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You are presenting a completely biased and anti-european view, looking at multinationals with the most rose tinted glasses. Google, like many other multination

You are presenting a completely biased and anti-european view, looking at multinationals with the most rose tinted glasses. Google, like many other multinationals pay absolutely minuscule taxes. They have eradicated large parts of national advertisement companies across Europe, who all have to pay normal tax rates, while Google pays close to zero. You are not a leftwing nutjob just because you want companies to pay taxes for the money they earn in your country. A free market relies on a level playingfield and when multinationals can exploit loopsholes in this manner it distorts the competition. I am not sure why you single out Euro countries as not interested in modernizing. I can't speak for other European countries but I can speak for Norway where I am from and our taxation system is decades ahead of archaic mess found in the US e.g. The fact that a large part of the American population have to pay professionals to fill out their taxes says something about the complexity and backwardness of the system.

jonknee 10y ago
> You are not a leftwing nutjob just because you want companies to pay taxes for the money they earn in your country. A free market relies on a level playingfield and when multinationals can exploit loopsholes in this manner it distorts the competition. How would you decide what money they earn in your country? It's a tricky question for multinationals.
- toyg 10y ago
  It is indeed, and the recent spat of seemingly-illogical laws commonly known as "vat-mess" is the first step in trying to clarify that. The internet is a real mess for anything that has to do with jurisdiction, which is the underpinning of taxation. Free flow of capital could be acceptable when goods were eventually involved, since their physical presence decided jurisdiction; as goods become similarly immaterial, new parameters are required. The current "equilibrium" is anything but.
ptaipale 10y ago
AFAIK Google pays the same VAT as everyone else, which is the bulk of collected tax (particularly when you consider that if Google has no significant operations in the country, it has no VAT payments to deduct). Google (and other on-line operators) have taken market from national advertisement companies because they are much more efficient and offer more value, not because of taxes.

jonknee 10y ago

> You are not a leftwing nutjob just because you want companies to pay taxes for the money they earn in your country. A free market relies on a level playingfield and when multinationals can exploit loopsholes in this manner it distorts the competition. How would you decide what money they earn in your country? It's a tricky question for multinationals.

toyg 10y ago
It is indeed, and the recent spat of seemingly-illogical laws commonly known as "vat-mess" is the first step in trying to clarify that. The internet is a real mess for anything that has to do with jurisdiction, which is the underpinning of taxation. Free flow of capital could be acceptable when goods were eventually involved, since their physical presence decided jurisdiction; as goods become similarly immaterial, new parameters are required. The current "equilibrium" is anything but.

ptaipale 10y ago

AFAIK Google pays the same VAT as everyone else, which is the bulk of collected tax (particularly when you consider that if Google has no significant operations in the country, it has no VAT payments to deduct). Google (and other on-line operators) have taken market from national advertisement companies because they are much more efficient and offer more value, not because of taxes.