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Germany eyes 10% digital tax on global tech groups
- saubeidl 1y agohttps://archive.ph/pBjiY https://archive.ph/pBjiY
- galkk 1y agoI really hate that political doublespeak, as in 2nd paragraph: Germany’s federal commissioner for media and culture, Wolfram Weimer, told Stern magazine on Thursday that the new government is drafting a digital levy on global internet platforms, although alternatives like a voluntary commitment by the affected tech companies to pay more tax in Germany are also still under consideration. voluntary...
- rf15 1y agopeople who see "Your money or your life" as a free choice scenario
- 6stringmerc 1y agoIn Texas the phrase has traditionally been “Plato o Plomo” which translates to “Silver or Lead” fyi
- saubeidl 1y agoIt's voluntary the same way people work shitty jobs "voluntarily". If they don't, they'll starve, but they always have that option I suppose. The beauty of the free market - either do what the capitalist class does or die, freely.
- loloquwowndueo 1y agoNone of those big conpanies would die by paying more tax in Germany; so much so, that I bet they’d prefer to call the bluff and leave the country entirely rather than pay more taxes. The move then becomes “your government is evil and is forcing us to deprive you of our awesome service/product, call your elected representative”.
- saubeidl 1y agoI believe American Big Tech greatly overestimates their popularity in Europe, especially in Germany. This move would backfire dramatically.
- attendant3446 1y agoHowever, WhatsApp is the default messaging app in Germany (second only to fax /s). Facebook is the default platform in Sweden. I think other EU countries also rely heavily on US big tech.
- likis 1y agoI think they would just pay the taxes but increase their prices so their bottom-line looks about the same. In the end it would be the consumers in Germany that paid the price.
- saubeidl 1y agoThat assumes that demand would stay the same with price increases.
- luckylion 1y ago
- liotier 1y agoConsidering how far behind the European Union is in the digital services industry, and considering the need to decouple from the American circus, a strategic move towards preying on digital services through tariffs or taxes is a logical option.
- PicassoCTs 1y agoWestern europe- eastern europe is not afflicted by this particular malaise. How about we talk openly about it- there is a limited number of perfectly good heads- and fabrication industries and service industries are in systemic competition on that limited pool. And they create their own support environment ("bloated universities") where the service wins and destroy the competition.
- liotier 1y ago> Western europe- eastern europe is not afflicted by this particular malaise. The lure of USA protection lingers in Eastern Europe - some just haven't realized the new reality yet.
- PicassoCTs 1y agoEastern europe has software nailed down. Poland, chechoslvovakia, the baltics- they are naturals in this.
- camillomiller 1y agoThis is good and too little, too late. Tech giants have become more powerful than most governments, and that is a net negative for society. As much as this community might love to hate politics and government, and despite all their inefficiencies and corruption, they STILL operate with a set of fundamental incentives that are more aligned to the benefit of all society. Giant tech companies are only aligned to a set of incentives established by a small cadre of stakeholders, and in fact are the prime driver of the unsustainable growth in wealth disparity and inequality. In short: suck it up big tech; please go harder governments.
- jajko 1y ago[flagged]
- roenxi 1y agoI'm not sure what your point is there. The corporations were manufacturing Zyklon B as a delousing agent. It only became notorious because a government with a mandate to improve the lives of Germans took charge and turned out to be ideologically unsound.
- Matthyze 1y agoThe corruption of the tech/'hacker' subculture has been so disheartening to watch. Is this the subculture that was obsessed with cyberpunk? It took so little, too: good (but not great) salaries, mediocre tech, and a small amount of fearmongering. And suddenly we're here, convinced that corporations must be unconstrained no matter the societal effects. It's as if the cyberpunk dystopias are now seen as aspirational. Absurd and deeply sad.
- saubeidl 1y agoI've become deeply disillusioned with tech. Most folks here are actively building a corporate dystopia, and like you said, it didn't even take that much for them to sell out. The hacker spirit is dead, it's been replaced by capitalist greed :( To quote rms: Join us now and share the software; You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free. Hoarders can get piles of money, That is true, hackers, that is true. But they cannot help their neighbors; That's not good, hackers, that's not good.
- rvz 1y agoThis is how to lose and this is why tech founders don't start companies in Europe as they know what happens when they get too big. For every 1 "tech company" founded in Europe, there are 5 more of the same founded in the US.
- StrauXX 1y agoThis assumes that gigantic companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google are a good thing that should be emulated.
- DaSHacka 1y agoThey objectively are, from the perspective of a country.
- saubeidl 1y agoThere's no such thing as objective when it comes to politics. What you perceive as objective truth is just a reflection of your ideology.
- DaSHacka 1y agoOkay, "subjectively" then.
- saubeidl 1y agoThat answers your question then - they (and I) subjectively don't perceive it as a good thing ;)
- DaSHacka 1y agoSure, and from the perspective of your countries leaders, they don't appear to agree, seeing as how they haven't banned these companies outright. So objectively, it appears more countries agree with my subjective judgement than not.
