Slashdot Mirror
EU Web Tax Proposed
SomeGirl writes "Well, it's finally happening. The EU is proposing a Web tax." Its only a matter of time I s'pose... but quick! By a bunch of stuff while its still tax free! I recommend Moby's 'Play' and the Tenchi in Tokyo DVDs, but stay away from those VW Bugs that they're selling online (Ooo! Look! A Special Color!)
Please provide the data that shows the losses incured by "traditional businesses" due to Internet sales.
Times up. That is the problem. Down here in Texas, the Mayor of Dallas, went on a crusade to tax all Internet sales - It failed. His problem was with the proof; all of his evidence was anecdotal.
There is no data available yet that shows conclusively that internet sales are hurting government revenues. Only some politicans' fear that they are missing out on another revenue stream.
Also, please remember, the government seldom imposes taxes and lowers them at a future date. They generally raise them.
The local VW dealer has/had 4 of each color setting on his lot a few weeks ago (yes they were the special edition) with used car stickers on them. I was going to call and ask about the yellow but then thought; bet they bought them on the shady side and jacked the price; so I never called back.
Who owns your data?
But, although I can understand sales taxes on physical objects, I am incorrigibly opposed to sales taxes on intangibles.
I'm not sure why I'm opposed -- it's sort of an instinctive opposition. I guess I feel that if I'm not getting any THING, then I shouldn't be taxed on it -- it wasn't shipped over roads that need repairs, it wasn't handled by people that need health insurance, and the actual transmission was paid for by my monthly telecom bill.
I have no
Typically, if I order two CD's from a USA based warehouse, they arrive without any additional tax, but if I order three or more, they get intercepted, and I have the pleasure of paying:
Because the third item is a service, it is also subject to Value Added Tax, so I'm not only paying Tax on Tax, but I'm paying Tax on Tax on Tax.
At the moment, it's still economically viable to buy CD's from the USA because of the remarkably high prices that retailers over here charge. Things are changing, but a $7 music CD bought in the states is still less than half the UK14.99 it typically sells for over here.
Secondly, how exactly are the EU going to enforce a law requiring companies outside the USA to register for tax purposes; the amount of extra work that this would require on behalf of the various revenue services would be collosal, not to mention the cost to the taxpayer (tax^4 ?).
No wonder Disaster Area's accountant in The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy had to invent a whole new branch of integral hypermathematics to deal with the tax returns..
there is an article about it up at wired.
sure the register had something about it too, but can't find it now
btw is it just me or does their new format make it really hard to see where one article starts and another ends? still a great site tho.
~ppppppppö
funny all these sites that have messages like 'if you are in virgina please note that an that blah % sales tax will be added to your order'
~ppppppppö
This can be very convenient, but it shouldn't be mandatory. Barnes & Noble does this for orders from Canada. They charge you for Canadian federal sales tax (GST), and your book arrives quickly, since it doesn't need to clear customs. Plus, you save the brokerage fee ($5, I think), that you would pay otherwise on top of the sales tax. This is great, and because of this I always prefer Barnes & Noble to Amazon (that doesn't offer such a service).
Of course, trying to tax imported intangibles sounds absurd to me, and I'd like to see them enforcing it (if this is what they're trying to do).
I agree with the AC.
When you get down to it, one the major responsibilities of the government is to redistribute income. Yeah, the infrastructure involved w/online ecommerce is a bit more ethereal, but the UPS truck still has to get to your house, the cops need to enforce laws so the truck gets there safely, etc...you get the idea. Only 1.5% of commerce is occurring online. What happens when it is 25%(not that I think that is going to happen ANYTIME soon)? We still need schools, law enforcement, etc. How do you think we should do this? Taxation has been a pretty good mechanism up to now....why change? Do you think you are not going to drop $75 bucks on O'reilly books at FatBrain because you have to pony up $3 additional for VAT? Please, grow up, and get informed everybody. Quit trying to repeal the laws of thermodynamics.
I bought a sword recently on ebay, for a grand total of $56 US. I estimated this as roughly $82 Cdn. Not bad I think, for what was offered and looked forward to receiving it. I had to pay an additional $15 shipping, plus $12 shipping to get it to Canada (Grand total so far $83 US).
Then it hit the border. Canada customs examined the package, opened it, and finding neither a receipt for the value, nor a declaration of the value of the item, appraised it at $250 Cdn. They then added duty of $17.50 Cdn, plus GST and PST of $18.73 Cdn each.
Three weeks after I ordered it, the postman arrived at my door and told me I had to pay $54.96 to receive the item. I had no cash on me, so I had to pick it up the following day from the post office.
I complained to Canada customs about the misevaluation, and once I send off a letter explaining the actual cost of the item, I (hopefully, this is the Government after all) will receive a reimbursement of some of the money, since the GST and PST charged were excessive.
My point here is simply that I purchased an item for $56 US, and ended up paying roughly $182 dollars for it (the exchange rate that day was slightly worse that I thought it was). I bow to the power of e-commerce which has apparently let me purchase an item which has more tax and shipping costs associated with it than the actual cost of the item. Needless to say, I don't plan on purchasing ANYTHING over the net in the future. Its just not economically feasible - what looked like a deal ended up being a complete rip-off IMHO, thanks to the Government duty and taxes and the costs charged for shipping.
There is absolutely NO NEED or justification for adding an additional tax burden onto the poor fucking consumer with a Web Tax. We are already getting reamed if we purchase over the net and have the temerity to buy across a national boundary.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
resent that 'undereducated' though
if i wasn't so bloody educated i'd be way happier
~ppppppppö
There's a very good reason why states and businesses shy away from adding the tax and the product price together. That's because it hides the real cost of the sales tax. Even if current history belies it, Americans are by our history anti-tax people (or at least we try to be.) By not marking the tax, you always know how much of your money is going to the government when you actually pay for the product you buy. You can only have 22% sales tax if you hide the actual amount. I say that because, in comparison to products, the tax levied on gasoline is fairly high, for instance, here in Ohio its 40.6 cents (22 for the state, 18.6 for the Federal government.) If the price on pumps were marked without the sales tax, then everyone would know exactly how much was going for it, and people would be and should be spending more attention to where that money is going.
The same thing can be said of income tax...what's the best way to lower it...eliminate withholding. Withholding was devised during World War 2, prior to that time, only the rich paid income taxes, and when they did, they had to send it all in at one time. After withholding, you could raise taxes quite a lot and no one would really know except on paper. Let's say someone makes $60,000 per year and they get assessed for federal taxes at about $10,000. Well,now, they only see the money on paper, and it really never touches them. But if you ended withholding, every April they would make a check out to the IRS for $10,000...that would make a huge difference in how people look at taxes and think about the government.
Furthermore, I am against income taxes because it's a subtle form of stealing. If you buy a product or own property, that is putting a strain on public resources...so a tax may be appropriate. But just making money isn't putting a strain on public resources, and there is nothing stopping the state or the feds from increasing your tax rate to 90% and letting you have 10% to live, instead of letting you have 70% of your income to live. Property taxes and sales taxes are most definitely the way to go.
he attacked you . . . so he would seem to be in absolute agreement with your comment :)
~ppppppppö
Any we that is enforced sounds scary to me. My guess is they'll require the credit card companies to add to tax on items billed for from outside the US. And they'll probably track what you've bought at the same time. Great so now the EU knows which perversions i've paid to see, and gets a cut of money at the same time.
I'm sure the EU is unfortunately aware of this and the full EU commission proposal allows for this.
Interesting mental picture: Red ants = EU suprafederal governmental entities, Black ants = Microsoft and associated lawyers, in the same glass jar, shaken.
Peace.
You are required to pay VAT on all imports from outside the Union if the value exceeds something like EUR10.
But if the customs authorities are busy, you may have a lucky day.
