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As opposed to the billions tech giants dodge taxes
by point78 7y ago
As opposed to the billions tech giants dodge taxes
- evanriley 7y agoSurely there is a balance between overly taxing and letting them get away without paying them?
- sasasassy 7y agoI'm guessing a 2-7% tax is on the low side of such balance.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> 2-7% tax is on the low side of such balance A 7% tax on revenues is a 50% tax on a business with a 14% margin. It's even more damaging when one considers start-ups, who run negative profits in their early years. (Seven percent is thus eleven months of runway in the Czech Republic for every 12 months a German competitor gets.) Seven percent is generally prohibitive to low-gross margin business, e.g. any tech company producing physical devices or doing anything next to retail. It thus compresses an economy's accessible tech sector to enterprise businesses. If these taxes remain confined to ad-driven businesses, that's a fair tradeoff. But given Europe's penchant for over-encroachment, it could very easily be over-applied. TL; DR Top-line taxes transfer wealth to high-margin businesses over low-margin businesses and from start-ups to incumbents.
- microcolonel 7y agoThe tax is on revenue, so the thinner your margins, the more extreme the tax. Another reply here says that a 7% revenue tax is a 50% tax on a 14% margin transaction, but it's even worse than that, since the tax is on the whole revenue, including your margins.
- ShorsHammer 7y agoConsumption taxes are very difficult to avoid and often very efficient. Especially online. Income and corporate taxes are so easily manipulated that there's entire industries built around it. Nations should be aiming for efficient taxation sources not ever more complex regulations creating yet another industry sector to simply navigate it.
- apt_criterion 7y agoThe purpose of taxes is to gather funds for public services.