4 ms·

Incorporate your business outside the EU. It will protect you from unreasonable taxes and regulations. The internet has no boundaries or residency or citizensh

Incorporate your business outside the EU. It will protect you from unreasonable taxes and regulations. The internet has no boundaries or residency or citizenship. Especially if you are a software-as-a-service business, ignore everything about the EU and domicile outside it.

adventured 9y ago
The EU will block your service's access into the EU market. That's their only possible next recourse if you simply ignore them and stay out of their jurisdiction physically (in a scenario where you continue to sell to EU customers, but refuse to abide by their policies such as this tax). They'll also go after the payments side, they'll try to shut off your ability to get the payments from EU customers. Going down the roads that the EU is toward further centralized bureaucratic control over the Internet, they have to build their own version of the Chinese firewall to control EU Internet access eventually. There can be no other possibility if they plan to see this path through to its logical conclusion.
- cinquemb 9y ago
  >There can be no other possibility if they plan to see this path through to its logical conclusion. I foresee a future, where EU users (and users "behind" the Chinese firewall) acquire crypto currency facilitated through p2p dapps and acquire tokens to be able to advertise their products/services over other dapps to other users in the EU. I look forward to this game of increasingly expensive wack-a-mole that will enable the next generation of economic activity with technology. The facebook's and alphabet's may not adapt to something like this (hard to change the course of these giant behemoths), but increasingly more, newer enterprises will be incentivized to go down this path (and users within these jurisdiction who don't really care for these rules and will have increasingly easier technical access to these services). Though of course reactionaries will be totally blind to this (their heads are in the sand) because they will be happy to see their respective local diktats pander to their world view, rather than explore the realm of possibilities that all sorts of actors may pursue.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  The critical difference here is that China is trying to block their citizens from seeing data hostile to the government, whereas the EU is trying to protect its citizens from companies hostile to its citizens. I wish all our countries were so enlightened as to stand up to protect us from multinational corporations exploiting loopholes in the law.
  - lukeholder 9y ago
    I trust all governments 100% to do what is in my best interest. /s
  - balfirevic 9y ago
    Citizen of EU here. Can I opt out of that protection?
- drpgq 9y ago
  They could make it so advertising on FB or Google isn't considered a valid business expense. Canada does something similar for advertising for magazines.
alkonaut 9y ago
You won’t be able to inject a service into the EU and then exfiltrate payments. You can incorporate outside and ignore the EU market entirely but it’s money left on the table potentially.
iuoershg 9y ago
Agreed. Do you or someone else have a good idea on where to incorporate? I'm a EU citizen finishing my software based service, and while I can comply with all the EU rules after having cash flow, while bootstrapping I just can't take that risk alone. Are there any good resources to read up on these things? Books, blogs? What kind of lawyer should one consult in the country where you incorporate? Would opening a Delaware LLC be possible/preferable for a non-US-citizen? Or are we talking carribean
esarbe 9y ago
Good luck with ignoring the biggest consumer market on earth.

adventured 9y ago

The EU will block your service's access into the EU market. That's their only possible next recourse if you simply ignore them and stay out of their jurisdiction physically (in a scenario where you continue to sell to EU customers, but refuse to abide by their policies such as this tax). They'll also go after the payments side, they'll try to shut off your ability to get the payments from EU customers. Going down the roads that the EU is toward further centralized bureaucratic control over the Internet, they have to build their own version of the Chinese firewall to control EU Internet access eventually. There can be no other possibility if they plan to see this path through to its logical conclusion.

cinquemb 9y ago
>There can be no other possibility if they plan to see this path through to its logical conclusion. I foresee a future, where EU users (and users "behind" the Chinese firewall) acquire crypto currency facilitated through p2p dapps and acquire tokens to be able to advertise their products/services over other dapps to other users in the EU. I look forward to this game of increasingly expensive wack-a-mole that will enable the next generation of economic activity with technology. The facebook's and alphabet's may not adapt to something like this (hard to change the course of these giant behemoths), but increasingly more, newer enterprises will be incentivized to go down this path (and users within these jurisdiction who don't really care for these rules and will have increasingly easier technical access to these services). Though of course reactionaries will be totally blind to this (their heads are in the sand) because they will be happy to see their respective local diktats pander to their world view, rather than explore the realm of possibilities that all sorts of actors may pursue.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
The critical difference here is that China is trying to block their citizens from seeing data hostile to the government, whereas the EU is trying to protect its citizens from companies hostile to its citizens. I wish all our countries were so enlightened as to stand up to protect us from multinational corporations exploiting loopholes in the law.
- lukeholder 9y ago
  I trust all governments 100% to do what is in my best interest. /s
- balfirevic 9y ago
  Citizen of EU here. Can I opt out of that protection?
drpgq 9y ago
They could make it so advertising on FB or Google isn't considered a valid business expense. Canada does something similar for advertising for magazines.

alkonaut 9y ago

You won’t be able to inject a service into the EU and then exfiltrate payments. You can incorporate outside and ignore the EU market entirely but it’s money left on the table potentially.

iuoershg 9y ago

Agreed. Do you or someone else have a good idea on where to incorporate? I'm a EU citizen finishing my software based service, and while I can comply with all the EU rules after having cash flow, while bootstrapping I just can't take that risk alone. Are there any good resources to read up on these things? Books, blogs? What kind of lawyer should one consult in the country where you incorporate? Would opening a Delaware LLC be possible/preferable for a non-US-citizen? Or are we talking carribean

esarbe 9y ago

Good luck with ignoring the biggest consumer market on earth.