A few years ago, lots of the stuff I bought from Amazon went through without VAT, but now the customs office has discovered that taxing Amazon deliveries makes a lot of money, so now I normally have to pay 25% extra on everything (including the shipping charges).
The result? I mostly buy books from other EU countries where the VAT rate is much lower.
I actually thought Photon was sort of amusing.
Nothing serious in the series so far- all silly comedy.
> ...taxation without representation. Why should I, a US citizen, have to play tax collector for a government which I have no voice in...
Wheras those legal immigrants to the US do not have to pay taxes to a government they do have a voice in, and which taxes they can surely reclaim should (medicaid, soc. sec. &c.) they be smote low?? Phah!
...and lo, god was wroth
Where does it get it's revenue from, then?
Sales tax is unnecessarily messy: you tax consumers directly, pennies at a time, for everything they purchase. Very inefficient: for starters it's inconvenient to me to go into a convenience store, grab a bag of Doritos marked $0.99, and have to pay more than a dollar. It's hard to figure out exactly how much your groceries are going to cost, and it varies between states, and sometimes between cities. Also, if the customer can prove out-of-state residency (by showing a driver's license), they're usually exempt from sales taxes. More importantly, though, there's a fair ammount of overhead involved in actually collecting sales tax - both on the part of the retailer and the government.
Income tax is much easier, because your employer only has to deal with it for each employee, instead of each customer, and you only have to pay it once a year, rather than every time you go to the store. $0.99 Doritos cost $0.99 instead of $1.06. Everything costs what it says it costs. If you're from out of state, there's nothing to worry about; there's no sales tax anyway. This also means that there's no problem with interstate commerce on the Web.
In areas that attract a lot of tourists, the state generally collects a lot of sales taxes, and this helps the government. Great! Collect the same money from local businesses in the form of income taxes instead. If people are spending money, the businesses must be making money; tax that instead! Much easier.
Anyway, what I was really trying to get at was, doing away with sales tax completely solves the problem of Internet taxes. You don't need to worry about taxing online transactions if you instead tax the people and businesses in your own state or country regardless of what purchases are being made.
I apologize for the poor wording and lack of coherency of my rant, and I'd appreciate any feedback.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
So it isn't only DE.
-Vel
Well that's the theory about VAT, anyway.
In practice here in the UK, it's just an easy way for the government to increase taxes after having promised not to increase income tax, cos that might annoy rich people.
Never mind that VAT taxes the poor disproportionately, or that gas (natural, not petrol) and electricity and many other things are plainly not luxury goods, which were what was supposed to be taxed when it was brought in.
Well, not just protection.
Police, roads, utilities (which are gov-funded in part in the US atleast), telephone regulation (keep prices down, keep competition up), the very thing that the DoJ is doing with Microsoft and did with AT&T, these are all provided by the government in the US.
I assume that there are equivalent services that the governments provide in the EU that need to be funded. A tax is not the only way to make money, but is certainly the least evil way. Can you imagine the goverment getting money solely from running businesses? Conflicts of interest would quickly come about when a commercial competitor gets in trouble.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
No, VAT taxes the value added in each transformation process (where you are actually *adding* a value). VAT is paid only once through any chain of distributions.
Sounds very ungood. OK, does anyone want to try and get an e-Commerce protocol up and working via FTP? Telnet? Ping..?
I guess the other thing to be careful there is to find out what this law would consider tax-evasion.
Recently, though, they've been trying to pass a sales tax to pay for of all things public education and have been having one hell of a time getting the voters to accept it. So pretty soon, sales taxes will be pretty much nation-wide here in the USA.
So why not on the internet too, I guess? But would that be state-level, or national-level? On goods coming into the nation? There are still issues to be resolved.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
could we quit with this argument already, ok the mighty us military lost against the viet cong, che guevara took cuba with 800(0) ? soldiers against a much larger (us funded) force.
but...
you are not vietnamese, you are not cuban, you haven't been fighting against foreign rule for generations, you don't live in a country with a poor infrastructure, you are not fighting a poorly trained, unused to death, avg. 19 year old, unfamilier with the territory, overextended force.
are you really going to send your kids out to greet the soldiers with a semtex vest?
id'e recommend investing in some serious NBC type weaponry if you want to stand a chance.
on the other hand fighting an urban guerilla war might work, lots of places to hide, hard for them to fight back, and easy to cause a lot of damage. either that or anonymous terrori^h^h^h^h^h^h^h freedom fighting a la senor unabomber.
~ppppppppö
I think you should read it if you're interested in this; unfortunately the article is no longer on-line, but I kept a copy:
With income tax, the government makes exceptions if you spend money on worthy causes - donating to non-profit organizations, for example. I agree that income tax shouldn't be a ridiculously high percentage just because you make a lot of money, but it probably should be lower for poor people because they really can't afford it (trust me).
Income tax may be stealing, but so is property tax. If you make improvements to my house that increase its value, your property taxes go up.
Income tax and sales tax do pretty much the same thing, it's just that income tax is a lot less messy and annoying.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
And it's buy not by. -Chris
Ok so the US VAT is about 6% (higher in CA, lower other places) but thats only on goods. Europe, NZ and as of next month Australia will have VAT on services too. That means things like consulting services are taxed at rates of 10 to 17% (the lowest VAT that I know of is the one in Oz at 10%)
If you look at the exchange rates of all the major currencys you see a trend, the higher the tax rate, the lower the relative growth. Since the US figured this out, why don't other countries?
Not at our place, they don't. :-)
Mark
A better solution would be to get rid of all the tolls and instead get the money they usually get from tolls in an increased gas tax. If your vehicle is a heavy one that destroys more roads than a lighter vehicle, then you should have to pay more to repair the damage. Tolling a specific road is just ridiculous, IMO.
It just depends. You should pay customs, but to be frank I ordered also several books from Amazon and some CDs from CDNOW. I never had to pay any taxes. All of these were delivered btw by UPS or FedEx.
Some relative of me once orderred something that was delivered by the regular ptt and was immediatly hit with a VAT charge.
"Who wishes to be creative, must first destroy and smash accepted values." - Nietzsche
Duh, sorry. I meant to say from outside the EU, not from outside the US.
But corporations already pay a federal income tax. A web tax would go to the municipalities and states to make up for the (supposed) decrease in
revenue from out-of-state sales tax purchases. It isn't as if the corporations are getting anything for free, instead it is the local governments getting annoyed because they get less money. Of course, out-of-state companies consume no local resources (they don't need the services of the local police force, for example), so this shouldn't be a problem. But governments of any sort are always going to complain about not getting their hands on revenue, whether they
deserve it or not. That's what governments do.p
What the EU actually proposed was a value-added tax on goods and services, sold over the Internet by non-EU businesses, to customers inside the EU in order to level the playing field for EU-based companies that already have to charge a value-added tax.
Ha! "Level the playing field" I love it. Why don't they just call it what it is: a tariff. Gosh, if Pat Buchanan were European he'd love it, too! This is the same thing the US gov't did in the 80's to "level the playing field" because we made inferior cars. (I still won't drive an American car, except maybe a Mexican made PT Cruiser!)
Anyways, on a more serious note, American business could see this as a problem. It seems like there are alot of wedges being thrown up between the US and the EU. As far as American business is concerned, this is a big deal. I imagine alot of companies were targeting the EU as a possible market and this tax will throw up another barrier to their entry.
These days, the EU is the biggest economic and political competitor to the US. I fear that if both parties don't get over the nationalistic/insular feelings toward each other the world could be heading toward a polarized situation not unlike the situation between the US and the USSR 20 years ago.
Gah
Well, if this sort of tax were enacted in the US, I suppose it would go something like this: The tax is there to recoup the lost sales tax when people purchase things online. This valuable cash goes to repair our roads, keep the infrastructure okay and gets the schools working. Right now as things stand (no internet tax) the internet serves as a sales tax shield for the upper class (traditionally those spending $ on the web) and the average non-netted Joe spends the extra to not buy online. Basically a net-tax would benefit the states and return the consumers to equality...but I'm still against it :)
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Moby's Play is definitely in. I agree about those VW New Bugs - what is that, Acid Reflux Yellow?
