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As a french, seing french government officials trying to impose their knee-jerk « let’s tax it » reaction to any kind of problem makes me absolutely sick. They’

by bsaul 8y ago

As a french, seing french government officials trying to impose their knee-jerk « let’s tax it » reaction to any kind of problem makes me absolutely sick. They’re just a bunch of jealous incompetent insufferable pompous politicians than don’t understand a thing about the private sector and so instead of trying to fix the numerous reason why we don’t have any competitor to google / facebook etc ( such as our best engineers fleeing to silicon for the last 30 years) , and how come all those companies HQ in europe are in ireland, prefer to add tax. That will solve absolutely NOT A SINGLE ISSUE , but it’s just another income to feed the bureaucracy. Thanks to the three countries that stopped this madness. PS : i also find it outrageous that gafa don’t pay taxes, but let’s fix the tax heavens in Europe then. Don’t start making special taxes on revenue ffs. EDIT : changed "income" to revenue.

kachurovskiy 8y ago
Please help me understand why is it okay to tax people on income but not corporations?
- scatters 8y ago
  Corporations aren't consumers, so corporation tax is passed on: to customers, employees, or shareholders. Levying taxes via corporations disguises the true level of taxation.
  - visarga 8y ago
    Depends, when the corporation is a multinational, then they can evade local taxes by various tricks and send all the profits outside the country. Thus it is necessary to close this loophole, to keep the tax money in the source country.
    - slededit 8y ago
      In that case the economic efficient form of taxation is an expatriation tax.
      - adrianN 8y ago
        How would that work in practice? The subsidiary in country A buys all their services from HQ with the price just so happening to consume the profits. How do you tax that without essentially stopping international collaboration?
        slededit 8y ago
        Tax agencies argue about the fair value of assets and services all the time. Companies are already forced to do this when estimating VAT among subsidiaries. So while it is a problem, its not a new one - nor an unsolvable one.
        bsaul 8y ago
        That is the core of the problem. This is the only thing that people working on gafa tax evasion schemes should be working on day and night, and i’m pretty sure they’d get some help from the US tax department. I can’t believe there aren’t ways to detect when a subsidiary buys services from HQ at abnormal prices.
        realusername 8y ago
        At some extreme point (like Starbucks for example) you can just declare it fraud and calculate an appropriate amount of tax they should pay and make them pay. Finance is the only legal area I know where we apply everything by the letter of the law and not the spirit of it, that concept did apply for torrent sites for example, if you only base it on technicality, they are legal.
  - vinceguidry 8y ago
    Corporations absolutely are consumers, they buy stuff just like everyone else.
  - Isofarro 8y ago
    If US corporations hike their prices up to cover the tax, that would increase the competitiveness of local companies who have already been paying their fair share of tax. Perhaps that's the encouragement governments need to stimulate the local economy further.
    - bluecalm 8y ago
      Sounds like tariffs. If you want that - fine it makes sense. Just don't bully others to apply tax rate of your choosing on terms you want on business outside your country.
      - bsaul 8y ago
        European union doesn’t let members decide on tarifs on their own borders.
      - joejerryronnie 8y ago
        Just about everything the EU does these days is blatant protectionism. This short sighted focus on punishing successful foreign competitors vs growing strong local companies just weakens Europe in the long run and exacerbates the very problem they are trying to solve.
- deleted 8y ago
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- bsaul 8y ago
  Sorry, the project is actually about taxing "revenue", i fixed it, thanks. Taxing on revenue means a corporation that actually loose money because its expenses (salaries, investmenst, etc) are larger than its sales would still have to pay taxes, making it loose even more money. It doesn't make any kind of sense unless you're targeting a very particular set of companies that you know are making money. In which case you're taxing those companies, but you're also creating a law that makes it almost impossible for new companies to start competing.
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - bluecalm 8y ago
    It does make tons of sense. What doesn't make sense is running a business that doesn't bring profits. Taxing revenue is one idea end accounting shenanigans and unfair practices like price gauging to eliminate competition which is now tax advantages strategy. Iam not a fan of it for other reasons but it does way more sense taxing profits which is just non workable idea. EDIT: replying to child (not possible to reply directly): your argument about high cost industries is bogus. A system without tax on profits would just make those services more expensive as they should be (they are mostly high cost because they are very environmently unfriendly). It would also make higher margin services cheaper (cause they can afford it and there is less spending power). Once you actually think about it and analyze various scenarios you will realize that taxin profits from the very beginning was based on intellectual laziness and lack of ability to predict outcomes of such policies.
    - bsaul 8y ago
