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The article is not replete on details on how this supposed tax would work. Personally, I'm in favour of taxing Internet companies, but I believe tackling such a

The article is not replete on details on how this supposed tax would work. Personally, I'm in favour of taxing Internet companies, but I believe tackling such a complex issue affecting many countries on a national level is a mistake. Disclaimer: I'm French too.

sillysaurus2 13y ago
Personally, I'm in favour of taxing Internet companies Why? EDIT: I was just curious to hear more.
- liam_boogar 13y ago
  Why you saying Why should Internet companies be taxed? Or Why should taxes exist at all?
  - exDM69 13y ago
    > Why you saying Why should Internet companies be taxed? Because all other companies are being taxed when offering products or services to citizens of the given country, within the legislation of that country. Certain Internet companies use questionable tax planning strategies (in Europe as well as the US) to pay a ridiculously small amount of taxes and thus gaining an unfair advantage. > Or Why should taxes exist at all? Because running a country costs money which is required to provide services such as law enforcement and a regulated banking system. These services are required by citizens and corporations alike. But going further down this argument is obviously not in the scope of this discussion thread and will not end up being a fruitful conversation. We're talking about a small-ish change to the tax system rather than a full blown anarchist revolution here.
- mercurial 13y ago
  Why shouldn't they pay their fair share? Normal companies who make profits get taxed. Giant companies funnel their profits through Holland and Ireland, and pay a paltry amount. Back in the days, the nobility had also exempted itself from taxes. I see no reason for this state of affairs to continue.
  - davidw 13y ago
    So the solution is for .nl and .ie to close their loopholes, not create new taxes, no? They recently passed a similar tax in Italy, and the whole thing was about how the big bad American companies are making money and not investing in Italy. This, at the same time Fiat is decamping from Italy because the business climate is so shitty. So what's their creative answer to improve things? Another tax!
    - nl 13y ago
      So the solution is for .nl and .ie to close their loopholes, not create new taxes, no? .ie is the loophole, most of the time.
      - davidw 13y ago
        I think it'd be fair if companies like Google that have their corporate EU base in Ireland were taxed in the EU at Ireland's corporate tax rate, in full. It's low, but higher than what they effectively pay.
        dmoo 13y ago
        To be fair, they do pay their tax in Ireland. It just seems that there isn't a whole lot of profit earned due to 'admin-charges' http://www.theguardian.com/business/ireland-business-blog-with-lisa-ocarroll/2011/mar/24/google-ireland-tax-reasons-bermuda http://www.theguardian.com/business/ireland-business-blog-wi... Disclaimer: I am Irish
- charlysisto 13y ago
  It's not about internet companies, it's about a set of multinational companies (amazon, starbuck, McDonald & many others including non-US) using a set of legal fiscal tricks to pay a ridicule amount of taxes compared to the national based ones & individuals. It's hurting competition and feeding the increasingly wide gap between wages & company income.