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by amorroxic 3002 days ago
European here and I feel this is a bit shortsighted. Not really sure the sentiment is to target US companies (if for nothing else ours are quite open/interconnected economies and there's lots of fondness for US services - check both market share as well as revenues) but really.. Facebook's tax of 5k/year in the UK, the double irish with a dutch sandwich, the backroom deals from the 80s with the Irish govt.. these are global practices which truly devastate everyone in the long run. I actually trust bureaucrats to step in and audit - and subjectively think they very often do a decent job of explaining rationales given europeans' known tendency of bickering on pretty much everything.
1 comments
ucaetano 3002 days ago
> European here

Same.

> Facebook's tax of 5k/year in the UK, the double irish with a dutch sandwich, the backroom deals from the 80s with the Irish govt.. these are global practices which truly devastate everyone in the long run.

And are all legal, and designed as so by the government. Auditing won't make a difference, since it is legal. Don't like it? Make it illegal. Simple as that.

> actually trust bureaucrats to step in and audit - and subjectively think they very often do a decent job of explaining rationales given europeans' known tendency of bickering on pretty much everything.

Oh, no issue with that. My issue is with this:

> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.

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andy_ppp 3001 days ago
They are (making it illegal) but they are making the law broad enough that it’s going be difficult to circumvent by lobbyists.
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ucaetano 3001 days ago
Lobbyist don't circumvent the law, politicians do.
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amorroxic 3001 days ago
This would be a valid point or topic of debate should the subject be an actual law (the 70 years copyright law for instance?)

What we're dealing with here is loopholes and nothing more under various incarnations - take patents in the US or the lax tax policies of Malta or Isle of Man as an example - and you'll get a sense on why a bit of cleaning up is sorely needed.

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ucaetano 3001 days ago
> What we're dealing with here is loopholes and nothing more under various incarnations - take patents in the US or the lax tax policies of Malta or Isle of Man as an example - and you'll get a sense on why a bit of cleaning up is sorely needed.

Oh, I agree, it definitely needs cleaning up.

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amorroxic 3001 days ago
> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.

Than whom else? VK? Baidu? ICQ?

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