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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

#201

Post by Nasrudith »

bbbobbb wrote: post #159
Aqua wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The advertising fees would rise which would either increase the portion of the advertising budget or reduce the advertising scope.

That said there are limits to what can be passed on without harming profit margins given other constraints like price points.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#202

Post by blibble »

rwmj wrote: post #185
blibble wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This gives money to richer voters because the higher your earnings, the more tax saved. a rise of the zero rate equally effects anyone earning above the new zero rate threshold (regardless of how much they are above it [1]) a full time minimum wage employee earning ~£14,000/year gets exactly the same reduction in tax from this specific increase as an engineer on £90,000/year [1]: once you get above £100,000/year yo…

The Resolution Foundation disagrees: https://twitter.com/resfoundation/status/1056969156741029889 However I agree that anyone earning over £100K won't be affected because of the peculiar system where you lose the personal allowance in steps over this threshold.

they don't disagree, your point was:

> Personal allowance (zero tax band) raised to £12,500 from April (in the Budget today). This gives money to richer voters because the higher your earnings, the more tax saved.

the conclusion of which is factually incorrect, and unsupported by your linked chart (which includes more than just the increase in the zero rated band)

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#203

Post by bepotts »

opaque wrote: post #198
ackidacki wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it is more informed than ignorant. Remove Sweden and UK from the the European list and you have needles in a haystack. Even if you account for the 'unicorn' adge there is barely have innovation in Europe. On the social front too too, European pay and ownership is more concentrated in the hands of the leaders and is less evenly distributed than American counterparts. Your comment strikes me a bit as if it com…

> Remove Sweden and UK from the the European list and you have needles in a haystack. Remove California and New York from the US list and ...

California and New York are part of the United States. I know people sometimes don't understand this, but the better comparison would be "remove London from the United Kingdom". See how dumb that sounds? That's how dumb "remove California and New York from the US" is.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#204

Post by kbenson »

beastnumber wrote: post #191
kbenson wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's how taxes everywhere usually work. So, taxes everywhere usually see a 500% increase over 10 years? Forgive me if I require some sort of evidence for a claim as extreme as that.

Did I ever say that? Taxes usually increase. Do your own research.

> Did I ever say that?

Yes. Yes you did, by nature of what you said and what it was in response to, which is very specifically a case were taxes raised by 500% over 10 years.

> Taxes usually increase.

A ridiculous proposition on it's face, as it would mean over times taxes always get higher. In the United States, Federal income taxes have fluctuated up as high as above 90% over the last one hundred years. It's not that high anymore, so taxes have gone down.[1][2] The UK has similarly seem fluctuations over time, and it's not currently at the highest it's been seen.[3]

> Do your own research.

If you're going to make an assertion, the onus is on you to back it up.

That said, you should be careful what you wish for, because someone might just take you up one it.

1: https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-tax-rates

2: https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Inco...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_Uni...

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#205

Post by KineticLensman »

egman_ekki wrote: post #195
KineticLensman wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> innovation and quality tech companies from Europe Brit here (still in Europe for the moment). There is a lot if you include aerospace and pharma, less if you just consider software. The only non-British European software I've used and could remember off the top of my head was SAP. This made me think - what countries have sourced the software on my home PC? It's mainly American with a couple of outliers: e.g. New Ze…

(ESET is from Slovakia, but still European)

Oops - I've corrected my comment. I was confusing ESET UK with the parent company.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#206

Post by darawk »

ben_w wrote: post #108
darawk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll raise prices on advertisers in the UK, who will subsequently raise prices on consumers.

“Why weren’t you already charging more, if you could?” Would be my obvious first question at that point, if I was a shareholder.

Because the competitive equilibrium doesn't allow it unless the cost curve shifts for everyone at the same time.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#207

Post by walshemj »

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.

That's not how it works ad buyers are not going to automatically increase their budgets.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#208

Post by walshemj »

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…

There are Bars in Boston where I would not make that statement :-)

More seriously the split between the north and south is no joking matter in a number of places.

Re: Tech giants face 2% UK digital services tax

#209

Post by walshemj »

theptip wrote: post #132

This looks like it is on gross sales? If so that would hurt low-margin companies quite a lot; I imagine Amazon would be essentially forced to increase prices by 2% for example.

President Trumps threats to leave the international postal union would hurt the low margin Chinese companies more - as they currently benefit from low cost shipping deals agreed decades ago
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