Not if you have an internet business of some kind, or work remotely for a foreign company. But if you do that, you're a schmuck to live in a country with a high tax rate. You can double your income, which means your savings rate probably goes up 600% or more, just by moving to a country that does not tax foreign income. How much faster can you pay off your mortgage under those conditions? How much faster can you retire?

It's not quite as magical as it seems though. If you retire in your 40s because of doing that, you'll need a lot more savings than you would at 65.

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

#189

Post by eloff »

charlesdm wrote: post #160
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.

The US is probably also realistically the only country in the world that would be able to do this and get away with it. (Pretty sure Eritrea isn't collecting much from abroad..)

Yeah, you're right. It comes back to the USA is special. There's a lot of things it gets away with that other countries could not. There are benefits to being #1.

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

#190

Post by lovich »

zdkl wrote: post #158
lovich wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe I've ever heard France described as a communist country before

We have extremely influential labor unions, the public sector is a leading job provider (even a majority employer in some areas), healthcare and a lot of infrastructure is nationalised, huge welfare programs, free public education for all... But most importantly to the (joke) argument that we're the last communist country there's a massive popular adhesion to the points listed above and for some reason a deep seated…

I mean, you only have to look at pretty much every wealthy person to see why they would have a mistrust of them. Even guys who are doing good things now, like Bill Gates, didn't get wealthy by acting like nice people.

As for the communist thing, ah I didn't realize it was a joke argument, thought it was a serious one

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