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by anoncake 2586 days ago
> There's a huge incentive for both EU and Google to have the latter just pay a fine every now and then and remain in business.

For the EU, making a decision frequently means getting the consensus of 28 governments with sometimes very different ideologies. I don't think it's capable of plotting.
1 comments
Tade0 2586 days ago
Individual governments on the other hand are, and in this case their interests align.
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anoncake 2586 days ago
Sure. You have twenty-eight governments, each with multiple ministers. A mix of socialists, liberals, christian democrats and fascists. None of them value markets and low taxes (the difference between liberals and socialists is that the latter like red). They somehow trust each other to keep their conspiracy secret. Oh, and half the European Parliament is part of the plot as well.

At the same time, they have serious problems agreeing on tax reform. Because somehow, their interests are only aligned when it comes to secretly taxing Google.

Please take off your tinfoil hat. When the EU properly taxes Google, it will do so openly.

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Tade0 2586 days ago
They somehow trust each other to keep their conspiracy secret.

That's not what I said. What I said was that each government individually decided that it was in their interest to fine Google.

No EU-level plotting - just incentives.

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anoncake 2586 days ago
The heads of government and ministers don't get to keep the fines for themselves. It's in their self-interest to get themselves bribed by Google, not to fine them.

Secretly taxing Google by making a privacy law, giving businesses years to prepare for it and hoping Google violates it anyway doesn't even make sense. Taxing them using, well, taxes is easier, quicker and more likely to work.

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Tade0 2586 days ago
Taxing them using, well, taxes is easier, quicker and more likely to work.

Is it really? To date Google et consortes managed to dogdge just about any tax law thrown at them. Meanwhile the fines are incurred and paid.

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anoncake 2586 days ago
You're right. But that isn't because it's impossible to write a working tax law, but because the EU hasn't managed to agree on passing one without someone insisting on loopholes.

(The people who decided to expand the EU to 28 members without overhauling its decision-making processes, which were designed for a community of 5 members with a much more limited scope, must have been on drugs.)

You wrote that all countries are interested in money. To an extent that is of course true, and it also applies to Ireland.

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