Visit
well to be frank the EU is the worst thing that ever happened to the world outside europe, cept maybe the two world wars they have so many taxes and tarrifs on good and services that i am surprised they are not planning to tax web traffic that comes in to sites in the EU from outside. It is the last bastion of the protectionist economy, or are they? =/ this is hardly surprising at all from a group of people who are hardly interesting in their choice of economic measures, ie "tax it, no wait... tarriff the local product and tax the forign product as it come in" (to fund our own inefficiency through the taxes of third world countries) this is not necessarily a net tax rant more an anti-EU rant...
Bomb them into submission!
no, just kidding.
If this goes into effect, I recommend a boycott of all EU goods sold online. Embargos are nonfun, but really one of very few good ways to get a point across economically.
-subtraho
Oh man, I could go on for days on this topic - suffice it to say that anyone who would buy a car online, without ever test-driving it or even seeing it in person, deserves to own a new 'Beetle'.
I have no doubt I'll get trolled for pushing this link - but it's my website devoted to what's wrong with the new 'Beetle' and the people who love them: the Society for the Preservation of Aircooled Machinery
AIRCOOLED FOREVER
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
C'mon man, buy some real anime. Like, get as much of Neon Genesis: Evangelion as it comes out on DVD, or better yet, Vampire Hunter D.
But...Tenchi...at least get something equally silly like Slayers.
--
If there is a God, you are an authorized representative. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
If there is a God, you are an authorized representative. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
What's with charging VAT on electronically delivered software, anyway? As I understand it, VAT taxes the "value added" at each step of a manufacturing/distribution process; exactly how many production steps does a piece of software go through? I would imagine just one, writing, especially if it isn't put into a box.
-----------------------------------------------
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
"...a value-added tax on goods and services, sold over the Internet by non-EU businesses, to customers inside the EU in order to level the playing field for EU-based companies that already have to charge a value-added tax.It is not, in the usual meaning of the word, a "web tax." Now you know."
So it is:
1) Money
2) Given to the gov't
3) By the citizens (either directly or indirectly)
4) For purchases on the web
5) Called a tax
But it's not a web tax. That's pretty damn amazing all right.
As for your "level playing field" phrasing--so what? ALL taxes are for the good of SOMEBODY.
--
Wanna hook MAPI clients to your Tru64/AIX/Linux server?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I can't wait for the day that e-commerce gets taxed here in the US. Can you imagine the amount of audits that will occur because of all the online stores run by teenagers with no real business experience? It'll be like a sea of headaches across the Internet. Sharkey
www.badassmofo.com
This sounds similar to the mail order tax tried here in the U.S where states may require out of state businesses to collect sales tax, but where there is little means of enforcement.
And as this crosses national lines, not just state/province lines, how can the EU hope to enforce this. Will they block sites which offer items for sale? Restrict deliveries?
It seems like an idea that's bad on paper and could only get worse in its implementation.
Of course I use Microsoft. Setting up a stable unix network is no challenge
the other reason not to get one of thier special edition bugs, is that they won't make them with a TDI engine in them.
Think, what are sales taxes for?
They're to help maintain the infrastructure. You buy a shirt in a mall, your taxes help pay for the roads to get to the mall, the police that protect as you go to and from the mall, the health inspectors to shut down the grody unclean restaurants.
How then does this not apply when you buy something over the web? It still has to get to you, if you get cheated you want a higher authority to turn to, you don't want Ebola carrying people coughing into your shirt package.
I think it's about time!
They want to tax services sold over the Web from outside EU. For products (ie DVD and books) there's allready a tax paid at the customs.
I'll go one further - it looks like it's not restricted to online purchases either, ie: it's not an internet related tax. They also talk about pay-per-use radio and TV.
There's already tax on physical goods bought outside of the EU (when they are brought in). This looks like an attempt to tax non-physical things.
I think they'll have a hard time implementing it though. My understanding is that a sale is governed by the laws of the country in which the sale takes place. Contractors use this to their advantage all the time: sign contract (and get paid/taxed) in one country, do actual work in another. I don't see how the EU can legally add a tax on a sale made in a non-EU country. It's up to the importer (buyer) to declare their goods.
-- Steve
Yeah, but often times my paper manages to mis-align they're colored inks, so colors are all messed up. (The magenta is off to the right of the black, the cyan is slightly high and left, the yellow is subtly lower...) Plus newsprint isn't exactly the best place for color pictures.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
ha ha ha ... you got to be writing this from the Netherlands, right? ;-)
So, you'd prefer that an even greater proportion of that purchase was spent on keeping that drug addict in prison, to absolutely no-one's benefit, in the interests of the "War on Drugs"? Scary how these people think isn't it?
And Boy!
I can only wonder why the quality of life in the Netherlands was so darn good when I last visited! It just boggles the mind! Surely, their whole society must be ready to crumble to the ground any day now!
Much more heartwarming was that marvelous outpost of Right Wing politics, Great Britain!
When I was there a few years ago, most of the populace was living hand to mouth, were severely undereducated, and were dying in the winter because the state had permitted coin-operated heaters in the home! (Did you see that picture of the heater which the power company had installed on the ceiling? The old lady had to stack chairs just to feed it coins! What a laugh! The funny poor person!)
Ah! We can only hope that such Social Darwinist trends will permeate all cultures, and those crazy socialist schemes will be banished forever!
I mean, how the heck are guys like us supposed to survive in this world? I mean, I don't know about you, but all I can afford to impulse buy is one lousy canoe a month! It's a crying shame, I tell you!
Fantastic Lad -The most amazing script kiddie of them all!
-If people would just stop having sex, we wouldn't need all this nerve gas!--
As it is now, if a shopper in the EU bought something over the web from a company based down the street from them, they'd pay VAT on the purchase. But if they made the same purchase from a company based in North Dakota, it'd be VAT-free. In effect, citizens are being encouraged to spend outside their own country. That's a pretty skewed playing field.
The governments can fix it either by getting rid of the VAT for everyone or trying to apply it to everyone. Why be surprised which choice a government would make? :-)
About gasoline taxing.. Laugh at this: Finland has over 75% of taxes in the price of gasoline. You pay over a buck for little more than quarter of a gallon (a liter that is). Totaling more than 4 bucks / gallon. And more than three of those go the government!!! That's almost twice the price of gas in U.S. that the Finns have to pay to the government alone! Taxes are of course included in the price you see at the pump(Taxes on gasoline are not marked in the receipt unlike regular sales tax - price is just insanely high).
I like the cut of your gib. Come on down and join your peers!
the Society for the Preservation of Aircooled Machinery
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
And, FWIW, Delaware is getting along just fine, thank you.
As is Oregon. The only economic problems lately have been the closing of timber and pulp mills....
Only partly true. Oregon is doing OK now, largely because of corporate income tax from companies like Intel, but 10 years ago, when measure 5 first passed (measure 5 was Oregon's property tax ceiling) Oregon was in a world of hurt. And they still have one of the most confiscatory income taxes in the country.
Personally, I prefer sales tax to state income tax for several reasons. First, it's a tax on consumption, so everyone -- tourists or residents, rich or poor, pay it in the same fashion. Secondly, it incentivizes not spending your money (investing, savings, etc.) -- whereas if you go to invest money that's had income tax taken out, there goes a chunk of your principal off the top. And third, collecting sales taxes is a lot less expensive from an operational perspective -- compare the outlays vs. dollars returned of the revenue departments of the four states (New Hampshire doesn't count, it has neither) that have no sales tax but do have income tax with those of the nine states which have sales tax but no income tax.
My opinion only, IANAL.
