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Luxembourg challenges EU order to recover tax from Amazon
- tomcooks 9y agoHalf of which belongs to Italy[0], considering they evaded taxes for years. [0](https://www.wired.it/economia/business/2017/12/15/amazon-accordo-100-milioni/ https://www.wired.it/economia/business/2017/12/15/amazon-acc...)
- riffraff 9y agoThat is unrelated, the things contested to Luxemburg is that there was a special agreement in place for Amazon, which is forbidden by EU regulations. The thing contested from the Italian tax office is actual tax evasion. Edit: to clarify, I mean that Luxemburg can have had illicit behaviour independently from Amazon acting legally in Italy (which in theory they did since 2015).
- wiz21c 9y agoJC Junker, current President of the Commission, was also Prime Minister of Luxembourg just before... Is it me or does it sound just awful ?
- titanix2 9y agoIt is. One more little stone to the growing anti-EU feeling that some europeans held.
- smhg 9y agoOr, for others with a different feeling about the EU/transnational cooperation: Something that needs to be improved.
- toyg 9y ago... because before the EU (i.e. all the treaties and "communities" that were set up piecemeal and then eventually coalesced into EU institutions), what was the premier instrument of dispute resolution in the European region? War.
- sbmassey 9y agoDiplomacy was actually a lot more common than war.
- tormeh 9y agoDefinitely awful. The discovery led to a huge scandal, but of course it was discovered after Juncker became president of the EC. He shouldn't have the position he has, but I'm not sure what could be done about it at that point.
- yostrovs 9y agoWell, that's how democracies work. And the people of Europe can vote him out when his term is up. Hardy har...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tormeh 9y agoThey could, if they cared. I don't think they do. EP election participation is very low, and I don't think it's widely publicized which parties back which candidates. De jure, it's the national governments that elect the commissioner. I doubt the commissioner plays much of a role in national elections. Finally, I don't think people know or care much who is the commissioner. I mean, this is HN, so probably a subset of top 5% intellectually curious people and people here still know nothing about how this stuff works.
- FRex 9y agoThe people care infinitely more about "informational" memes about curvy bananas and conspiracy theories about Muslims and cultural marxism than about who picks who in some EU structure. At the same time even the slightest EU regulations are like communism and even the tiniest enforcement of EU law or solidarity is comparable to an armed invasion on the country's sovereignty. Cases in point are how before downing of MH17 in Ukraine Western European attitudes about sanctioning Russia were "not our problem" and "we would lose money" and how Eastern Europe fought tooth and nail against refugees because "Merkel invited them" and "all Muslims are rapists and terrorists". And to add insult to injury every time European Council or European Parliament does something dumb the EU is being called undemocratic. The democratic care deficit in people is not even EU specific. Turnaround is low all around in various elections and some people don't even know the name of the ruling party, prime minister, president, etc. in their own country. Maybe the EU should actually disband and let Germany steamroll us all yet again. Maybe then people would get it.
- blibble 9y agothe EU has a tendency to be where clapped out/disgraced national politicians that are no longer electable in their home countries end up it's a nice place to retire, and pays more than the national office too there's peter mandelson, jean-claude juncker and guy verhofstadt, to name a few
- Ftuuky 9y agoDurão Barroso too.
- FRex 9y agoHe was the President of the European Commission which requires approval of European Parliament (elected directly) and European Council (the heads of countries). What the fuck is EU supposed to do with him? Throw him out and tell leaders and directly elected MEPs from 20+ countries to shove it? And who exactly is the EU in that case? Who and how could challenge these decisions while the majority of actual people in Europe don't give enough of a shit about Barroso and elect (if they even go to the elections..) these governments, heads of state and MEPs that put him where he was?
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y agoThat one actually skipped town while in office to get the job.
- tormeh 9y agoOr they get sent there because they lost a fight in their party: "In Brussels, no one can hear you scream". It's definitely a step down compared to national politics. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Of course, if the EU was more powerful this might attract more up-and-coming politicians, but I don't think that's what people who make this complaint wants.
- jimnotgym 9y ago> no longer electable Guy Verhofstadt is an MEP so was directly elected by his home country. Mandelson and Junker were/are civil servants so wouldn't get elected directly, but appointed by elected politicians. > nice place to retire Or in Mandelson's case a nice place to negotiate a ground-breaking trade deal with India. I'm planning an easier retirement myself. Maybe the UK house of Lords. Unellected clapped out politicians...
- jimnotgym 9y agoIt is becoming clear that the UK has a deal with big US tech too. https://waitingfortax.com/2017/06/30/uber-a-new-front/ https://waitingfortax.com/2017/06/30/uber-a-new-front/
- jorvi 9y agoWouldn't it be much simpler to just require companies to pay taxes in the country their product or service is sold, as a percentage of said product or service? Basically a super sales tax. Right now Italy feels like Luxembourg stole it taxes and meanwhile the US feels like those taxes are actually really theirs since its an US company. For me at least, I feel like this: an iPhone, imported by an Italian company (or subsidiary), sold by an Italian dude working in an Italian mobile phone shop, to an Italian who pays with a €700 transfer from his Italian bank account to the shops' Italian bank account.. the taxes for that should fully go to Italy. Why shouldn't it, except for the fiscal advantages of global companies?
