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France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

bbc.com

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Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#31

Post by [deleted] »

Vinnl wrote: post #19
bko wrote: post #15

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…

> What public resources did Amazon, a US company, use from France? Digital infrastructure, anti-poverty programs that mean potential customers still have something to spend, financial infrastructure, legislation, ...

[deleted]

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#32

Post by buboard »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #27
bko wrote: post #15

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…

"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…

All of those can be applied to any company however. By this logic, they should add a +3% tax on every foreign business.

None of this is true. It is a protectionist / anti-tax evasion measure primarily. It can be justified considering the threat that amazon poses in local markets

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#33

Post by mac01021 »

buboard wrote: post #12
jbigelow76 wrote: post #4

Good. Next step, have EU countries come up with an estimation of the value of their citizens' private data that FB and Google gobbles up and tax them on that too. Edit: companies -> countries

Why not google and FB pay the users directly?

Would I get paid per search when I use Google and per post when I use Facebook?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#34

Post by simion314 »

alt_f4 wrote: post #25

Trump is right on this one -- this measure is definitely anti-competitive and specifically aimed at American tech companies. I hope he is swift to retaliate with appropriate tariffs. Failing to do so will bring a wave of random EU taxes on American tech companies, which will eventually lead to lower profits and engineer salaries.

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?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#35

Post by kzrdude »

alt_f4 wrote: post #25

Trump is right on this one -- this measure is definitely anti-competitive and specifically aimed at American tech companies. I hope he is swift to retaliate with appropriate tariffs. Failing to do so will bring a wave of random EU taxes on American tech companies, which will eventually lead to lower profits and engineer salaries.

Oh no, won't someone please think of the U.S. software.engineers.

And oh no, access to a market also means legal and tax responsibilities?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#36

Post by aey »

mywittyname wrote: post #14
99052882514569 wrote: post #3

Taxing digital companies based on digital presence certainly makes sense to me, as a layperson. A company that's selling ads to a French company that wants to show those ads to French users is doing business in France, end of story. Taxing only very large corporations - that's a little more questionable, but plenty of countries (including the US) treat small businesses preferentially, so it's not like it's unpreceden…

Taxation/regulations can place an undue burden on smaller companies. So I think it's perfectly acceptable to use size as a component of taxation. It's like progressive taxation applied to business.

No matter how the law is written, if the result is that the exceptions only apply to French companies and not to the US, it’s bullshit :).

They could pick arbitrary ways to bisect the set until they get the desired result.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#37

Post by 99052882514569 »

pkaye wrote: post #9

> The French government has argued that such firms headquartered outside the country pay little or no tax. Isn't that largely due to EU laws and the decisions of Ireland and a couple other countries.

Let's say it is. Why would that change anything? France's government isn't trying to target or punish anyone (whether Ireland or Google), it just wants to stop the corporate tax avoidance it sees as unfair.

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#38

Post by dublidu »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #4

Good. Next step, have EU countries come up with an estimation of the value of their citizens' private data that FB and Google gobbles up and tax them on that too. Edit: companies -> countries

Isn’t this tax on ad revenue already a good proxy for the value of user data?

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#39

Post by glerk »

buboard wrote: post #17

I just hope the US does not "retaliate" on this. EU entrepreneurs are too dependent on US businesses.

I really wish US companies would take a more forceful approach with these rogue governments. “You get off our back or we pull out of your countries”

Re: France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by US

#40

Post by fiter »

ElKrist wrote: post #21

The US administration is presenting the new tax as if it was specifically targeted to US companies because of their origin. Like a tariff. It is not the case at all. Yes the biggest tech giants that do not pay enough tax are mostly from the US (also other companies from other countries are affected too) But it is not because they are from the US that this new tax is created. It is simply because they don't pay enough…

I suppose it's just like how the tax law changes in the US were not designed to hurt high-tax liberal states more than low-tax conservative states, but that the high-tax liberal states were just taking advantage of the standard deduction.

Unfortunately in these cases, perception is just as important as the nominal reason.

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