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
Hey, at least he likes Tenchi ^_^
Hey Rob! If you liked Tenchi in Tokyo, get Tenchi Forever (AKA Tenchi Muyo in Love 2)! It's a serious spin on the series.
--
At least two states, North Carolina and Michigan, already have what amounts to a web tax, by adding "user tax" forms to their state tax forms last year.
I find this thread rather interesting. Taxation has been around for millennia, and people have always been complaining about it. Up until now, it has been relatively easy to implement because people have remained in the same locations and the consumed goods have been usually physical in nature. Evolution towards service and information driven global economy makes it difficult for the state to control individual miniature work sessions, purchases and flows of payments. Therefore unless you have tremendous power to influence the market, you eventually have to give up to uncontrollable, wide scale but individually small import/export. The consequence is that you lose your taxation base, the money left to corporations and individual consumers. This is actually transfer of wealth from those who don't know how to use the mechanism of avoiding taxes. As long as that group of people hasn't had too large proportion of the combined consuming power of the state, you can accept this as unwanted but inevitable churn. With internet connectivity, it is easier for consumers to start making deals with companies on the other side of the world (or the border). Legitimate improvement in delivery of physical goods allows cost efficient transport of the purchases and hides the untaxed shipments in a huge volume of taxed ones. So it is clear that it is time to fight back to conserve the income sources. The traditional separation of European economy from others is also nicely visible here: apart from European companies, much of the profits will flow to Asia or Americas where there is less taxation (because there is less tendency to even out income differences). It's money lost to competitors. I would say that we Europeans are more concerned on environmentally sound, sustainable development and the taxation of products follows that reasoning. So I would definitely go for pure sales tax (actually EU is attempting to unify the various VATs in EU countries to ca. 25%), as loong as wide scale tax evasion by smugglers is prevented. Income tax is a remnant from past centuries (there was no way to control the volumes and values of sold goods, and no production industries) that is only in use because the efficient taxation mechanism exists and it is widely accepted (even if not preferred :). Property tax is really a continuation of income tax progression and should only apply to those that quite clearly have more money than they can spend on normal life. As long as the money is spent on acceptable life improvement (housing, hobbies, tourism, nice gizmos, personal stuff etc.) it stays in circulation and is eventually paid to other individuals as salaries. You must reward successful entrepreneurs and let them enjoy hard earned moneyt. But if the money is only used as luxury or as capital for investments to further increase the amount of money that will not be used for any other purpose than to increase the wealth of the individual, I think it is just to tax property. On the other hand, there is often a smooth degeneration in the family lineage so heirs of wealth will easily spend even big fortunes on luxury life and bad investments, so things will even out in the long run. Heh, I wonder if I will be the one generating wealth or merely consuming it during my lifetime ;)
Haven't read. Phrase used...?
Separatist flags bore it
No tax without voice!
Good...then maybe we can finally, to borrow a phrase from Microsoft, "cut off their air supply" and get them to finally constrain themselves to their sole proper functions.
Alaska is a special case; it gets a huge share of it's revenues by taxing oil taken out of Pruhoe bay. Its sort of like Kuwait that way...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
However, things that don't have any physical representation (like software that's downloaded across the net) shouldn't have any VAT or GST.
Why? Because they're not using the infrastructure that VAT or GST pay for. The only infrastructure they're using is the telecom wire, which I ALREADY pay for with my monthly telecom bill. I don't want to be charged twice, and I certainly don't want to be charged for infrastructure and "value-add" that my purchase didn't use.
And that's my problem with this piece of legislation -- it's aimed at intangibles that oughtn't be taxed in the same way as a piece of metal.
I have no
It's no wonder why the only state in the Union (Delaware) is in such poor shape - there's no sales tax on any items in the state.
I think you were trying to say that Delaware was the only state in the Union that does not have sales tax and that it is in poor shape.
If that's the case, may I present to you the state of New Hampshire. NH has no sales tax. NH has no income tax. NH does have property tax (not sure what percent - I rent) and meals tax (8%) to make up for it.
I guess not all governments get most of their money through sales taxes.
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
Um, the internet didn't just happen, you know. A *lot* of government money went into setting it up, and the universities that got the whole thing rolling were funded by the government. All those happy students were using machinery that cost hundreds of thousands. So don't get all "Oh, the internet shouldn't be owned by anyone". The web was developed at a European research centre, and CERN haven't seen a penny from it. So how is it so wrong for governments to now try to reap some of the seeds they sowed?
Put the blame on meme
Is this Europe's own urban legend, like the FCC proposed "modem tax" that has been floating around on the net, and BBSes before that for YEARS?
The EU could also seize your European assets. If you don't have any, you are at least still relying on EU law to protect your copyrights, patents, and contractual enforcement.
"If I don't use the roads, I don't necessarily want to pay for them" How about distribution? The food on your plate every breakfast how was that being delivered to your local retailer? And so on and so on.
Ja toch? Niet dan? Nou dan!
Unless you're buying a registered item (i.e., a car), you pay VAT in the country where you buy.
:)
I've just got a camera from Germany and I payed the 16% German rate, rather than the 19.6% French rate.
When Switzerland will be finally forced to join the rest of Europe, all mail-order companies will move there!
I had a similar thing happen to me: I bought some used Laserdiscs, and the guy sending them to me over-estimtated the worth on the Customs form by 2x! Result: I was charged GST + $5 'handling' by the Post Office. The guy sending it to you fucked up.
OTOH, I have bought a bunch of used and new Lasers from a little company in Texas and their order guy always puts $10 or $15 for the value on my Lasers when he sends them up here, so I never pay anything on them. That includes the brand new Phantom Menace laser, which retails for around US$100. Thanks, Randy!
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Uh oh... why do I smell a really obnoxious troll coming out of this in a few days?
--
It seems to me that with the net the FOB point is at one of the NAPs. If this is the case then the old rules should apply and the importer should deal with the tax. There is lots of international law on this stuff already.
Where the EU is having a problem is not that the law does not allow them to charge vat, it does, it's that they can't detect the imports and regulate them. The real thrust of this proposal is to move the responsibility for collecting existing taxes onto corporations because they are a lot less hassle to persue than consumers.
John (who in another life started a company selling software over the net and so thinks he knows about this stuff :-)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes
And what value does a EU country add for the VAT? That is something nobody has ever been able to answer me.
Value added indeed. Orwell's Big brother would be proud.
Lowmag.net
I don't think so. Mail order companies only charge you tax if you are in the same state as them. How is this EU situation different?
Come to think of it the US president isn't directly elected either ... :-)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes
They also wrote a few million dollers in bad checks to stockpile weapons I believe, thats why the FBI/ATF went in.
OK, so it doesn't go over roads. Since when does that imply it doesn't use the infrastructure? Somebody ran and maintains those cables, somebody maintains those routers.
Just because the US has so far managed to remain tax-free on e-commerce doesn't imply that the world will. Or that the US will continue to be so. Since ecommerce in the US does not pay sales taxes it is equivalent to a subsidy. As long as it doesn't threaten the conventional commerce methods it will remain so, but in Europe where VAT is often 25% it knocks a big hole in the tax gathering budget. Eventually, ecommerce will be taxed worldwide. It behooves the ecommunity to propose a reasonable and fair method of imposing this taxation. Although "no taxation without representation" is grounds for revolution, the obverse is not a meta-stable state and will not last. Either ecommerce needs to align with one political party (and I don't mean libertarians) or expect taxes to appear in the future.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
If the governments of the world deign to charge us all a tax on goods purchased over the internet, then the least they could do in recompense is regulate shipping charges down to compensate for tax increase. Less gouging on shipping, more money for the government and prices that aren't any higher than they are now (if they manage the shift properly).
Sound like a decent idea?
daemones
-"I'm not evil. Evil is too subjective."
Alas, Babylon.
U.S. Single, Male, Georgia, target.
