[microcolonel]

The idea of a revenue tax of course contradicts the stated justifications for existing taxes on business: the funding of ephemeral services which contribute indirectly to the business's revenue.

Google benefits from approximately no government infrastructure in France, Germany, Italy, or Spain, but they want to get their grubby hands on it nonetheless.

[pjc50]

They benefit from having the market; the entire set of infrastructure and society that makes it possible to make money there. Google has no divine right to sell into that market without taxes or tariffs any more than European companies have to sell into the US.

But there's a very particularly European problem here, that of cross-state revenue recognition. A gross receipts tax or similar is one solution, which is also present in four US states: https://taxfoundation.org/state-corporate-income-tax-rates-a...

[microcolonel]

The government is not the market, the people are the market. If the government is in the business of selling the public to multinational corporations, something is truly wrong.

[pjc50]

L'etat, c'est nous.

(Yes, that's a joke in French, but I'm not really about to type a treatise on popular sovereignty in the Spanish constitution for two reasons. Firstly I'm on a phone, and secondly I know nothing about it)

I do wish one day we could have a discussion that didn't have to argue the existence of gonvernment and taxation from first principles, but today is not that day.

[microcolonel]

Néanmoins, nous ne sommes pas l'état.

A tax on Spanish and French revenues is a tax on Spanish and French consumption, which is already charged. If it is advertising revenue, then the tax will be charged on the advertised products and services and likely also on the charges to the advertisers.

L'état, c'est certains d'entre nous!

> I do wish one day we could have a discussion that didn't have to argue the existence of gonvernment and taxation from first principles, but today is not that day.

I'm not arguing for or against taxation as a whole in any sense, with or without first principles. I'm arguing that this particular instantiation does not fit the justifications for the existing tax regime, and serves no purpose but to increase the price of services to the people in these countries (and in order to fund something which has not even been defined).

This taxation, not part of law in any of these countries, is effectively a transaction tax. If the goal is to discourage transactions, then well, go ahead and levy it. Pat yourself on the back knowing that your citizens are doing less business and more of their money is going to the state for whatever purpose the state sees fit.

[kig]

The money that goes to the state in taxes is spent by the state on services provided by the citizens of the state. The alternative is the money going to a tax haven bank account of a multinational. Pat yourself on the back knowing that your citizens are doing less business and more of their money is going to the multinational for whatever purpose the multinational sees fit.

[0x4a42]

Oui !

[0x4a42]

Getting downvoted because I agree with Lénine. :-/

This is too unfair. [0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmzOCtsZTW4 [0]

[the8472]

> Google benefits from approximately no government infrastructure in France, Germany, Italy, or Spain

They directly depend on the infrastructure to reach their customers. And they indirectly depend on the people having a high standard of living which also requires infrastructure. If your country is a 3rd-world shithole without infrastructure you'll have a very hard time selling your products which sit high on maslow's hierarchy.

[microcolonel]

Which infrastructure? What infrastructure in France, Germany, Italy, or Spain, which is used by Google to reach their customers, is built and/or maintained by the governments of those countries?

[alkonaut]

Not sure I understand the question. Isn't that "most of it"?

I use a road to get to work. My work pay my salary. My salary pays amazon for crap delivered to my house. The package comes delivered on the same road. The internet connection I used to visit amazons page is delivered via fiber to my house, funded just like other infrastructure. So the road and fiber was very important for my society being a developed high-income one, which is why I'm buying crap from the internet in the first place.

[ithkuil]

All of those things you mentioned are already paid by somebody: the customer pays for your broadband and couriers pay for roads thorough their revenue taxes and tolls.

However, the topic here is the indirect benefit of being a wealthy nation where you can have customers wealthy enough to care about your products in the first place. The argument is that this is the result of something the society or the government did and it whoever benefits from that must pay their share for the access to that benefit, possibly to keep or improve the conditions that lead that wealth in the first place.

[ericd]

If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the fiber rollout in France at least was heavily subsidized by the government, and hence, taxes.

[Spivak]

Sure, but by this reasoning every website on the internet should be recieving a bill from the French government.

And Netflix should be getting a bill from Verizon when their traffic goes though their network.

