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Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

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Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#251

Post by woodpanel »

sofixa wrote: post #214
bluecalm wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pay VAT for sells in your country. It doesn't matter if it's consumer or a company paying the tax, the amount is added to the price. If you want them tax then increase that. Why do you feel entitled to profits of the company that isn't based in your country? It's like thinking the company should pay 5m in tax in Ireland based on sells in France while being ok with them deducting expenses from unrelated business…

> They pay VAT for sells in your country. It doesn't matter if it's consumer or a company paying the tax, the amount is added to the price. If you want them tax then increase that. VAT is tax for consumers, not corporations. > Why do you feel entitled to profits of the company that isn't based in your country? Because those profits are made from sales in that country, and every physical company selling in that countr…

> VAT is tax for consumers, not corporations

Sorry, but where does this misconception come from that companies don't pay VAT? It's not true, I see it on my company's tax statement every month ;-)

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#252

Post by mamon »

lultimouomo wrote: post #245
unilynx wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how VAT works. As a simple example for a EU company: - buy something nationally (you pay VAT to the company) - export it to another EU company (reverse charge, so no VAT received or paid) - get the VAT refunded from your local tax agency. Even nationally, you get VAT refunded if you've paid more to others than you've collected. At least for NL, but I'm pretty sure these rules should be the same in all EU c…

This. There are exceptions (e.g. in Italy you only get refunded for 50% of the VAT you pay when buying phones, or 40% the VAT you pay when buying cars), but they are pretty much that, exceptions. If operating domestically you will usually get more VAT money from customers than you will give to suppliers, so you will pay the difference to the state. If for any reason you pay more to suppliers than you get from custome…

>> If for any reason you pay more to suppliers than you get from customers, the difference becomes a tax credit that you can carry to the following accounting period or deduce from some other tax.

In Poland it is even possible to get that difference in cash - Tax office wire transfers it to your bank account. This gave birth to a countless scams, where the shell companies forge invoices, ask for VAT tax refund and then disappear with the money.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#253

Post by lultimouomo »

woodpanel wrote: post #247
unilynx wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how VAT works. As a simple example for a EU company: - buy something nationally (you pay VAT to the company) - export it to another EU company (reverse charge, so no VAT received or paid) - get the VAT refunded from your local tax agency. Even nationally, you get VAT refunded if you've paid more to others than you've collected. At least for NL, but I'm pretty sure these rules should be the same in all EU c…

How is that any different to what I've said? > Even nationally, you get VAT refunded if you've paid more to others than you've collected. You do realize that this implies you're operating at a loss? Thus my statement about companies usually being run to make profits.

But if you get more VAT from your customers than you give to your suppliers, when you're "paying" the difference to the state you're just forwarding part of the VAT which your customers paid, you're not paying it yourself.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#254

Post by SilasX »

l9k wrote: post #250
SilasX wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "monopoly" is best judged by "current market share", but by whether a) it's easy for users to switch, and b) whether having that market share is self-reinforcing in a way that prevents competitors from entering. The parent's point was that a) is not true for Google as a search engine. b) doesn't seem to be true either; while money and experience can make you provide better search results, you don't get…

So what you're saying is it's easy to compete with Google and get some market share in that space?

No.

I'm trying to outline a useful definition of "[bad-]monopoly" that captures the stuff we generally care about when we worry about them.

It's important to have a definition that excludes "they're just unusually good and so people happen to be currently buying from them, purely as an issue of merit". (If Joe happens to be the best hot dog vendor on some intersection, that's different than if he can prevent others who want to from opening shop nearby.)

I said Google doesn't count as the kind of bad-monopoly because they're easy to switch away from, and the market share isn't self-reinforcing.

It doesn't follow that Google is easy to take market share from. That could be the case of "legitimately good at what they do", and is not how you should define a worrisome monopoly.

A company being so good that others can't gain market share isn't (necessarily) a bad-monopoly. Only if that difficulty came from the factors above, would it count as a bad-monopoly.

(Those factors being the vendor lock-in and the self-reinforcing aspect.)

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#255

Post by eiaoa »

leetcrew wrote: post #241
eiaoa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't even have scooters yet and they're talking about passing regulation in case it becomes a thing. That's a good thing , not a bad thing. It means your regulators are paying attention to events elsewhere and are trying to proactively prepare for them, rather than flailing about in reaction to complaints and problems. When the scooters come, your jurisdiction will be ready for them, rather than having to ban t…

making new laws to solve problems that don't actually exist yet is the opposite of what I would call a good thing. maybe this is a cultural difference between the US and Europe, but over here we tend prefer for the government not to swing its weight around until there is clear evidence of a problem.