      You do realize the whole concept of a startup is about raising money because you know you can’t both grow fast enough to conquer a new market while at the same time making profits ? Also, some companies like industries have huge revenues but make few profits because of the enormous cost to produce what they sell. Try thinking about the various cases and you’ll soon realize there’s actually a very good reason why corporates taxes have always been on profits, since the very beginning.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  The best analogy is that taxing corporations on revenue would be like taxing you based on the # of hours you work, irrespective of your wage rate. Folks that work low-wage or volunteer jobs would suddenly have negative income. The only viable jobs left would be bankers and software developers.
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - vkou 8y ago
    I am, essentially, taxed based on my revenue, because my taxes don't let me deduct my rent, my car payments, my gasoline, or my groceries [1] - all of which are essential expenses that I need in order to continue working. Corporations, for some reason, only get taxed on revenue - expenses. [1] Whoop-dee-doo, I can claim a $3,800/year deduction. As if anyone in the United States can live on $3,800/year.
    - mjevans 8y ago
      Particularly the rent - without stable jobs and actual career paths that are rewarding it doesn't make sense to actually buy a house in an area. As if it's possible to afford one near jobs in the first place.
      - vkou 8y ago
        Even if I were to buy a house, most of my mortgage would not be deductible. Only the interest portion of it. None of my home maintenance expenses would be deductible, either. Neither are the ridiculous fees that get paid to the mortgage underwriter, the realtor, etc. I'd love to only be taxed on 'profit' - the money that goes into my savings account, after deducting living and transportation expenses. [1] [1] Actually, if everyone were taxed on profit, my tax burden would proportionately go up. It would be a fairer system of taxation, though.
- kokey 8y ago
  Sales tax and income tax covers everything more efficiently in the right location. Sales tax takes place in the country where the products are sold, then that income to the company is distributed between staff and shareholders who pay income tax where they live and work. Corporation tax is some kind of tax on efficiency and usually in not in an optimal location for the benefit of society, either by accident or on purpose.
StephenAmar 8y ago
As a French, I totally support this tax. It's easier and more expedient to do it this way than to reform the taxation policies of every European countries. Also, why is it wrong to tax the income of corporations?
- bsaul 8y ago
  i meant revenue (which i think you'll understand why it's a problem if you've ever had to pay any corporate tax in your life).
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - snidane 8y ago
    I don't like income taxes either, but to be fair, all employees are paying taxes out of their 'revenues'.
    - woolvalley 8y ago
      Depends on how many deductions they get ;) I get in the USA: 1. Mortgage interest deduction (controversial) 2. Property tax deduction (now limited with trump) 3. Transit & parking deduction 4. Retirement account 'deduction' 5. Medical plan deductions (controversial vs single payer) 6. Tax free company snacks, cafeteria food, t-shirts / swag and morale events. I think on site electric car charging is tax free too? 7. Reduced sales tax rates on essentials such as food, clothing depending on the state.
    - bsaul 8y ago
      People don’t produce goods to sell ( so profits and revenue are actually not really relevant concepts). They’re the endpoint of the economy so they’re a very special item. Same reason something called VAT only apply to them.
      - lovich 8y ago
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
I'm from the US. You could just replace France with the name of my state in your comment and it would hold. We don't even have scooters yet and they're talking about passing regulation in case it becomes a thing. Some places are really used to using regulation to (attempt to) solve problems and when you've been swinging a hammer for the past several centuries it doesn't really matter whether the nails you think you're hitting are bolts because you forgot how to turn a wrench long ago.
- eiaoa 8y ago
  > We don't even have scooters yet and they're talking about passing regulation in case it becomes a thing. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. It means your regulators are paying attention to events elsewhere and are trying to proactively prepare for them, rather than flailing about in reaction to complaints and problems. When the scooters come, your jurisdiction will be ready for them, rather than having to ban them just so they can catch up. http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-streets-temporary-ban-takes-effect/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-str...
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    making new laws to solve problems that don't actually exist yet is the opposite of what I would call a good thing. maybe this is a cultural difference between the US and Europe, but over here we tend prefer for the government not to swing its weight around until there is clear evidence of a problem.
    - eiaoa 8y ago