[mbroncano]

All those thing are indeed being paid ... through taxes, thus the whole point of collecting them.

[usr1106]

Infrastructure is a precondition for high economic activity and wealth. Without wealth Google, Amazon would have few customers in Germany, France, Spain.

These countries have mostly tax financed universities free or only with nominal tuitions for students. Without such education system the internet companies would have few customers wealthy enough to create a lot of profit for the company.

[Atropos]

The legal system and independent courts etc are an infrastructure it depends on - Google had to leave China due to problems with the local legal system

[seanmcdirmid]

Google has to leave china for political reasons. The legal system rather is incredibly malleable to the needs of officials (lots of Chinese internet companies are allowed to ignore laws that foreign companies are not).

[Spivak]

Right, and every US business benefits from the treaties that protects their IP overseas. Should they be getting billed from the French government too?

[pmontra]

For example schools, hospitals, roads. They are mostly public in maybe every single European state. Without them there are no literate healthy customers and no deliveries.

[Spivak]

Got it, so if a French person is on vacation in the US the businesses they frequent should also pay French taxes since that person is apparently only able to exist by the grace of the French government.

[pmontra]

What happens is that a French person on vacation in the USA pays US taxes, for example the state tax on what s/he buys. S/he starts paying French taxes again when going back home. It looks fair.

But if that US business goes to France and sells to French customers there, then it should pay French taxes in France on the profits made from French customers. All loopholes should be removed.

What happens is that corporate taxes ultimately come from the pockets of customers. Either those companies will raise prices or lower their profits. Either way this will help local companies that currently can't exploits loopholes to pay no taxes and are at an unfair disadvantage. Somebody could see it as protectionism, I think the existence of those loopholes is a bug that has to be fixed.

[llukas]

So you can take Googles content, intellectual property, or patents and do what you like? France, Germany, Italy or Spain law enforcement wont do anything?

This is one of the key infrastructure that government provides and Google depends.

[microcolonel]

No, their courts are guided by treaty to expose citizens to action on the patents of other countries, just as courts in other countries are guided by those same treaties to expose theirs.

As far as I understand, all treaties of this sort are bilateral.

[pjc50]

But those courts are still infrastructure, no?

[Spivak]

So if you operate a business in any country that has a treaty with France you should get a bill from the French government?

[llukas]

If you offer services in France and accept payments from French citizens then you're pretty much operating in France.

If not someone should figure out how to put a server on a satellite so they could claim no taxes are due as transaction is extraterrestrial.

[microcolonel]

That would be exactly true. If your business's operating legal presence were in space, or on the open ocean, then you would pay no taxes, aside from consumption-side taxes in the countries you serve.

Tell me how this would be anything but fair.

[frostburg]

Who do you think paid for the bulk of the infrastructure that makes internet access work in these countries? You're talking like a parody libertarian.

[Spivak]

So what I'm hearing is that if you operate a website that is accessible to any person in France you should get a bill from the French government since you benefited from their infrastructure.

And Netflix should probably be getting billed from Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, L3, WOW, etc. too since they can only access their customers through their infrastructure.

[frostburg]

We're talking about taxation here. If you're generating profits there you're probably going to have to pay taxes, yes. But of course you're just deliberately misunderstanding.

[petre]

They do benefit from using the network infrastructure, but I sort of agree with you that this is just money grabbing to make up for ever increasing government expenditures. If they do it to the tech giants they'll do it to everyone else. This is an experiment, just like Cyprus was with taking sums in excess of 100k euros out of people's accounts.

[Oletros]

When Google or Apple declares losses in Spain having record revenues so they have fiscal benefits when that country has a very big crisis then we have a big problem.

But hey, those countries ajust want to get their grubby hand in those poor companies.

[ben_w]

> just want to get their grubby hand in those poor companies

I find it fascinating that such emotive language is used. Taxation is pretty much the least "grubby" hand a government has (military: give us all your stuff, legislature: do all our work for us, we will tell you what we think adequate compensation is); and these companies are not only not poor, they are among the richest on the planet and they got almost all of that wealth this century.

