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posted by mrpg on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the plus-d'argent dept.

Technology giants face European 'digital tax' blow

Big technology firms face paying more tax under plans announced by the European Commission. It said companies with significant online revenues should pay a 3% tax on turnover for various online services, bringing in an estimated €5bn (£4.4bn). The proposal would affect firms such as Facebook and Google with global annual revenues above €750m and taxable EU revenue above €50m.

The move follows criticism that tech giants pay too little tax in Europe. EU economics affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici said the "current legal vacuum is creating a serious shortfall in the public revenue of our member states". He stressed it was not a move against the US or "GAFA" - the acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. According to the Commission, top digital firms pay an average tax rate of just 9.5% in the EU - far less than the 23.3% paid by traditional companies.

Also at Reuters and WSJ.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:19PM (8 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:19PM (#656660)

    > parasitic state

    WTF?

    Political and military stability -> military; welfare state

    Worker's health -> health services (in EU at least)

    R&D funding -> many technologies GAFA use had origins in a government lab or university

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:56PM (7 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:56PM (#656686) Journal

    welfare state

    [...]

    health services

    [...]

    R&D funding

    Apple doesn't use a bit of the first two. That's just payouts to voters. As to the R&D funding, Apple may milk EU research, but it doesn't have to. Meanwhile just because the EU is attached to this research it'll be more expensive. Order of magnitude increase in cost without a corresponding increase in research quality or quantity is typical IMHO for government-funded research, particularly for big projects like ITER.

    These are examples of the parasitism I spoke of.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:17PM (6 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:17PM (#656706)

      You're talking as if Apple didn't have lots of physical stores, or thousands of EU employees in the stores and in their Irish Tax-saving and engineering headquarters.

      • (Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:01PM (5 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:01PM (#656745) Journal
        You talk as if that stuff were relevant. We already have income tax and VATs which pay for the respective activities.
        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:17PM (4 children)

          by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:17PM (#656754)

          You talk as if some companies operating in a country should be exempted from paying the taxes that others do pay, just because ... ?

          Abolish the business tax, sure. You now need to raise the equivalent amount money: do you raise the sales tax, or the income tax ? First hits the poor, second is seen as unfair and causes the rich to flee. Come on, it's so easy, you must have the answer that 200 countries are all looking for!

          Paying tax on profits is indeed silly, because that encourages having to pay MyGAFAatCaymans LLC some exorbitant "license fees". Paying taxes on a fraction of your worldwide profits which matches the ratio of your activities in the country is a lot more fair, but it takes a lot of people to very you're not fudging numbers.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:28PM (3 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:28PM (#656764) Journal

            You talk as if some companies operating in a country should be exempted from paying the taxes that others do pay, just because ... ?

            Who are these others? If they're businesses as well, I advocate reducing their taxes. I have no problem with 0% business taxes in the first place. Businesses are valuable, unemployed people are not.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:38PM (2 children)

              by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:38PM (#656771)

              Dang, it's almost as if I addressed the 0% in the next paragraph, and you ignored it in your response...

              • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:46PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:46PM (#656775)

                Well it is khallow, he does not let facts interrupt his ideological narrative.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:24PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:24PM (#656806) Journal
                Ok, I disagree with that second paragraph.

                Abolish the business tax, sure. You now need to raise the equivalent amount money: do you raise the sales tax, or the income tax ? First hits the poor, second is seen as unfair and causes the rich to flee. Come on, it's so easy, you must have the answer that 200 countries are all looking for!

                Income tax, of course.