> making new laws to solve problems that don't actually exist yet

> but over here we tend prefer for the government not to swing its weight around until there is clear evidence of a problem.

There is clear evidence of a problem: SF banned scooters to give itself time to figure out how to regulate them: http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-str.... There is no reason to think SF is particularly unique and that other municipalities won't have similar experience.

And even before SF banned scooters, there was clear evidence of problems with dockless rentals in China: sidewalks became bike parking lots with little room left for actual walking.

This idea that governments should only regulate if there's a manifested problem in their particular jurisdiction is pretty stupid, frankly. It's like saying you shouldn't make up your mind about crack cocaine before you've actually tried it and experience the problems it causes.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#256

Post by woodpanel »

lultimouomo wrote: post #253
woodpanel wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that any different to what I've said? > Even nationally, you get VAT refunded if you've paid more to others than you've collected. You do realize that this implies you're operating at a loss? Thus my statement about companies usually being run to make profits.

But if you get more VAT from your customers than you give to your suppliers, when you're "paying" the difference to the state you're just forwarding part of the VAT which your customers paid, you're not paying it yourself.

You see the error here? You write an amount in an invoice, the customer pays you. From that, the taxman demands his percentage later on from you. The only way to reduce the amount you have to pay is by buying stuff. Nowhere in the process is the customer paying two parties.

It's just lexical. Would you say 'oh the company is just routing its income tax to the taxman' if companies had to put their income tax percantages on invoices too?

The client however pays you 10 bucks in gross regardless whether the VAT you have to pay afterwards is 7, 15 or 25%

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#257

Post by lovich »

bsaul wrote: post #212
snidane wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like income taxes either, but to be fair, all employees are paying taxes out of their 'revenues'.

People don’t produce goods to sell ( so profits and revenue are actually not really relevant concepts). They’re the endpoint of the economy so they’re a very special item. Same reason something called VAT only apply to them.

I have food, water, shelter, and healthcare inputs to maintain my body and keep producing services. Why would my income minus those costs not map to the ideas of revenue and profit?

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#258

Post by mr_toad »

user5994461 wrote: post #211
bsaul wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/eur...

It's not a search engine, it's only an ad business.

Google is an ad businesses. At this point their other products; search, Gmail, Android are all just loss-leaders.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#259

Post by lultimouomo »

woodpanel wrote: post #256
lultimouomo wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you get more VAT from your customers than you give to your suppliers, when you're "paying" the difference to the state you're just forwarding part of the VAT which your customers paid, you're not paying it yourself.

You see the error here? You write an amount in an invoice, the customer pays you. From that, the taxman demands his percentage later on from you . The only way to reduce the amount you have to pay is by buying stuff. Nowhere in the process is the customer paying two parties. It's just lexical. Would you say 'oh the company is just routing its income tax to the taxman' if companies had to put their income tax percanta…

Would you say employers pay income taxes for employees if they retain part of their wage and forward it to the state as a down payment for the employee income tax? I wouldn't say so; income tax is paid by the employee, even if the employer is forwarding the money to the state.

It doesn't matter who puts the money in an envelope and goes to the tax office; it matters who is subject to the tax.

Non-EU turists traveling in Europe will pay VAT on souvenirs that they're bringing back to their countries, and upon exiting from EU they will actually will get the VAT back, since they paid for it, but they were not supposed to since the goods are in the end going to be used outside EU.

This would just not make sense if VAT was paid by the seller.

Re: Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants

#260

Post by gruez »

bluecalm wrote: post #169
dalbasal wrote: post #147

Whether this policy is good or bad will depend on the details. But generally, in Europe, this kind of priposal is a populism magnet and a dancefloor for cheap politics. "Standing up to multinational corporations and making them pay their fair share (ra! ra!)" is exactly the type of rhetoric our most generic politicians love. An American equivalent might be some "government out of your hair" initiative to reduce profe…

This is because taxing profit is a very bad idea. It leads to situations where two companies doing exactly the same thing pay different taxes because one uses less efficient (and often more polluting) technology or just chooses to buy luxury cars for the employees instead of showing profits. The tax on profits is a tax on honesty in accounting and even if accountats are honest it's still impossible to determine fair…

>or just chooses to buy luxury cars for the employees instead of showing profits.

those purchases are taxed as income

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