But why won't anyone think of those poor, starving, unemployed, multi billion dollar international corporations? :P

[Oletros]

> I find it fascinating that such emotive language is used.

I thought that the sarcastic tone was clear :)

[ben_w]

I hear it too often from people who say it in earnest, sorry. :)

[microcolonel]

Google is not responsible for the corrupt and decadent governments in countries they don't operate out of; they're hardly responsible for it where they do operate. When China manipulates the markets so much that they collapse, and when Sweden spends its way into poverty, it will not be Google's fault, nor their responsibility to pay for it.

[andrepd]

Decadent? I take issue. Google, like virtually every large corporation in the world, spends a significant amount of time and resources finding the optimal way to pay the least amount of taxes, through loopholes, borderline or actually illegal schemes, lobbying etc. We're supposed to blame the countries for being defrauded in this way, not the multinationals doing the defrauding? Come off it.

You want to do business in a country, you abide by the laws of that country. Governments serve their citizens and their interests. Whatever is convenient for corporations has (or should have) _zero_ bearing on any decisions. In true liberal style: if they don't like the rules they're welcome to go elsewhere.

[ben_w]

I view tax codes like buggy software, lawful tax minimisation like zero day exploits — only difference is that the law is not above itself, so if the tax loophole is legal, then it's legal.

That said, just because something is legal doesn't make it moral, but even though I think we agree on that, I'd have to argue loopholes are totally in the domain of legislators to fix — if I understand correctly, UK law requires tax payers to report any minimisation schemes they are party to. Does that have teeth? I don't know, but it's a thought.

[andrepd]

That's not a wholly correct interpretation. Law codes aren't rigorous; there's room for "interpreting" the law, and what really matters in the end is intent ("spirit of the law" > "letter of the law"). At any rate, the news is about "patching" the exploits.

[pyrale]

> I view tax codes like buggy software, lawful tax minimisation like zero day exploits

I have it you view lobbying as having a hand in the code you subsequently exploit, and therefore a major ethics breach ?

[ben_w]

Pretty much.

I view corporations as non-human intelligences, so while it's totally unethical for a human to manipulate the law to their own ends, it's also something I expect corporations to perceive as acceptable, in as much as that makes sense (they will not shun each other for it) and in much the way we humans generally agree it's wrong to kill but we don't shun people for amputations or appendectomies.

This is why I prefer democratic corporations, rare as they are, to pure capitalist ones — at least the metaphorical appendix has a vote.

[Oletros]

Are you saying that Apple or Google don't operate in Spain or France?

What the heck has to do your claim of Spain or France being corrupt with Apple or Google declaring losses with record revenues?

[microcolonel]

> Are you saying that Apple or Google don't operate in Spain or France?

While technically they do have offices in Spain and France, they are mainly service offices. The critical operations of Google are carried out in the United States, and to a (far) lesser extent, Canada, Japan, and various other places.

> What the heck has to do your claim of Spain or France being corrupt with Apple or Google declaring losses with record revenues?

It's called expenditure, the vast majority of the wealth Apple and Google generate involves spending a lot of the wealth they made in the past. This is explicitly protected by the tax codes of basically any nation worth doing business in.

Spain, for example, has a rather meh economy, meanwhile the state is funneling public funds into things like a concentrated solar plant which will probably never generate more revenue than expenditure. If not corrupt, then that is at least decadent.

[andrepd]

> Spain, for example, has a rather meh economy, meanwhile the state is funneling public funds into things like a concentrated solar plant which will probably never generate more revenue than expenditure. If not corrupt, then that is at least decadent.

I recommend you sit down, evaluate what you are saying, and try to figure out what on earth that has to do with corporate taxing.

[wooter]

How is that not clear to you?

[lagadu]

> meanwhile the state is funneling public funds into things like a concentrated solar plant which will probably never generate more revenue than expenditure.

Erm the state isn't a for-profit entity, in fact if it were to generate a profit for some reason and didn't use that money to improve infrastructure and the living conditions of the people it represents then it would've stopped serving its purpose.

It doesn't matter that their investment doesn't generate revenue, it will improve the lives of the people it represents.

[Oletros]

Ah, you're just joking, got it