Income tax: 28%
State tax (varies): 6%
Social Sec. Tax 12%
Medicare 1.5%
Total: 47.5% of income over $6750. Just, damn.
State sales tax is 4 or 5%, with local options adding 1 or 2 percent.
I personally think that the US taxes too much already. There are politicians calling tax cuts "wasting government money." Now that Europe has done it, the US will see the green light on putting taxes on the net. This is the last thing that we actually NEED, since the government has plenty of money already. Perhaps they should take care of the deficit a bit or something.
Eh...
If they want a truely level playing field, why can't they eliminate VAT on electronic purchases within the EU? It would make more sense with VAT rates still differing to an extent inside the EU (I think books are still VAT free in the UK, when they're not in most of the rest of the EU for example). The EU, for once, could give the over taxed and over regulated citizens of Europe (and European commerce in general) a break.
If anything, this is just going to give yet more ammunition to those in the UK who want out of the EU. And with unenforcible tax raising non-sense like this, who can blame them for wanting out.
At least there is one moderately funny side note, I love it when the one country that oversteps it's borders with regulations and laws with alarming regularity (the US of A, if you were wondering) gets a small taste of it's own medicine.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Since they will be able to pick the country they are collecting taxes for, will that mean that said country will be collecting more taxes than the other members of the EU?
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
The point is not so much weither or not the Government should or should not tax the internet. The problem is that our Representatives have little or no idea what the Internet entails. This latest is just a further symptom of that. It's time for us to get out there and demand adequate representation in government. If we don't we are going to continue to have all kinds of laws and taxes passed. We need to get some geeks into office.
-------------------------------------------------
Repeat as needed until it sticks.
I, as resident of state X, do not have a voice in the governmental affairs of state Y. Nor am I using any of state Y's gov't provided services (roads, etc.). Therefore, state Y has no right to tax me.
If ***I*** go physically to state Y and buy something, I pay sales tax because I am using their roads, adding to their gridlock, consuming local resources, etc.
If I ***mail order something***, their local shippers use the roads and add to the local gridlock (not me). The web store uses local resources (not me) ,etc. Get it? I'm not in your state or consuming its resources. Now the web store or the shipper might try to pass that cost on to me as higher prices and shipping fees (which may make me choose to shop remotely in another state), but their **gov't** has no right to tax me. I'm not there. The local businesses shoose to operate there and pay the local taxes. It was **their** choice.
New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska, Delaware (N.O.M.A.D.)
:(). Supposedly you make it up if you own a home though. They also tax businesses more, so prices may be slightly higher.
And, FWIW, Delaware is getting along just fine, thank you. They are snagging huge amounts of sales away from the states around them, because people will drive over the border to pick up those big-ticket items w/o sales tax. They also sell lots of liquor to PA residents who are sick of the lousy state liquor store sytem back home (socialism, anyone?)
As someone above mentioned, the income tax in Delaware is VERY high (about twice the Pennsylvania rate, from personal experience
Added benefit of Delware: they make it damn hard to become a lawyer there. Keeps the population down!
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I'm so fucking tired of seeing people spout all kinds of shit about "European socialist countries".
The system of social democracy has nothing to do with communism which you were taught to fear and hate just because there was some issues after WWII.
Social democracy strives from the idea that all citizens regardless of their wealth should be able to have a good life. And that's it.
If I fracture a bone in my home country (in Europe) I just go to the hospital and get the leg fixed. The hospital bills the social security system (ie. the government). And I don't have to be rich to be able to educate my kids.
So before yelling crap about socialism this and socialism that at least get your facts straight about what kind of a system it is and what it is called.
Thank you so very much.
And tax-happy European gov'ts wonder why their unemployment is so high...!
I think they need some basic classes in economics.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Since the VAT there is "only" 15% guess what country everyone will register in.
So if they really do it like this it'll benefit nearly no-one. They should at least make it so that the country where the customer lives gets the money.
Not that that'd help either, the entire system would be horribly complex, cost fortunes and be completely unenforceable.
"When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood."
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
The proposal would require the companies to register at any EU country and pay tax at that country rate
You have to pay the VAT rate of the country you live in. For example, if you live in France and buy somehting online, you'll have to pay the 20-something % VAT the French Government steals from everything. As a customer, you have better time living where the VAT rate is the lowest.
Now, since I live in Switzerland, I have to pay the VAT (7.5%) when receiving the goods wether they're from the US or the EU, straight to the postie. It's the same thing here than in the EU, I suppose.
If a US company wants to sell goods in the EU, they don't necessarily have to pay any VAT themselves, but the customer in the EU does.
Of course, I could be wrong all the way...
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Who knows? All I know is that Texas doesn't have an income tax.
This works out very well for me. I eat just as much as a poor person, so I pay just about as much sales tax as a poor person.
I live modestly, so I can save a lot of money without paying taxes on it to Texas.
So, as a percentage of my income, I pay very very little to Texas compared to a poor person. But how good is this for society?
In Delaware it sounds like it is more difficult to build a little empire on some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working class.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
GST is not _about_ 7%', it's _exactly_ 7%.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Go ahead if you don't want any government arranged stuff. You get robbed? don't go to the police. don't use roads and pavements. pay your own medical bill. And your really shit out of luck should you ever get your legs lobbed off by a playful grizzly.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The trouble being that in France for example most of their sites you even have to pay to access simple information. This is true of lots of European sites. Basically, they are quite behind on e-commerce in the first place and are trying to compete with the US. So they use money from tax, like you say, and spend it on any old thing!
This is a web tax. The tax is often higher due to the VAT computation for ecommerce than for brick and mortar.
Not only will this put many small companies (with razor-thin profit margins) out of business, it is also taxation without representation. Why should I, a US citizen, have to play tax collector for a government which I have no voice in and whose territory I don't even live in.
Taxes often do more harm (in productivity, lost income, higher prices, weakened economy, or business decisions) than good (increased revenue for a government agency). Look right now. Our great economy has changed our budget deficit in America into a surplus.
Anyway, I hope that US ecommerce companies boycott the EU should this happen.
--
it is also taxation without representation.
What do you mean ? Under this law, European citizens are taxed by their own governments.
Why should I, a US citizen, have to play tax collector for a government which I have no voice in and whose territory I don't even live in.
You, as a US citizen don't have to do anything of the sort. US ecommerce companies have to play tax-collector just like (for example) US car companies that sell cars in Europe. I reckon though that it would be more difficult for ecommerce startups than for established names with offices in Europe
Anyway, I hope that US ecommerce companies boycott the EU should this happen.
Boy, that would really hurt Europe, European businesses and European consumers. I mean, imagine the US ecommerce companies deciding not to sell to the European market. Wow, what a disaster :-).
You have to see this as another strike in the undeclared trade war between the US and Europe. The European rationale is : we are lagging behind the US in ecommerce companies and American companies are getting a large piece of the pie in the European market. So what do we do: impose a tax in ecommerce transactions (which actually is the same VAT tax for normal transactions and for Europe 2 Europe ecommerce transactions that is in effect now). This will level the field with american e-tailers (actually it will be more difficult for smaller ones as the big guys like amazon.com allready have European subsidiaries) and maybe give European companies a small advantage over Americans, since in the US it is unlikely that the administration/congress will pass taxation in ecommerce anytime soon
However still it's not that bad for American companies. They can choose to be taxed, say in Ireland or Luxembourg where the VAT rate is significantly lower than in Germany. European countries don't have that option (I repeat that European ecommerce companies are already subect to this law for Europe2Europe transactions).
I guess my last post was pretty far OT, but this is a fun discussion.
"Why, the government can just garnish the wages of the top 1% of wage-earners and use it to buy everybody sports cars! That is your socialist paradise, isn't it?"
Kinda, except part of the idea is to get people away from the capitalist idea of identity through consumerism. You are defined by your actions, not your posessions.
" Everybody's equal?"
Right.
" Hard work means nothing? "
Wrong.
