Live data from Hacker News

France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

bloomberg.com

301–304 of 304 posts

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 1.5% tax rates will bring more than the current system. Under your current economic structure, surely. But once you make it so that companies can reduce their supply chain's tax burden from ~20% to 1.5% by becoming vertically integrated, what do you expect to happen next? > Now megacorps don't pay taxes at all, so what's better? Option one is income tax at e.g. 20%, local companies pay 20% while megacorps pay ~…

I am surprised about you saying it would be 20% for small business. What (optimized) market requires for a raw source to change hands 13 times before it is a final product (mind that we are talking small business here). The revenue tax would force the market to optimize and become more competitive. And even if megacorps would grow vertically - that's OK, since this would force them to grow locally, take parts of the…

> What (optimized) market requires for a raw source to change hands 13 times before it is a final product (mind that we are talking small business here).

That is how many things work. One company sells saplings, another operates a tree farm, another logs the trees and transports them to the sawmill, another operates the sawmill, another distributes the bulk lumber to wholesalers in different cities, another operates warehouses and wholesales the lumber to local businesses, another shapes the lumber into custom forms, another assembles the custom lumber into unfinished furniture, another finishes and paints the furniture, another wholesales the finished furniture, another packages the furniture into prepackaged furniture sets, another retails the furniture sets, and then finally the end customer buys it.

This is not inefficiency, it's specialization. Operating a sawmill is not the same skill set as retailing prepackaged furniture sets.

> The revenue tax would force the market to optimize and become more competitive.

It would force the market to vertically integrate and become less competitive.

> And even if megacorps would grow vertically - that's OK, since this would force them to grow locally, take parts of the market and optimize it.

Megacorps don't have to grow vertically, they already are. It's why the tax gives them an advantage over local businesses that aren't.

And they wouldn't to do so locally. They could just show up with an imported finished product and retail it directly themselves.

> I also don't think DBCFT would work in an OPEN market like EU.

DBCFT is basically VAT. The primary difference is that local wages are deductible. It does not seem like a real problem to allow for "local wages" to mean anywhere within the EU rather than only in the sale destination country. Or to just use VAT instead if you like, though the wage deduction from VAT does seem like a good idea in general (since wages are already taxed to the employee and double taxing employment is undesirable).

> The EU rules and tax system is completely different to US and it cannot be compared.

If you're designing new tax rules, you can compare the new rules to whatever you want. The EU could implement the US system verbatim or vice versa if they wanted to and had the votes.

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#302
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small businesses are already penalized by our current laws and ways of taxing profits. I believe the alternative I am proposing (that will never come to reality) is easier for everyone

Sure, it's easier, but it also means you'll just have a bunch of giant vertically-integrated monopolies. Easier, sure, but I don't see how that's better.

It's better because it's cheaper for everyone to do business. More competition, everything gets cheaper.

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to take into account all the simplification it would imply in tax collection / paperwork / regulations etc. The cost of our current ways of taxing wealth and profits is huge

In the US, the IRS collected $3.33 trillion in revenue in 2018, with a total budget of 11.5 billion (2017). Thats 0.3453%, or 35c per $100 of tax revenue. Fairly minor in the scheme of things.

that's only one side of the ledger (collection). Now calculate the costs to the taxpayers (people and corps).

Re: France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

#304
post #59
post #2

Couldn't we just ban tax evasion? What makes it so hard? (honest question) A recent European study has shown that the more company win money, the less they pay in taxes (in percentage). Is it because of bad laws? Corrupt politicians? Something else?

Europe is losing ~globalization and we are fighting over the scraps. Which European country do you think will be overall obviously better in ten years? And not in the sense that "everything gets better", but in the sense of having a high rate of success in converting progress to prosperity. I don't know of any.

switzerland
Post reply on HN