      > making new laws to solve problems that don't actually exist yet > but over here we tend prefer for the government not to swing its weight around until there is clear evidence of a problem. There is clear evidence of a problem: SF banned scooters to give itself time to figure out how to regulate them: http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-streets-temporary-ban-takes-effect/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-str.... There is no reason to think SF is particularly unique and that other municipalities won't have similar experience. And even before SF banned scooters, there was clear evidence of problems with dockless rentals in China: sidewalks became bike parking lots with little room left for actual walking. This idea that governments should only regulate if there's a manifested problem in their particular jurisdiction is pretty stupid, frankly. It's like saying you shouldn't make up your mind about crack cocaine before you've actually tried it and experience the problems it causes.
simias 8y ago
I mean this is a tax problem first and foremost isn't it? The problem being that it's hard for countries to enforce regulations in a virtualized, globalized economy. It's true that it's not just about tax, you also have issues regarding what is and isn't legal in a given country (nazi apology is illegal in France for instance, but good luck enforcing that on the web. Similarly the super harsh "no nudity" rule on american websites is often seen as abusive over here for instance). I mean you seem to agree on that point yourself so it seems that they're not completely wrong to try and fix that. >They’re just a bunch of jealous incompetent insufferable pompous politicians than don’t understand a thing about the private sector Talking about knee-jerk reactions. I strongly dislike this type of empty populist diatribe, that's how we give up on democracy and end up with incompetent fools at the government, just out of spite. Screaming "tous pourris" is not improving anything and is frankly insulting for the many elected officials who are genuinely trying to improve things. Regardless of what they did or didn't do there would be people like you who scream bloody outrage because they're obviously stupid people who understand nothing about nothing. Meanwhile you're not the one trying to balance the budget of a country within the EU. >let’s fix the tax heavens in Europe then And how do you propose we do that? Have Le Maire go to the various tax heavens (which in this particular instance would have to include Ireland) and tell them to tax more? How many bottles of Bordeaux would he have to bring to seal the deal? Having a uniform tax code across the EU would be awesome but it's not like we're anywhere close to something like that.
- Shivetya 8y ago
  having a uniform tax code would pretty much doom the small economies to not having opportunity to grown unless it was "granted to them" as a favor by the same union government. the ability of member states to set their own taxes is about the only protection they have handling down turns and getting new industry. their currency was given up and without the ability to print money they need other means to mitigate adverse changes to their economies. it is one reason Greece was trapped so long in their misery, bound up by EU laws and stuck with a currency they had no control over. In the US it works by forcing states to compete on regulation and taxes which benefits everyone. because onerous taxation on one group will certainly follow with others because once that line is crossed it becomes to easy to keep doing so. Indirect taxes are a politicians best friend because you have ready bogeymen and no apparent affect on the public though in reality they are paying the end result
orcdork 8y ago
Why shouldn't the bureaucracy be fed? These companies make money off of it. I don't see any justification for your position besides a nebulous wish for Europe to have an equivalent of google/facebook, and to be honest, besides adding an extra line on all those "european unicorn" blog posts, i don't see much advantage to it either. There's obviously positives to more profitable businesses - but why another google/facebook?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  > There's obviously positives to more profitable businesses - but why another google/facebook? Some Europeans want in on the industrial surveillance tech complex profit machine.
zilian 8y ago
You totally underestimate the governement ability to understand things.
- bsaul 8y ago
  They have a background, a history. They’ve spent the last 40 years adding layer upon layer of tax and subvention mechanism to try to regulate the economy while solving zero fundamental issues ( unemployment, industry, global private sector attractivness, education and recently even healthcare). The only thing they’ve managed to do is to increase the cost of the public sector. So yes, indeed i don’t have any kind of trust in their ability to understand pretty much anything.
  - sofixa 8y ago
    Are you aware that "the government" changes every ~5 years and the majority of recent French Presidents and their parliaments have been on different political spectrums? There is no "they". So what Sarkozy's government was doing was radically different than what Hollande tried to do in the first part of his mandate (he rolled back quickly when he saw it's not making anything better), and it's also different than what Macron is doing. At least the last one is actively trying to improve on tons of things, including what you're bitching about - regulations.
    - bsaul 8y ago