The idea is that 40 hours of work as a VP is not more vaulable than 40 hours of work flipping burgers. News flash, AC: people are POOR, and our capitalist system does everything it can to keep them that way. If we can help them and all it means is that Bill G. gets to buy one less porsche for his fleet, it think it's insane to do anything else. The wealthy generally aren't wealthy for being better people, and the poor generally aren't poor for being worse.
"If those in the working class were as "competent" as you claim, it's a wonder that they're still in the working class. Our society gives people the tools that they need to advance themselves, if they are talented enough."
Like a great, low- or no-cost eduacation, right? Like low- or no-cost health care so they can overcome physical disabilities or diseases without having to lower their standard of living? Bull shit. You're living in a rich suburban fantsy world. The simple fact is that racism, sexism, homophobia and burning arrogance blind the "upper class." They see what they want to see; people are happy, things are great, America is the land of opportunity, and we're rich becuase we're smart.
That's a fat load, and you know it. The rich are so because of the work other people do, not because they have some kind of fucking divine right to wealth. The assertion that "anyone can make it" has been an illusion from the very start. Wealth begets wealth; when was the last time you heard about a young black kid from a poor family making millions on a NASDAQ IPO? Never. They're always from families that were relatively well off to begin with.
"There is NO EXCUSE for not having enough retirement money to live on. If you didn't save, it's your fault."
Problem is, people used to have pensions to retire on. What do we have? IRAs, 401K's, which require you to set aside money from your paycheck. People who live hand-to-mouth can't afford that, so they have to live on SS. Not to mention the people with disabilities, and people who are widowed who can't support themselves or their families.
[ snip a lot of hysterical liberal gun-grabber crap ]
Sorry, I just have an aversion to being shot.
"Jesus said that those who speak the truth will be attacked. Your comment here is just more evidence that our Lord was correct. "
Jesus also said that it is eaiser for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. Enjoy your Boxster.
-- All hamsters are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Socrates was a hamster.
I don't understand the EU and I never will. They see our economy booming from the Regan tax cuts and a tax free internet, yet they do just the opposite. Their economy still isn't as hot as ours, so they have even more to loose. They also raised interest rates today. Now, that will strengthen their currency, making our goods cheaper, and TAX FREE! (sorry for pointing out the obvious) This won't throw them into a recession, but it will cut into revenue. To bad for them.
yup, electronic stuff should cost less. but I see no reason to tax it less. the company producing it should sell it for less, because of lower production costs. Taxes are used for more than just infrastructure. education, medical care, social security etc. Essentially there is no difference between say.. CD-ripping software and a tapedeck, so they should fall in the same tax-group.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Is it have everyone in the country pay the same amount of taxes, based on the amount of goods they buy, or is it better to take 30% of the middle class person's income, 1% of the rich person's income and -40% of the poor person's income? That's right, the poor people get "taxes" back from the government in the US.
I heard once that the IRS cost the country $6 billion to collect $5 in taxes one year. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that a sales/use tax is MUCH cheaper to administer that a direct income tax. Everyone has to prove how much they made and the IRS has to confirm it, calculate how much tax the person has to pay based on THOUSANDS of factors, most of them completely irrelevant as to how much the person costs the country. In addition, 1 out of 6 people do not report taxes becaus they are 'illegal aliens' or are criminals. With a sales tax, those people are taxed when they buy things.
Because local municaplities already collect taxes for things sold in that state/county/city, vendors would not have any extra work, they would simply break up the amount and send a check to the federal gov. in addition. Because it requires no work on the part of the consumer, it would eliminate a whole lot of money the government spends enforcing the tax laws on the consumer side.
Check out the web sites devoted to the general sales tax. You will see what I'm talking about.
Of course, paying $5-6 for gas is quite high (and an exaguration on your part), but when you pay 33% of your income, how much is $2 for gas really?
Gotta run.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
Trust me. I live here.
Taxes come from the people buddy. When the government funds something, it's being paid for with MY MONEY. Who am I paying back by being taxed? You think that CERN is going to get the $$$?
Eh...
never thought I'd be saying that.
-o Disclaimer: My employer doesn't even agree with me about C indentation style. o-
All businesses with a turnover of more than £51,000 in a 12-month period (last time I looked - it may have gone up) are required to register. Others do it voluntarily; it makes a small-turnover business look bigger and more professional. Only VAT-registered businesses may reclaim VAT on purchases ('input tax') and add it to sales ('output tax').
Just to make it more complicated, there is more than one rate in the UK (17.5% for most things, 8% for domestic fuel, 0% for a whole list of things, like books, groceries, childrens clothes), plus exemtions (funerals, for example). Zero-rate VAT is different from VAT exemption (businesses which make exempt goods/services can't reclaim the input tax on purchases).
Buggy!
No need to build a wall around Europe they are
...
doing a good job at it themselves.
This new way is just a way to make sure that every
transactions on the net in Europe are taxed.
Europeans are used to taxes anyway. Those who
are sick of them usually move the this great
country of ours.
One day or another they will run out of things
to tax but then I may be wrong, read on
A few years ago I read an interesting Science
Fiction book from Richard Bessière describing a
future society where everything was taxed.
A man and his lady were enjoying some sexual
moments when all of a sudden they heard a police
car siren. What happened was that the lady had
an implant which was counting the number of times
she'd come. Apparently she had exceeded her paid
quota for the month.
And how does Haven help here?
1) I though the people downloading were responsible for the VAT (Could a european please correct me here if I'm wrong). So how does the haven help?
2) Supposing #1 is wrong, then for it do anything, Haven would have to ignore the taxation. This would likely result in sanctions. What happens to Haven if it's upstream provider is ordered to sever the connection?
You make the article sound like this is the first time it's happened anywhere. Look north of you. *Hi!" us Canadians have been duped by this stupidity for 7 years now.
When the GST came in, charging an extra 7% on goods and services, it was supposed to go towards the national dept. The only thing it's done is ruin us more and go to the pockets of our idiot politicians.
Anyway, when I buy something online from a US company, I still get charged the friggen GST even though I didn't buy the item in Canada. Equality? HA! Money grabbing beurocrats? YES!
I don't believe I should have to pay GST (the EU VAT equiv) on items that I don't buy in Canada. Canada saw that all the buying would be across the boarders and overseas so they didn't want to loose their precious money. What BS!
-- DuckWing
How come they never level the playing field by removing taxes?
It seems that they're trying to define "point of sale" as the buyer's computer, rather than the server which operates the website. Yet they then turn around and require the selling company to apply the VAT of the one country in which it registers; implying that the "point of sale" is now potentially a third country which contains neither the buyer nor the seller.
Anyone have a link to a more in-depth story that explains the enforcement of this? The EU can easilly identify violators (just try to buy something and see if a VAT is added); but how do they plan to attempt enforceing the VAT on a company if that company has no physical presence in the EU?
As everyone knows the purpose of taxes is to help provide services for everybody. US Fed taxes provide for our military, federal highways, and other useful things. States tax us for state level services, unemployment, state highways, blah blah. Counties and cities tax us for schools, county/city roads, cops, firefighetrs, water and sewer services.
I have no problem paying these taxes for these useful services. Its the useless BS that I hate paying for. Subsidies to farmers to NOT grow things? Foriegn aid to countries that take our money and then spit in out face? Welfare for people who dont want to work? Blah blah the list goes on.
The concept of taxing internet sales to "level" the playing field is crap. Alot of people still use and will continue to use meatspace shopping. I for one like to look at something with my own eyes before I buy it. I only buy things online if I already know exactly what I want, and I can find it cheaper. So what if meatspace stores have to pay more taxes? They have some value that online shopping cant necessarily compete with. Let the consumer choose, and if the store front goes the way of the dinosaur, so be it. Dont try to kill the online shopping idea so its "fair".
