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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

#431

Post by buboard »

magduf wrote: post #259
levosmetalo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be happy if those spy organisations like Google and Facebook would leave my country.

Google provides some genuinely useful services, like Maps. Facebook, on the other hand, isn't something that anyone really needs . What value does Facebook actually provide anyway, besides giving people a forum to post boring family photos for grandma to look at? I guess Facebook Marketplace can be sorta useful for selling your old junk, but that's the only thing that comes to mind. Remember also that there's only tw…

Facebook provides the great service of keeping them all over there. Imagine if all that crowd descended on HN.

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

#432

Post by tzakrajs »

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…

Maybe France subsidizes it's telecommunications industry with monetary or anti-competitive advantages and so in return it wields greater control over the taxation of its products?

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

#433

Post by M2Ys4U »

Vinnl wrote: post #263
csomar wrote: post #52

This is a stupid move. The tax is not payed by big tech giants. Not by both, either. It's complicated and depends on who needs whom the more. If there are no alternative to AWS, Google Adsense, or an American SaaS in France; the French people will be paying all of the tax. The big tech giants will just slap them with a 3% surcharge for being in France. This is different from US-China tariffs. If the US can source fro…

> If there are no alternative to AWS, Google Adsense, or an American SaaS in France; the French people will be paying all of the tax. The big tech giants will just slap them with a 3% surcharge for being in France. Just like VAT is passed on to consumers? I don't think the goal is to make specific companies pay; rather, the goal is to have every type of economic activity to contribute a fair share to the society they…

>Just like VAT is passed on to consumers?

VAT is a consumption tax. It is - by definition - only paid by consumers.

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

#434

Post by M2Ys4U »

alkonaut wrote: post #290
WaylonKenning wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that fundamental right is correct, at least, outside of America. There's no fundamental human rights of freedom of speech and no censorship in New Zealand for example, as enshrined by law.

There are no freedom of speech laws that would apply to a corporation rather than a human, that I know of at least.

Newspapers etc. regularly use Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights to protect their ability to publish.

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

#435

Post by fuzz4lyfe »

jwr wrote: post #241
ripdog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? All money made on the white market in any country is facilitated by that government, and taxes are paid on all profits…

> Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? Also, those large tech companies can sell to French customers because French customers have money to buy from them.…

Markets exist without governments and often despite them (see the illegal drug trade for an example) but I have never seen a successful government without markets. You may have the causation backwards.

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

#436

Post by cyrksoft »

effie wrote: post #371
cyrksoft wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because protectionism isn’t only economically bad but also immoral. You can’t force everybody else to pay higher prices. Supporting your own companies at the expense of the rest of the society isn’t good. You’ll be forcing consumers to pay higher prices for a completely nationalist reason. No reasonable economist would favor protectionism.

Strawman, nobody is arguing for supporting companies at the expense of the rest of society. The parent is arguing for supporting companies for the benefit of the society. Both can happen, it depends on how and to what extent it is executed. Economists disagree a lot and they have only partial say in policies, countries are not run solely by economists.

“For the benefit of the society”

How would you measure that? Does paying more for a worse product and raising the price of the better one benefits society?

If the product was better it would already be in the market.

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

#437

Post by fuzz4lyfe »

corneliusphi1 wrote: post #267
sverige wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All taxes are a slippery slope. Name one that has ever been repealed. Income tax in the U.S. started out as a modest 3% on only the highest incomes and look where that has ended up: full on wealth redistribution. We can argue whether that's a good thing or not, but not whether there's a slippery slope when it comes to implementing a new tax.

In 1944 the highest US tax bracket was 94%

I'd happily go back to the effective rate of tax in 1944 if you are so willing.

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

#439

Post by jplayer01 »

This entire thread shows how much of a waste of time it is discussing taxes or government or social services (socialism!) or markets with Americans. They have such an incredibly skewed point of view based on an insanely unfair and unjust system of everything in the US.

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

#440

Post by kemiller »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #435
jwr wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those large tech companies can make money in France because the french government provides all that is necessary for a free, fair and functioning market. How could Google make money in France if there was no french police force, education system, market regulation, court system, contract enforcement? Also, those large tech companies can sell to French customers because French customers have money to buy from them.…

Markets exist without governments and often despite them (see the illegal drug trade for an example) but I have never seen a successful government without markets. You may have the causation backwards.

Black markets exist, but they pay a different sort of tax: the muscle and violent losses required to keep their property. Lawful governments do that better, and that’s what taxes pay for. Google and Facebook have access to the legal system in France, not to mention the wires that run the internet itself. You can argue about what the optimal taxation scheme is but arguing that it’s not necessary, or that the internet is somehow special, is tiresome.
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