      Are you aware that every single high ranking french administration officer and policy maker for the last 50 years came from the same school ( including bruno lemaire), and that this school recruits almost nobody coming from the private sector ( although this is starting to change, but only very recently). That’s the « they ». Everybody in the fifth republic believes that the state should regulate the economy, while having absolutely no personnal experience in the private sector. The only differences they have are on society issues, but from the economical point of view i have yet to witness one government that actually lowered the tax ratio ( just look at the CSG which was supposed to be temporary and 3% 25 years ago, and is now still alive and reaches more than 10%) As for the efficiency of the public sector and the tax system look at france’s tax vs gdp ratio compared to other european country, as well as our ranking in education performance ( both young children school and university). Also have a look at unemployment rates, compared to other european countries. Edit : to be fair, macron did come from the private sector ( just a few years though), and he did in fact remove a huge chunk of the ISF last year. That was a glimmer of hope. Also another reason why seeing France go back to its old habits makes me mad.
ajnin 8y ago
> how come all those companies HQ in europe are in ireland Ireland has been busted (among others) for secretly passing sweet taxation deals with Google, Facebook, Amazon & co. According to you, that's the way to do it, right ? Tax race to the bottom, give deals to big player that no small company has hope to ever negociate, that's sure to bolster competitors. Any kind of attemp to level the playing field by applying tax uniformly on the European level is "sick".
- purple_ducks 8y ago
  > Ireland has been busted (among others) for secretly passing sweet taxation deals with Google, Facebook, Amazon & co. That is 100% uninformed nonsense. If you are conflating it with Apple vs EU, you can read this primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_against_Apple_in_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_agai... Nothing to do with a country offering a multinational a deal which results in a lower effective tax rate, and is something _EVERY_ country in Europe offers.
- briandear 8y ago
  Why should Ireland be able to determine the taxation policies of Ireland? The EU doesn’t set immigration law for Ireland does it? Why should it be allowed to dictate tax law? Low taxes can be a competitive advantage to fiscally responsible countries, why must the EU try to “fix” that?
  - Thiez 8y ago
    Because Ireland has signed treaties that restrict its actions? If they don't like the rules they can leave the EU. Sadly for them leaving the EU would also make them less interesting as a tax haven. Choices choices. Also this is not just about 'taxation policies'. They are pretty free in their policies, except that they can't make exceptions for particular companies because such special deals give a company a competitive advantage, distorting the market.
  - chopin 8y ago
    For sure the EU sets at least parts of the immigration law of Ireland. Every EU citizen is free to settle there. Even more, Ireland is a Schengen party, so any visa or legal immigrant of a Schengen member must be accepted to Ireland as well.
deleted 8y ago
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user5994461 8y ago
France has a competitor to Google and that's called Criteo, one of the biggest ad business in this continent.
- bsaul 8y ago
  http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/europe/2016 http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/eur...
  - user5994461 8y ago
    It's not a search engine, it's only an ad business.
    - bsaul 8y ago
      Indeed. Criteo is « just an ad business » ( which is going to take a huge hit from all the privacy measures, btw). It’s extremely vulnerable compared to the company that own the content platform, aka the search engine, or the social network. Calling them a competitor to google is true, but it’s also a very narrow point of view. Just look at how well it’s doing on the stock exchange and you’ll see what i mean,
    - mr_toad 8y ago
      Google is an ad businesses. At this point their other products; search, Gmail, Android are all just loss-leaders.
walshemj 8y ago
How do you feel about having to pay more tax because the big Amarican companies move profits of shore to avoid paying tax?
rdm_blackhole 8y ago
I agree with OP. I am French as well. I can confirm that for a French politician, any issue can be solved by adding a new tax. Tax for this, tax for that and whatever else. They just have no clue about what to do so they try to tax it. Well, guess what, people who actually want to achieve something productive, who want to make a good living, who want to start a company and not see our profits taxed again and again to feed a bunch of bureaucrats who have never even run a business before, those people they have already left and they are not coming back.
grumpydba 8y ago
As a fellow french having lots of tax lawyer friends, let me just say that you are naive. Google & al earn money in France, they should pay taxes. Simple. Right now those tech giants are using dubious tactics to avoid paying their fair share. What is needed is simply justice and fairness.
- Farradfahren 8y ago
  Its actually favouring big companys, who push and punnish little companys and startups who all have to pay their taxes.
Natela 8y ago
As a European I think this is a smart move on the contrary. Google cannot get rid of the EU market, if it does, EU competitors might have a chance. So the EU can just tax Google as much as it wants. What are we to be afraid of ? Google leaving EU ? Please do ! This will only gives us a chance to come we our own solution to the web Google&FB think they invented. I don't get how we could not be glad that we tax more those dystopian companies. Google, FB, etc... don't respect any values of privacy and freedom, they should not have even the right to do what they do in EU and GDPR is step in the right direction for that. The only problem is that we have no weight if we don't act together, so if some European countries are too short-sighted and put their self little short term interest above the rest and prefer offer encourage Google's development, then yes we will fail.