Also, the concept of taxing retail stores to help provide for the infrastructure somewhat makes sense. But in a way it doesnot. The 60% Tax I pay for my gas pays for roads. My local taxes already pay for the cops. What infrastructure is the govt providing that they need my money for, that they dont already get from somewhere else?
They didnot build the mall, the retailers/land owners did. They pay local property taxes for cops etc too.
This concept goes even further with the internet.
What infrastructure do I need to pay for again?
The internet is mostly owned by big ISP's, and I pay for that infrastructure by my ISP fees.
This is just another way to get more blood from the people.
Anarchy Burger! Hold the Government!
- Steel
-- A Human Being is nothing more than mobile CO2 factory. Bow to the plants.
Hey Taco, how do you spell "Domino"? How do you spell "Potato"?
(We've secretly replaced Rob Malda with Dan Quayle. Let's see if anyone notices)
On the bright side, thanks to the Slashdot drinking game and Rob's misspelling, I'm one step closer to being completely trashed!
EU consumers already pay VAT and/or import duties on incoming goods from outside the EU (often along with a charge for collecting the taxes which seems particularly nasty.
This stuff is changing *where* the tax is paid - so on tangibles would have the advantage for EU people that they wouldn't be additionally hit for for the tax collecting charge. However it would mean that software delivered over the internet (look, no customs), would also be taxed.
Can it be implemented, can it hell.
You know, the internet wasn't bothering anyone. We were all online and happy. It was easy for people to start a business, share info, whatever. What happens now?
Eh...
I think I'll start a new buisness. I'll sell, um, toy boats online. But the house tax (for I have a physical presence in my house) is 80000% and its a tax I'm forced to apply to all outgoing exports from my house...
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
Sometimes this is correct, sometimes it is not. In this case (keep in mind that there is a trade rivalry between US and EU now):
The booming economy is the US economy not the European so the greater income/other taxes go to the US government pockets
By imposing a sales tax (and actually it is not a new sales tax, it's the same tax as the one allready imposed for traditional sales) they do get revenues. They mostly hurt US companies, which ,naturally, is of little concern to the EU governments.
A 'nice' side effect is that this tax makes it harder for US e-companies (especially for smaller ones) to compete, at least in the European market. If this is in line with WTO regulations then the I can see how European governments could justify taking such a measure
Remember that right now ecommerce transactions between parties in the EU are subject to VAT taxation. So this measure actually puts EU and US companies in the same league
Here's a summary of what the article says for anyone too lasy to look at it:
"The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said the proposals are designed to create a level playing field for the taxation of online purchases for goods such as music, videos and computer games."
-Frijoles-
The socialist members of the European Union have a long history of taxing their citizens into the ground, and so it comes as no surprise (to this reader, anyway) that they would be proposing something like this. No doubt when a wealthy Londoner is purchasing a canoe online, a significant portion of his transaction will be paid directly into the pocket of some drug addict in Amsterdam in the interest of "social promotion." Scary how these people think, isn't it?
This is the style of wealth-redistribution that many want to introduce into the United States. They've already got their foot in their door with socialist entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. After they nationalize the health care system and shut down private, religious schools, you can bet they'll be coming after our guns. They'll be up against a firefight if they knock on my door, by God.
NH has no sales tax. Someone needs to do more research. That's three states now, maybe more!
Taxes are mostly elastic. Under most circumstances if you raise them your revenue will decrease and if you lower them your revenue will increase. I could go into the economic and basic math but I won't. Yes, states would increase sales tax revenue, but stores would not make as much money and income tax revenue would decrease. I'll bet that if the math was done taxing the internet would be the worse thing for government revenue.
If nothing else it will create a political nightmare.
Is it have everyone in the country pay the same amount of taxes, based on the amount of goods they buy, or is it better to take 30% of the middle class person's income, 1% of the rich person's income and -40% of the poor person's income? That's right, the poor people get "taxes" back from the government in the US. I can't comment on specific taxation figures in the US - I know have enough knowledge about that - however, my point was arguing against indirect taxation as a primary means of raising funds for treasury departments. I also can't comment on inefficiencies in US tax collection - just because they screw up on how to collect it doesn't mean the concept is bad. So you really do seem to think it is fairer for the less well off in society to pay proportionally more of their income as taxes? Yes, I don't much care for the idea that I'm actually supporting several families on income support - some of who don't even want to bother working. However, I'd much prefer an economy and taxation system that encouranges and allows such people to improve their financial status. $5-6 for a gallon of gas is exaggeration? - yesterday I filled my car and it was 89.9 pence per litre, approx 4.5 litres per gallon makes that 404.55 pence per gallon, given approx US$1.6 to the UK pound, that makes US$6.47 per gallon. OK we're talking imperial gallons here and not US gallons, but it's a hell of a difference to the US$2/gallon I paid when I was in the US last.
Let's face it. Governments get most of their money through sales taxes. It's no wonder why the only state in the Union (Delaware) is in such poor shape - there's no sales tax on any items in the state.
With the Internet economy increasing at an exponential rate, many people are going to turn away from the conventional means of shopping. Grocery stores will be phazed out by online Grocery stores, as will the common Electronics Store, the common Book and Movie Store, and the common Clothing Store. All of their online counterparts are now available in abundance on the Internet, and most shoppers that peruse their wares are exemt from paying any taxes, through a signifigant loophole - they are not making the purchase in the state the product itself is located. As such, they pay no taxes, and the Government loses money from the sale.
I believe that it would be best for the economy if all e-Commerce sites were taxed. Now, I am not in favor of taxing internet access itself -- that needs to be as cheap as possible to allow the most people access. However a 10% Internet Sales tax would quickly help governments recoup losses to date from previous online sales, then in a few years, lower it down to a more managable 5-6%.
You won't you twat, if you bothered to read the article before spouting off you would realise that this is a tax on goods shipped from outside the EU into the EU ordered over the web. It's just like the import duty that you as a US citizen pay on French wine or Italian salami.
So read before opening your mouth.
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
Yeah, and it's not just the EU. Check out this from the Grok at Industry Standard:
"But it was Andy Grove who made the most unexpected news, though few outlets emphasized it. In testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, the Intel chairman lent his support to taxes on Net-purchased goods and to stronger privacy legislation. The Wall Street Journal led with Grove in its piece about the hearings, and the Washington Post noted his remarks at the end of its piece. "
Taxes are on their way. Buy now while the web is still unregulated.
Put the blame on meme
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
Of course, I think this particular approach is technically ignorant, and politically naive - but that may be intentional. It's just an opening salvo - the battle hasn't even begun.
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
People like you who make statements about social issues without any knowledge of the consequences should have their right to vote taken away. Yeah, yeah, poor people don't have internet access...but they soon will thanks to RCN and others, and you want to take the tax break away right before they get it. The worst part of it is that at least three other uninformed idiots modded your crap up as if you knew what you were talking about because they were just as uninformed as you are.
You want to raise taxes like a socialist idiot -- raise income taxes. At least that way you won't be crippling the people who can least afford to pay.
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
What do you know- the first thing I see after returning from the article submission screen is the exact article I submitted, posted with exactly the spin I feared it would get posted with.
The CNNfn article is misleading- they shouldn't have called it a "web tax," which to most of us means "tax on using the web." What the EU actually proposed was a value-added tax on goods and services, sold over the Internet by non-EU businesses, to customers inside the EU in order to level the playing field for EU-based companies that already have to charge a value-added tax. It is not, in the usual meaning of the word, a "web tax." Now you know.
--
-jacob
-jacob
Direct taxation (such as the IRS in the US) is a very bad thing. Governments need money to run. We need governments to protect us. (Assuming they are doing their job.)
If all of the sales are being made online, the government(s) need to do something to get revenue. Lack of tax is NOT why I buy things online, I look for the selection, ability to price things (and get price quotes from more than one place), and the large inventory (inherent for a company that sells online-they keep all the stock in one "place").
