[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.