by bsaul 8y ago

kachurovskiy 8y ago

Please help me understand why is it okay to tax people on income but not corporations?

scatters 8y ago
Corporations aren't consumers, so corporation tax is passed on: to customers, employees, or shareholders. Levying taxes via corporations disguises the true level of taxation.
- visarga 8y ago
  Depends, when the corporation is a multinational, then they can evade local taxes by various tricks and send all the profits outside the country. Thus it is necessary to close this loophole, to keep the tax money in the source country.
  - slededit 8y ago
    In that case the economic efficient form of taxation is an expatriation tax.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      How would that work in practice? The subsidiary in country A buys all their services from HQ with the price just so happening to consume the profits. How do you tax that without essentially stopping international collaboration?
      - slededit 8y ago
        Tax agencies argue about the fair value of assets and services all the time. Companies are already forced to do this when estimating VAT among subsidiaries. So while it is a problem, its not a new one - nor an unsolvable one.
      - bsaul 8y ago
        That is the core of the problem. This is the only thing that people working on gafa tax evasion schemes should be working on day and night, and i’m pretty sure they’d get some help from the US tax department. I can’t believe there aren’t ways to detect when a subsidiary buys services from HQ at abnormal prices.
      - realusername 8y ago
        At some extreme point (like Starbucks for example) you can just declare it fraud and calculate an appropriate amount of tax they should pay and make them pay. Finance is the only legal area I know where we apply everything by the letter of the law and not the spirit of it, that concept did apply for torrent sites for example, if you only base it on technicality, they are legal.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  Corporations absolutely are consumers, they buy stuff just like everyone else.
- Isofarro 8y ago
  If US corporations hike their prices up to cover the tax, that would increase the competitiveness of local companies who have already been paying their fair share of tax. Perhaps that's the encouragement governments need to stimulate the local economy further.
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    Sounds like tariffs. If you want that - fine it makes sense. Just don't bully others to apply tax rate of your choosing on terms you want on business outside your country.
    - bsaul 8y ago
      European union doesn’t let members decide on tarifs on their own borders.
    - joejerryronnie 8y ago
      Just about everything the EU does these days is blatant protectionism. This short sighted focus on punishing successful foreign competitors vs growing strong local companies just weakens Europe in the long run and exacerbates the very problem they are trying to solve.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bsaul 8y ago
Sorry, the project is actually about taxing "revenue", i fixed it, thanks. Taxing on revenue means a corporation that actually loose money because its expenses (salaries, investmenst, etc) are larger than its sales would still have to pay taxes, making it loose even more money. It doesn't make any kind of sense unless you're targeting a very particular set of companies that you know are making money. In which case you're taxing those companies, but you're also creating a law that makes it almost impossible for new companies to start competing.
- deleted 8y ago
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- bluecalm 8y ago
  It does make tons of sense. What doesn't make sense is running a business that doesn't bring profits. Taxing revenue is one idea end accounting shenanigans and unfair practices like price gauging to eliminate competition which is now tax advantages strategy. Iam not a fan of it for other reasons but it does way more sense taxing profits which is just non workable idea. EDIT: replying to child (not possible to reply directly): your argument about high cost industries is bogus. A system without tax on profits would just make those services more expensive as they should be (they are mostly high cost because they are very environmently unfriendly). It would also make higher margin services cheaper (cause they can afford it and there is less spending power). Once you actually think about it and analyze various scenarios you will realize that taxin profits from the very beginning was based on intellectual laziness and lack of ability to predict outcomes of such policies.
  - bsaul 8y ago
    You do realize the whole concept of a startup is about raising money because you know you can’t both grow fast enough to conquer a new market while at the same time making profits ? Also, some companies like industries have huge revenues but make few profits because of the enormous cost to produce what they sell. Try thinking about the various cases and you’ll soon realize there’s actually a very good reason why corporates taxes have always been on profits, since the very beginning.
stickfigure 8y ago
The best analogy is that taxing corporations on revenue would be like taxing you based on the # of hours you work, irrespective of your wage rate. Folks that work low-wage or volunteer jobs would suddenly have negative income. The only viable jobs left would be bankers and software developers.
- deleted 8y ago
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- vkou 8y ago
  I am, essentially, taxed based on my revenue, because my taxes don't let me deduct my rent, my car payments, my gasoline, or my groceries [1] - all of which are essential expenses that I need in order to continue working. Corporations, for some reason, only get taxed on revenue - expenses. [1] Whoop-dee-doo, I can claim a $3,800/year deduction. As if anyone in the United States can live on $3,800/year.
  - mjevans 8y ago
    Particularly the rent - without stable jobs and actual career paths that are rewarding it doesn't make sense to actually buy a house in an area. As if it's possible to afford one near jobs in the first place.
    - vkou 8y ago
      Even if I were to buy a house, most of my mortgage would not be deductible. Only the interest portion of it. None of my home maintenance expenses would be deductible, either. Neither are the ridiculous fees that get paid to the mortgage underwriter, the realtor, etc. I'd love to only be taxed on 'profit' - the money that goes into my savings account, after deducting living and transportation expenses. [1] [1] Actually, if everyone were taxed on profit, my tax burden would proportionately go up. It would be a fairer system of taxation, though.
kokey 8y ago
Sales tax and income tax covers everything more efficiently in the right location. Sales tax takes place in the country where the products are sold, then that income to the company is distributed between staff and shareholders who pay income tax where they live and work. Corporation tax is some kind of tax on efficiency and usually in not in an optimal location for the benefit of society, either by accident or on purpose.