- nssnsjsjsjs 1y ago10% tax on what? The ads? The services?
- Vilian 1y agoRevenue
- nssnsjsjsjs 1y agoHow do they know the revenue was booked in Germany?
- sokols 1y agoThe same way they calculate the VAT for Germany.
- alkonaut 1y agoThis sort of thing really needs to be coordinated on EU level. Having different countries doing this in their own way isn't going to work out well in the end. But it's clear something needs to be done. Taxes should be extracted on profits, where the profits are generated. But doing this properly would require re-thinking _a lot_ of how businesses are taxed, not only digital giants. Anyone who uses schemes where IP is sold between various sister companies and finally profits are generated in some tax haven, would be targeted in a revamp of this kind. This would be a massive upheaval.
- fuddy 1y agoDoing everything in a chaotic uncoordinated manner helps local companies and the biggest international players eliminate smaller foreign players..
- sumedh 1y ago> Taxes should be extracted on profits, where the profits are generated. No need to make it so complicated, if a company have revenue above X billion then pay X% tax on the revenue local or global revenue.
- spwa4 1y agoYou forget that EU countries are adversaries, especially where it comes to tax (ie. money for the government to spend). Ireland has a minimum tax rate for international companies, with deductions for employment (as in numbers). It's not a coincidence what's happening.
- alkonaut 1y agoYes, but the EU are "collaborating" adversaries in a lot of ways. There is a lot of pressure that can (and is) being put on e.g. Ireland for this.
- snapplebobapple 1y agoCorporate lawyers would argue this is already happening and they are partially correct its a really tough problem because there are valid points on both sides. Take a simple product. Say all the design and development work happens globally to create IP that is the how of the product. Production and integration into a product happens in southeast asia. Sales happen globally but lets look at a sale in Germany. If you sell it for Y , you manufacture it for X and you have a large sunk cost for the IP you need to recover C, your profit is Y-X - C/units sold. Units sold is unknown until you finish selling the product potentially years later. It's not at all cut and dry which part should get allocated what profit. What Germany is doing with this tax is arbitrarily pushing more of the profit to the end sale, where potentially none of the work to make the product and very minimal to none of the design work may have been done, which isn't necessarily right/fair/justified.
- 6stringmerc 1y agoSee, the tariffs are working as they traditionally do - in that they are turning nations into scenarios where they look to local development rather than importing. Unintended consequences resulting in the US being on the losing end? I’m not surprised in the least considering the clearly sunsetting mental state of a failed businessman narcissist trying to run the nation via social media and spurious dictates.
- Quanttek 1y ago> German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-left coalition agreed to “evaluate” a tax on internet platforms in its treaty signed in early May, agreeing that the proceeds should be used to strengthen the country’s media landscape. Not sure in what world Merz's coalition could ever be considered centre-left. It's a coalition of the conservative party (which moved much further right under his leadership) and the centrist Social Democrats (who equally moved to the right/center under current and former leadership). Calling them "centre-right" could perhaps be acceptable, all while "conservative" is also a widespread label.
- Eezee 1y agoEspecially since the only party to the right of Merz are actual right-wing extremists.
- riehwvfbk 1y agoSo it makes sense then: there are two parties. The center is the imaginary line in the middle. One of the parties is center-left, the other is center-right. Logic! :)
- mytailorisrich 1y agoOn the other hand, in modern European politics very often anything that is traditional right wing is labeled "far right extremists" anyway at this point, especially if they are a bit too critical of the EU and open borders. The only thing 'acceptable' is "centre right". For instance in France, at this point, the National Rally (Le Pen) is not really more in the right than the traditional conservative/right wing party was in the 70s and 80s (with years in government). It is plainly just "the right" and largest party in Parliament, yet they are labeled dangerous far right extremists because it is (less and less) helpful politically... Not sure exactly how the political positioning is in Germany but overall "far right" and "right-wing extremists" have lost all meaning generally in Europe because those terms are so abused. The current German government coalition does not seem to particularly reflect the democratic result of the latest election (majority on the right), same as in France.
- fileeditview 1y ago
- junto 1y agoWhilst the large U.S. corporates continue to use tax avoidance schemes concocted by the accounting big four, the only choice left to countries being taken a ride via missing tax revenue via the traditional profit based taxation is to tax revenue in the countries they are operating. I think this is a “shot across the bow” for companies like Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. France have already started to implement their version of this digital tax. The U.S. is pressuring EU companies to follow their drive for removing anti-discrimination policies. Europeans are starting to notice this unbalanced relationship, where the U.S. doesn’t believe it needs to follow the same rules it tries to dish out to other countries. Make US business in our countries pay their way and follow our laws. That’s the very basis of sovereignty.
- ProllyInfamous 1y agoWithout knowing the specifics, this will be a good precedent for the eventual necessity of taxing genAI (e.g. to offset losses in personal income taxes). ...but what do I know, I'm just a semi-retired, blue-collar electrician — chatting since GPT-2.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- itsgogu 1y ago[dead]