2 ms·

> It's as if the rules of free trade are fine for "old" stuff like cars and aeroplanes, pharmaceuticals, banking, legal services, wine, etc. but not for modern

> It's as if the rules of free trade are fine for "old" stuff like cars and aeroplanes, pharmaceuticals, banking, legal services, wine, etc. but not for modern tech/IT. European Union angle is: stop opening up branches in Luxemburg and Ireland (or other tax havens) to sell products to customers in other EU nations. Aka pay where you generate income. I hope i understood you correctly, but it really has nothing to do with modern tech/IT. Such regulations have been already applied to Ebay, Amazon and other companies which sell the 'old' stuff you are talking about. Just like you, I fail to see where the jingoism would be in forcing non-EU members to pay a fair amount of taxes and punish those who try to exploit the system. EU has _never_ been a free market and if you want to play you have to follow rules (and IMO that's partly why EU refused to sign the TTIP). Same thing for foreign companies trying to export goods to the USA, especially these days - no? [0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Invest...)

shady-lady 9y ago
> pay where you generate income. This doesn't make sense & defeats the point of European Single Market. Sales tax is paid on & goes to the country the item was purchased in. What does make sense is revenue being realized in the country of the company that sold* the product/service. *this being a whole other can of worms. The issues some countries(France/Germany) have are: a) that their country wasn't chosen to be the entrypoint to the EU market b) firms are realizing the revenue in a country which technically owns the product/service IP but is not(in all likelihood) the company's main base. So, let's pretend b) is a legit issue & we change that. The revenue from the sale is not going to go to some other EU country(why would it?). It's going back to the "main" country of the host company. So, let's say $US-multinational didn't pay tax in Ireland or Luxembourg. That money would just flow direct to $caribbean-country(which now would hold all the relevant IP etc.) and held there - similar to what happens now. Because, even if Europe changes it's laws, $US-multinational still gets to game the US tax system cos it's 'better' than paying more in taxes than you legally have to. The next logical choice is for the EU to just bang an import tariff on all US goods/services and let the consuming country collect it. Let's see how that plays out...

shady-lady 9y ago

> pay where you generate income. This doesn't make sense & defeats the point of European Single Market. Sales tax is paid on & goes to the country the item was purchased in. What does make sense is revenue being realized in the country of the company that sold* the product/service. *this being a whole other can of worms. The issues some countries(France/Germany) have are: a) that their country wasn't chosen to be the entrypoint to the EU market b) firms are realizing the revenue in a country which technically owns the product/service IP but is not(in all likelihood) the company's main base. So, let's pretend b) is a legit issue & we change that. The revenue from the sale is not going to go to some other EU country(why would it?). It's going back to the "main" country of the host company. So, let's say $US-multinational didn't pay tax in Ireland or Luxembourg. That money would just flow direct to $caribbean-country(which now would hold all the relevant IP etc.) and held there - similar to what happens now. Because, even if Europe changes it's laws, $US-multinational still gets to game the US tax system cos it's 'better' than paying more in taxes than you legally have to. The next logical choice is for the EU to just bang an import tariff on all US goods/services and let the consuming country collect it. Let's see how that plays out...