StephenAmar 8y ago

As a French, I totally support this tax. It's easier and more expedient to do it this way than to reform the taxation policies of every European countries. Also, why is it wrong to tax the income of corporations?

bsaul 8y ago
i meant revenue (which i think you'll understand why it's a problem if you've ever had to pay any corporate tax in your life).
- deleted 8y ago
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- snidane 8y ago
  I don't like income taxes either, but to be fair, all employees are paying taxes out of their 'revenues'.
  - woolvalley 8y ago
    Depends on how many deductions they get ;) I get in the USA: 1. Mortgage interest deduction (controversial) 2. Property tax deduction (now limited with trump) 3. Transit & parking deduction 4. Retirement account 'deduction' 5. Medical plan deductions (controversial vs single payer) 6. Tax free company snacks, cafeteria food, t-shirts / swag and morale events. I think on site electric car charging is tax free too? 7. Reduced sales tax rates on essentials such as food, clothing depending on the state.
  - bsaul 8y ago
    People don’t produce goods to sell ( so profits and revenue are actually not really relevant concepts). They’re the endpoint of the economy so they’re a very special item. Same reason something called VAT only apply to them.
    - lovich 8y ago

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

I'm from the US. You could just replace France with the name of my state in your comment and it would hold. We don't even have scooters yet and they're talking about passing regulation in case it becomes a thing. Some places are really used to using regulation to (attempt to) solve problems and when you've been swinging a hammer for the past several centuries it doesn't really matter whether the nails you think you're hitting are bolts because you forgot how to turn a wrench long ago.

eiaoa 8y ago
> We don't even have scooters yet and they're talking about passing regulation in case it becomes a thing. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. It means your regulators are paying attention to events elsewhere and are trying to proactively prepare for them, rather than flailing about in reaction to complaints and problems. When the scooters come, your jurisdiction will be ready for them, rather than having to ban them just so they can catch up. http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-streets-temporary-ban-takes-effect/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-str...
- leetcrew 8y ago
  making new laws to solve problems that don't actually exist yet is the opposite of what I would call a good thing. maybe this is a cultural difference between the US and Europe, but over here we tend prefer for the government not to swing its weight around until there is clear evidence of a problem.
  - eiaoa 8y ago
    > making new laws to solve problems that don't actually exist yet > but over here we tend prefer for the government not to swing its weight around until there is clear evidence of a problem. There is clear evidence of a problem: SF banned scooters to give itself time to figure out how to regulate them: http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-streets-temporary-ban-takes-effect/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/companies-pull-scooters-off-sf-str.... There is no reason to think SF is particularly unique and that other municipalities won't have similar experience. And even before SF banned scooters, there was clear evidence of problems with dockless rentals in China: sidewalks became bike parking lots with little room left for actual walking. This idea that governments should only regulate if there's a manifested problem in their particular jurisdiction is pretty stupid, frankly. It's like saying you shouldn't make up your mind about crack cocaine before you've actually tried it and experience the problems it causes.

