[0xfaded]

Europe has VAT, which from a simplified perspective means that businesses don't directly pay any consumption tax, but have to charge VAT on the value of the goods and services sold to consumers.

So for purchases within Europe, the end consumer is already paying a 25% tax on the digital services provided by google.

But for good and services sold outside the EU, and remember that Europe have export driven philosophies, there is essentially no government revenue from foreign digital services.

Europe deserves compensation for buying American digital services in the same way America deserves compensation for buying German cars. It doesn't. Instead it needs to focus on a more competitive business environment where the money is cycled more times through the economy before ultimately making it's way to the government.

[hackeraccount]

America gets compensation for buying German cars.

Every time I think to myself "Well, at least I'm not a libertarian," I read a sentence like that and after first getting confused (What does that even mean?) I then feel sad because I'm pretty sure if I parsed through the logic it would turn out that I after all more of libertarian than most of the people I know.