- UncleEntity 9y agoIsn't that what the VAT is for? Honestly asking because US states fall all over themselves to give tax breaks to companies all the time. Hell, even individual cities compete with each other using tax breaks to attract employers. I couldn't even imagine the federal government stepping in and forcing a state to collect more in taxes "to encourage competition".
- nikanj 9y agoVAT only applies to consumers, not businesses. To be fair, that seems to be where our corporate tax system is headed anyway: zero rating for the companies, and consumers pay all the taxes.
- jnordwick 9y agoCorporations don't pay taxes in any meanings sense anyways. Individuals always pay for taxes. Owners (lower profits), employees (lower wages and fewer jobs), and consumers (high prices and fewer products) all split the tax burden imposed on a firm.
- cc81 9y agoThe federal government steps in and collects taxes from the corporations directly instead, right?
- interdrift 9y agoSomeone should just step up and review all of this mess.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- expertentipp 9y agoAs an individual person without an army of lawyers and accountants try having EUR 1000 of unregulated taxes and you'll stir the wrath of the Olympus.
- lumberjack 9y agoPlus corporate taxes are already very low. The highest nominal tax rates in Europe are around 30%, but that is misleading. The actual real tax rates are somewhere from 5% to 10%, because every country has these "ifs and buts" clauses, that they use to lower corporate taxes, and effective act as a tax haven, while pretending they are not. Coincidentally, I just checked this statistic on OECD: corporate tax revenue is just around 4% to 8% of total tax revenue. I wonder where these corporations would be if the normal people weren't contributing ~90% of tax revenue for upkeep of state infrastructure, that enables the existence of these businesses in the first place. https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-corporate-profits.htm https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-corporate-profits.htm
- pendar747 9y agoThat's true, but it's worth mentioning that income tax also doesn't seem to be a large portion of most country's GDP. It seems to range between 1% to 14%, except Denmark (25%) which is an outlier. See: https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-personal-income.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-personal-income.htm#indicat.... The global average is only 8%! Another interesting fact is that in the graph for corporate profit, Luxembourg actually has the highest rates, which must be because of its small size and huge number of companies that are registered there to benefit from the countries low tax rate. Despite this I think corporate should be higher judging how much large multinationals earn. Otherwise the income inequality is only going to grow further.
- ljf 9y agoIt seems that in the UK income tax is around a third of all tax collected - https://www.ukpublicrevenue.co.uk https://www.ukpublicrevenue.co.uk
- deleted 9y ago
- jimnotgym 9y agoI got one am very pleased to see the EU doing good work against tax havens. It's no wonder the British press hate the EU so much... the proprietors, in general, have an interesting record when it comes to paying tax
- Brotkrumen 9y agoThe british press hates other tax havens because they themselves try to be one. There are tons of PLCs established just for tax purposes.
- adventured 9y agoIt's certainly a competition. It's why Ireland (12.5%) and the UK (19%; 17% in 2020) have two of the lowest corporate income tax rates on the planet. It worked extremely well for Ireland, I've seen little evidence that it has worked for the UK so far. The UK's economy is net the same size it was in 2005, before adjusting for inflation, despite growing their population by about 10%. Ireland's economy by contrast is nearly 50% larger than it was in 2005.
- NotSammyHagar 9y agoBut to be more accurate, we have to account for when the weaker eu countries were all hurting (pigs). I think Ireland's economy crashed in 2008 and so they have made a great recovery. I guess 2005 is adequately before that :-) I was thinking you were comparing nadir and peak or something.
- qubex 9y agoPIIGS (don't forget Italy: we didn't actually blow up, but we've been bringing up the rear ever since).
- gsnedders 9y agoThey aren't actually quite so low, though, because unlike many countries there aren't nearly as many deductions and tax credits available. Presently, the UK has an effective tax rate of 18.6%, compared with, e.g. France which has a statutory tax rate of 33.33% but an effective tax rate of 11.2%. I believe the UK has one of the highest effective tax rates in the EU.
- nradov 9y agoEliminate corporate income taxes, and make the change revenue neutral by raising taxes on individual corporate investors and high-income employees. The money eventually flows to them anyway. By eliminating corporate income tax we could cut out all the waste and non-productive tax avoidance financial engineering. We wouldn't need corporate tax accountants at all. This would boost growth rates and economic efficiency.
- oakesm9 9y agoWouldn't those high income employees just become tax exiles and move away? That's what happens with athletes like Lewis Hamilton living in Monaco.
- nradov 9y agoIt doesn't matter where they live. Foreign investors can still be required to pay income and capital gains taxes on money earned in a particular country. The government can always block or seize international payments to tax evaders. In theory the countries where Lewis Hamilton races and earns his income could tax him there. But generally they let him slip through loopholes to maintain good relations with F1.
- oriol16 9y agoSo Lewis Hamilton needs to fill tax returns in the 40 countries he works in at the end of the season