simias 8y ago

I mean this is a tax problem first and foremost isn't it? The problem being that it's hard for countries to enforce regulations in a virtualized, globalized economy. It's true that it's not just about tax, you also have issues regarding what is and isn't legal in a given country (nazi apology is illegal in France for instance, but good luck enforcing that on the web. Similarly the super harsh "no nudity" rule on american websites is often seen as abusive over here for instance). I mean you seem to agree on that point yourself so it seems that they're not completely wrong to try and fix that. >They’re just a bunch of jealous incompetent insufferable pompous politicians than don’t understand a thing about the private sector Talking about knee-jerk reactions. I strongly dislike this type of empty populist diatribe, that's how we give up on democracy and end up with incompetent fools at the government, just out of spite. Screaming "tous pourris" is not improving anything and is frankly insulting for the many elected officials who are genuinely trying to improve things. Regardless of what they did or didn't do there would be people like you who scream bloody outrage because they're obviously stupid people who understand nothing about nothing. Meanwhile you're not the one trying to balance the budget of a country within the EU. >let’s fix the tax heavens in Europe then And how do you propose we do that? Have Le Maire go to the various tax heavens (which in this particular instance would have to include Ireland) and tell them to tax more? How many bottles of Bordeaux would he have to bring to seal the deal? Having a uniform tax code across the EU would be awesome but it's not like we're anywhere close to something like that.

Shivetya 8y ago
having a uniform tax code would pretty much doom the small economies to not having opportunity to grown unless it was "granted to them" as a favor by the same union government. the ability of member states to set their own taxes is about the only protection they have handling down turns and getting new industry. their currency was given up and without the ability to print money they need other means to mitigate adverse changes to their economies. it is one reason Greece was trapped so long in their misery, bound up by EU laws and stuck with a currency they had no control over. In the US it works by forcing states to compete on regulation and taxes which benefits everyone. because onerous taxation on one group will certainly follow with others because once that line is crossed it becomes to easy to keep doing so. Indirect taxes are a politicians best friend because you have ready bogeymen and no apparent affect on the public though in reality they are paying the end result

orcdork 8y ago

Why shouldn't the bureaucracy be fed? These companies make money off of it. I don't see any justification for your position besides a nebulous wish for Europe to have an equivalent of google/facebook, and to be honest, besides adding an extra line on all those "european unicorn" blog posts, i don't see much advantage to it either. There's obviously positives to more profitable businesses - but why another google/facebook?

toomuchtodo 8y ago
> There's obviously positives to more profitable businesses - but why another google/facebook? Some Europeans want in on the industrial surveillance tech complex profit machine.

zilian 8y ago

You totally underestimate the governement ability to understand things.

bsaul 8y ago
They have a background, a history. They’ve spent the last 40 years adding layer upon layer of tax and subvention mechanism to try to regulate the economy while solving zero fundamental issues ( unemployment, industry, global private sector attractivness, education and recently even healthcare). The only thing they’ve managed to do is to increase the cost of the public sector. So yes, indeed i don’t have any kind of trust in their ability to understand pretty much anything.
- sofixa 8y ago
  Are you aware that "the government" changes every ~5 years and the majority of recent French Presidents and their parliaments have been on different political spectrums? There is no "they". So what Sarkozy's government was doing was radically different than what Hollande tried to do in the first part of his mandate (he rolled back quickly when he saw it's not making anything better), and it's also different than what Macron is doing. At least the last one is actively trying to improve on tons of things, including what you're bitching about - regulations.
  - bsaul 8y ago
    Are you aware that every single high ranking french administration officer and policy maker for the last 50 years came from the same school ( including bruno lemaire), and that this school recruits almost nobody coming from the private sector ( although this is starting to change, but only very recently). That’s the « they ». Everybody in the fifth republic believes that the state should regulate the economy, while having absolutely no personnal experience in the private sector. The only differences they have are on society issues, but from the economical point of view i have yet to witness one government that actually lowered the tax ratio ( just look at the CSG which was supposed to be temporary and 3% 25 years ago, and is now still alive and reaches more than 10%) As for the efficiency of the public sector and the tax system look at france’s tax vs gdp ratio compared to other european country, as well as our ranking in education performance ( both young children school and university). Also have a look at unemployment rates, compared to other european countries. Edit : to be fair, macron did come from the private sector ( just a few years though), and he did in fact remove a huge chunk of the ISF last year. That was a glimmer of hope. Also another reason why seeing France go back to its old habits makes me mad.