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Google does a lot of business in the UK. I can buy, with real English money products from Google employees in an Enish Google office. For them to include a token step at the end of that process (invisible to the user) of having a Google employee in the Irish Google office just so they can avoid paying the English corporation tax is shady. Google quasi-legally avoids a huge amount of tax. Everyone accepts that reducing your tax burden is legitimate, but there comes a point when it is taking the piss. Paying tax is part of being a member of society. People and corporations not wanting to pay any tax should not be able to claim the benefits tha result from that tax burden. Google benefits from UK education. Google should fucking pay for it. The scary thing is that Google isn't that bad compared to other companies. The scale is huge but the techniques are run of the mill. See some of the water companies who have baffling corporate structures and who use international intra-business loans in order to avoid corporation tax, all while paying massive bonuses to staff, increasing costs to consumers, under funding maintainance, etc. it's infuriating.
- doe88 13y ago
  Because if you make some business in one country it's fair to proportionally contribute to that country. And hiding behind schemes in order to minimize it should be prohibited.
seszett 13y ago
> I believe tackling such a complex issue affecting many countries on a national level is a mistake. This sounds like the main problem here, to me: EU law makes it easy for a company to do business anywhere in EU and only pay taxes in its headquarters, on the assumption that it doesn't matter a lot where the company pays its taxes as long as it's inside the EU. But at the same time, EU law doesn't regulate corporate tax, so some countries can easily take advantage of that by lowering them (or completely removing them) so companies will be attracted there. They are basically living as parasites to the other countries, and the only solution to that seems to be harmonizing taxes accross the EU. Edit: could you explain the downvote a bit? I'm curious to hear what you don't like in what I said.
- davidw 13y ago
  > so some countries can easily take advantage of that by lowering them (or completely removing them) so companies will be attracted there. God forbid anyone try and make a country a good place to do business. I'm for closing the various loopholes, because big companies should have to pay the same taxes that smaller companies do. But I am also very much in favor or countries trying to compete and improve in order to attract business. > Edit: could you explain the downvote a bit? I'm curious to hear what you don't like in what I said. You call other countries who don't want to import the crappy, unfriendly business climate of countries like France or Italy (where I live) "parasites".
  - seszett 13y ago
    > You call other countries who don't want to import the crappy, unfriendly business climate of countries like France or Italy (where I live) "parasites". You are taking this the wrong way. It's not that Ireland does not want to import corporate tax from France and Italy, it is that they substantially lowered it, expressly to take advantage of the other EU countries. You can also see that I didn't advocate higher taxes for Ireland or lower taxes for the rest of EU, since it doesn't actually matter as long as they are the same in all EU.
    - davidw 13y ago
liam_boogar 13y ago
The rumor is not replete with how the proposed tax would work either; however, previous indications of similarly proposed taxes would suggest a tiered tax level based on different types of User data (more sensitive vs less sensitive) are stored in different tiers (France/National, Europe/Federal, and outside of Europe), with wavering amounts of taxes on a, I imagine, per user level.
touristtam 13y ago
We (European) need to have a unified taxation system for this kind of business. Nationalizing a tax on internet companies sounds like a lots of headache trying to figure out who own what to whom. Either this or a tax on internet (financial) transaction; something like 1-1,5% of the amount transferred.

