[AshwinDurairaj]

An honest question - What outcomes would there be if countries like Spain decide one day to impose exorbant taxes, like those totalling $1b annually for Google?

Would it just be cheaper for these companies to pull out? And what international recourse would happen?

[mcv]

Only when the taxes reduce their profits to zero. As long as a country only taxes domestic revenue, that's unlikely to happen.

And in my opinion, countries should be taxing (domestic revenue - domestic costs), rather than allowing companies to move their undeclared profits around to the nearest tax haven to dodge all taxes.

[ensignavenger]

So if I setup a company to do research and development in Spain, and spend $100 billion dollars creating a breakthrough technology, then I license my breakthrough technology to Americans for $1 billion dollars per year, America should be taxing my $1 billion per year in revenue as if it were 100% profit because I don't have any expenses in America?

[mcv]

Yeah. You already deduct your costs in Spain from your profits there. If you don't do any business in Spain, why are you there? The idea here is to discourage corporations from putting basing in tax havens where they don't do any business. Taxes are paid where the profit is made.

[ensignavenger]

Maybe I am in Spain because I am a Spanish citizen? Maybe I want to do R&D there because that is where the expertise is that I need? Maybe I thought my tech was going to be much more successful in Spain when I set it all up, but found out that the market wasn't there but was in the US?

[mcv]

I don't deny that my idea will result in some degree of protectionism. I think that's worth it in this case in order to prevent the flight of profit to tax havens, but there are absolutely edge cases where it forms some barrier to free trade.

On the other hand, having pure profit in a foreign market without any costs there, doesn't sound like a terribile position to be in. And maybe local businesses could use a bit of an edge compared to multinationals.

[thu2111]

For Spain? Surely yes. Google have no major engineering presence in Spain.

We saw this happen already when Spain tried to force Google to pay taxes on link clicks in Google News. The outcome was they shut News down entirely.