ajnin 8y ago

> how come all those companies HQ in europe are in ireland Ireland has been busted (among others) for secretly passing sweet taxation deals with Google, Facebook, Amazon & co. According to you, that's the way to do it, right ? Tax race to the bottom, give deals to big player that no small company has hope to ever negociate, that's sure to bolster competitors. Any kind of attemp to level the playing field by applying tax uniformly on the European level is "sick".

purple_ducks 8y ago
> Ireland has been busted (among others) for secretly passing sweet taxation deals with Google, Facebook, Amazon & co. That is 100% uninformed nonsense. If you are conflating it with Apple vs EU, you can read this primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_against_Apple_in_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_agai... Nothing to do with a country offering a multinational a deal which results in a lower effective tax rate, and is something _EVERY_ country in Europe offers.
briandear 8y ago
Why should Ireland be able to determine the taxation policies of Ireland? The EU doesn’t set immigration law for Ireland does it? Why should it be allowed to dictate tax law? Low taxes can be a competitive advantage to fiscally responsible countries, why must the EU try to “fix” that?
- Thiez 8y ago
  Because Ireland has signed treaties that restrict its actions? If they don't like the rules they can leave the EU. Sadly for them leaving the EU would also make them less interesting as a tax haven. Choices choices. Also this is not just about 'taxation policies'. They are pretty free in their policies, except that they can't make exceptions for particular companies because such special deals give a company a competitive advantage, distorting the market.
- chopin 8y ago
  For sure the EU sets at least parts of the immigration law of Ireland. Every EU citizen is free to settle there. Even more, Ireland is a Schengen party, so any visa or legal immigrant of a Schengen member must be accepted to Ireland as well.

deleted 8y ago

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user5994461 8y ago

France has a competitor to Google and that's called Criteo, one of the biggest ad business in this continent.

bsaul 8y ago
http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/europe/2016 http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/eur...
- user5994461 8y ago
  It's not a search engine, it's only an ad business.
  - bsaul 8y ago
    Indeed. Criteo is « just an ad business » ( which is going to take a huge hit from all the privacy measures, btw). It’s extremely vulnerable compared to the company that own the content platform, aka the search engine, or the social network. Calling them a competitor to google is true, but it’s also a very narrow point of view. Just look at how well it’s doing on the stock exchange and you’ll see what i mean,
  - mr_toad 8y ago
    Google is an ad businesses. At this point their other products; search, Gmail, Android are all just loss-leaders.

walshemj 8y ago

How do you feel about having to pay more tax because the big Amarican companies move profits of shore to avoid paying tax?

rdm_blackhole 8y ago

I agree with OP. I am French as well. I can confirm that for a French politician, any issue can be solved by adding a new tax. Tax for this, tax for that and whatever else. They just have no clue about what to do so they try to tax it. Well, guess what, people who actually want to achieve something productive, who want to make a good living, who want to start a company and not see our profits taxed again and again to feed a bunch of bureaucrats who have never even run a business before, those people they have already left and they are not coming back.

grumpydba 8y ago

As a fellow french having lots of tax lawyer friends, let me just say that you are naive. Google & al earn money in France, they should pay taxes. Simple. Right now those tech giants are using dubious tactics to avoid paying their fair share. What is needed is simply justice and fairness.

Farradfahren 8y ago
Its actually favouring big companys, who push and punnish little companys and startups who all have to pay their taxes.

Natela 8y ago

As a European I think this is a smart move on the contrary. Google cannot get rid of the EU market, if it does, EU competitors might have a chance. So the EU can just tax Google as much as it wants. What are we to be afraid of ? Google leaving EU ? Please do ! This will only gives us a chance to come we our own solution to the web Google&FB think they invented. I don't get how we could not be glad that we tax more those dystopian companies. Google, FB, etc... don't respect any values of privacy and freedom, they should not have even the right to do what they do in EU and GDPR is step in the right direction for that. The only problem is that we have no weight if we don't act together, so if some European countries are too short-sighted and put their self little short term interest above the rest and prefer offer encourage Google's development, then yes we will fail.