sillysaurus2 13y ago

Personally, I'm in favour of taxing Internet companies Why? EDIT: I was just curious to hear more.

liam_boogar 13y ago
Why you saying Why should Internet companies be taxed? Or Why should taxes exist at all?
- exDM69 13y ago
  > Why you saying Why should Internet companies be taxed? Because all other companies are being taxed when offering products or services to citizens of the given country, within the legislation of that country. Certain Internet companies use questionable tax planning strategies (in Europe as well as the US) to pay a ridiculously small amount of taxes and thus gaining an unfair advantage. > Or Why should taxes exist at all? Because running a country costs money which is required to provide services such as law enforcement and a regulated banking system. These services are required by citizens and corporations alike. But going further down this argument is obviously not in the scope of this discussion thread and will not end up being a fruitful conversation. We're talking about a small-ish change to the tax system rather than a full blown anarchist revolution here.
mercurial 13y ago
Why shouldn't they pay their fair share? Normal companies who make profits get taxed. Giant companies funnel their profits through Holland and Ireland, and pay a paltry amount. Back in the days, the nobility had also exempted itself from taxes. I see no reason for this state of affairs to continue.
- davidw 13y ago
  So the solution is for .nl and .ie to close their loopholes, not create new taxes, no? They recently passed a similar tax in Italy, and the whole thing was about how the big bad American companies are making money and not investing in Italy. This, at the same time Fiat is decamping from Italy because the business climate is so shitty. So what's their creative answer to improve things? Another tax!
  - nl 13y ago
    So the solution is for .nl and .ie to close their loopholes, not create new taxes, no? .ie is the loophole, most of the time.
    - davidw 13y ago
      I think it'd be fair if companies like Google that have their corporate EU base in Ireland were taxed in the EU at Ireland's corporate tax rate, in full. It's low, but higher than what they effectively pay.
      - dmoo 13y ago
        To be fair, they do pay their tax in Ireland. It just seems that there isn't a whole lot of profit earned due to 'admin-charges' http://www.theguardian.com/business/ireland-business-blog-with-lisa-ocarroll/2011/mar/24/google-ireland-tax-reasons-bermuda http://www.theguardian.com/business/ireland-business-blog-wi... Disclaimer: I am Irish
charlysisto 13y ago
It's not about internet companies, it's about a set of multinational companies (amazon, starbuck, McDonald & many others including non-US) using a set of legal fiscal tricks to pay a ridicule amount of taxes compared to the national based ones & individuals. It's hurting competition and feeding the increasingly wide gap between wages & company income.
DanBC 13y ago
Google does a lot of business in the UK. I can buy, with real English money products from Google employees in an Enish Google office. For them to include a token step at the end of that process (invisible to the user) of having a Google employee in the Irish Google office just so they can avoid paying the English corporation tax is shady. Google quasi-legally avoids a huge amount of tax. Everyone accepts that reducing your tax burden is legitimate, but there comes a point when it is taking the piss. Paying tax is part of being a member of society. People and corporations not wanting to pay any tax should not be able to claim the benefits tha result from that tax burden. Google benefits from UK education. Google should fucking pay for it. The scary thing is that Google isn't that bad compared to other companies. The scale is huge but the techniques are run of the mill. See some of the water companies who have baffling corporate structures and who use international intra-business loans in order to avoid corporation tax, all while paying massive bonuses to staff, increasing costs to consumers, under funding maintainance, etc. it's infuriating.
doe88 13y ago
Because if you make some business in one country it's fair to proportionally contribute to that country. And hiding behind schemes in order to minimize it should be prohibited.

seszett 13y ago

> I believe tackling such a complex issue affecting many countries on a national level is a mistake. This sounds like the main problem here, to me: EU law makes it easy for a company to do business anywhere in EU and only pay taxes in its headquarters, on the assumption that it doesn't matter a lot where the company pays its taxes as long as it's inside the EU. But at the same time, EU law doesn't regulate corporate tax, so some countries can easily take advantage of that by lowering them (or completely removing them) so companies will be attracted there. They are basically living as parasites to the other countries, and the only solution to that seems to be harmonizing taxes accross the EU. Edit: could you explain the downvote a bit? I'm curious to hear what you don't like in what I said.

davidw 13y ago
> so some countries can easily take advantage of that by lowering them (or completely removing them) so companies will be attracted there. God forbid anyone try and make a country a good place to do business. I'm for closing the various loopholes, because big companies should have to pay the same taxes that smaller companies do. But I am also very much in favor or countries trying to compete and improve in order to attract business. > Edit: could you explain the downvote a bit? I'm curious to hear what you don't like in what I said. You call other countries who don't want to import the crappy, unfriendly business climate of countries like France or Italy (where I live) "parasites".
- seszett 13y ago
  > You call other countries who don't want to import the crappy, unfriendly business climate of countries like France or Italy (where I live) "parasites". You are taking this the wrong way. It's not that Ireland does not want to import corporate tax from France and Italy, it is that they substantially lowered it, expressly to take advantage of the other EU countries. You can also see that I didn't advocate higher taxes for Ireland or lower taxes for the rest of EU, since it doesn't actually matter as long as they are the same in all EU.
  - davidw 13y ago

liam_boogar 13y ago

The rumor is not replete with how the proposed tax would work either; however, previous indications of similarly proposed taxes would suggest a tiered tax level based on different types of User data (more sensitive vs less sensitive) are stored in different tiers (France/National, Europe/Federal, and outside of Europe), with wavering amounts of taxes on a, I imagine, per user level.

touristtam 13y ago

We (European) need to have a unified taxation system for this kind of business. Nationalizing a tax on internet companies sounds like a lots of headache trying to figure out who own what to whom. Either this or a tax on internet (financial) transaction; something like 1-1,5% of the amount transferred.