Even going to the local supply house (Graybar, for instance), they don't have half of the stuff I need and they have it shipped from other locations. I generally have it the next day.
My conclusion: Taxes are necessary, and will not harm the online economy.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
I agree with our Capitalist here to a degree. You deserve what you earn through the ever trumpeted, 'Hard Work'. The only problem with his argument is that there are a whole mess of people who work extremely hard in important jobs and who still have trouble making ends meet. Whether or not you can afford a canoe has a great deal to do with where you exist in society.
Prove it. If those in the working class were as "competent" as you claim, it's a wonder that they're still in the working class. Our society gives people the tools that they need to advance themselves, if they are talented enough. Most people are not talented enough, so they stay where they are at, which is where they belong. Your assertation is ludicrous and laughable, and it is supported by no facts whatsoever.
Again, I think our Merry Capitalist is right to question your statement. But again, I still think he's also being amazingly myopic. Our society does give people the tools they need to advance themselves, but the distribution and quality of those 'tools' is extremely uneven. I would be very curious to see how our merry Capitalist would have performed in the Loop of Life if he had been born to a single mom, was malnourished from birth, given a crap-ola education and had to duck bullets and drug pushers his whole life. Even supposing he got to use the same genetic make-up he was born with, I would be willing to bet that he would not be buying a Porsche today.
I think the main problem is that a lot of people maintain the fantasy that they are more than human. They don't believe that they are just as susceptible to hunger and abuse or that they will succumb to the decreased self respect and mental strength which results from living under such bad conditions. They truly believe that, put in a prolonged bad scenario, they would 'find a way out'. Sadly, this simply isn't true. It's just a 14 year old's daydream of power, or it's a capitalist excuse for not wanting to admit they are benefitting from an elevated starting point in society over which they had no control. The truth of the matter is that we're all frail and mortal. Certainly determination and hard work can make a difference, but it seems more and more these days that it's a case of standing on the shoulders of giants. When shoved into the gas chamber, you die like everybody else. Nobody is Rambo.
Anyway, the thing which never fails to amaze me, is that guys like our Merry Capitalist praise their lord Jesus, but seem to forget that the basic tenet of Christianity is compassion.
So. . . Merry Capitalist: You are playing the fool. Grow up. Stop deluding yourself. You are not special or superior. You may have talents and you may work hard, but many people do.
Intellect and wisdom are entirely different animals, and if you had both, you wouldn't be making such comments as above. I'm not saying don't enjoy your new car, but I am saying you should be aware that it is a privalege and that you should kiss the sky for having been lucky enough to have been born into a position where you can work for nice toys. There are 9 year olds in this world with more brain potential than you probably had as a kid, and who work a helluva lot harder than you ever have or ever will, and they are starving because Nike doesn't see fit to pay them a fair share of the $100 running shoes they make.
I personally don't see a real problem in paying sales taxes (as long as they are relatively fair). I do see where the money *should* go.
On the web, it's harder to see the infrastructure. The server (equivalent of the mall) is owned by the Ebiz or is paid for by the Ebiz. The phonelines (equivalent of the roads) is owned by a telecomm company and is paid for by the Ebiz.
Then you may be asking yourself:
1. What is his point?
2. Fair Taxes?
3. What was that I just drank?
5. Did he just skip 4?
6. Where would this tax money supposedly go?
7. Is that how you spell equivalent?
So the answers:
I don't know.
Just Imagine it.
You don't want to know.
Yes.
To the implementation of laws and such.
I'm not a dictionary, Go Away.
Now I know other people are ranting and flaming about the police are already paid and they should enforce laws on the web with the money they already have. But that would just make other taxes go above the "fair" line.
The reason I personally don't think this should be done is the cost of implementation. It will cost more to force people to pay the taxes then you will actually recieve. How do you stop a sale going through from a company in Germany that has a server in Canada (hypothetically)? Do you track the traffic on the Canadian server? I don't think they will like that.
I lost my train of thought, so I hope someone gets my point and then tells everyone else what it is.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
What expenditures does the EU have that require this tax income? You can say "proper taxes" all that you want, but if I am in the EU and buy software from the U.S., what services has the EU provided for me that they must be reimbursed for it with a tax? The U.S. government (read: U.S. taxpayers) has already paid (through supporting regulatory agencies, the courts, and the police) for the production of that good. The only costs to the EU for me to download that good from the US are the communications lines and the electricity, which I'm sure are already taxed in the EU.
So by letting the U.S. do all of the work, and collecting the taxes anyway, the EU is making a pure profit off of its member countries' citizens (or are you EU citizens now?). I don't agree that the government is entitled to a particular income, especially when it hasn't done any work to deserve it.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Direct taxation is a very bad thing? Really? I guess you won't mind paying US$5-6 for a gallon of gas then... Indirect taxation almost always hurts the less well off in society and results in having to pay stupid prices for everyday goods. Check out the price of things in the UK.
Indirect taxes are just the things politicians love, they screw you with them and then expect you to say thank you afterwards.
I don't want to seem like a troll. But Tenchi in Tokyo was a disapointing end to a long running series. It's pure shlock.
.us) wanted was a third OVA series, not yet another parallel universe. That would have rocked immensely (and still would).
You're not a troll. It was utter dreck in comparison with the other two Tenchi series. At least if they had used the same art crew it wouldn't have been so bad. But they were working on something called Photon of which what little I've seen doesn't look like it was worth the trade-off. What the fans (at least in
I had already decided not to buy this series on domestic LD, should Pioneer still have been producing LD at that time. But I didn't feel so bad about getting it on DVD because it didn't cost as much as LD would have.
(Confession: I got one of the import LDs because it came in a box with cool cover art of Ryoko, and last weekend I got two others because they were half price closeouts. And the import LDs have a really bizarre omake show that didn't make it onto the US DVDs. Bizarre as in a naked crucified Tenchi with a distressed looking Ryo-Ohki trying to block the view of his private parts kind of bizarre. Okay, so that was only the most bizarre scene.)
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
...and it's another reason for us in the UK to back-off from the insane bearuocrats who run the EU.
if this goes ahead, where will it stop? a penny on each KByte of info downloaded? i suppose that it was only a matter of time before someone started making noises about taxing the web, but for us to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world in this way would be just insane.
that'swhatithinkanyway...
Read the F.A.Q.
Poet knows of the senryuu
But calls them haiku
Did we forget basic spelling?
Now, go BUY some stuff.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Slightly off topic, but in reference to the Canadian tax...
:) However, from my understanding, Canada has a better welfare system, state provided health coverage, state funded college, and various other services (this is really vague - if you have more detail, please let me know).
Yes, taxes are higher in Canada, but the services provided by the government are more, as well.
Now, I'm not a Canadian, and I may have this wrong - if so, please correct me, I'd rather know the truth than a pleasant fiction.
In the US, we have a fairly pathetic welfare system (in more ways that one, but that's a differant ball of wax altogether), rather limited need-based aid for college tuition (primarily loans), and no state provided health coverage aside from medicare/medicade (very difficult for most people to get, unless you are past retirement age), and a mish-mash of programs provided on the State and local level.
In other words, Canadians pay more, and get more, from their government than US citizens.
Some people consider this a good thing (the people who see welfare as creeping socialism or worse) and some people think this is a bad thing (people who believe that the care of the citizens should go beyond terms such as "socialist").
Personally, I'd like see something that is a little more of a compromise. But regardless, I for one wouldn't mind seeing my taxes increase dramatically, provided that the money was actually going to help people in the US, and potentially myself.
But one way or the other, Canadians pay more tax because they get more services.
All operating systems suck. Some just suck less than others. (and some are virtual black holes)
I'm sorry, but I really don't think taxes are the worst thing in the world, if they're imposed fairly. When a "wealthy Londoner" buys a canoe online, why the hell shouldn't he cough up a few extra pounds so the rest of us have a shot at buying a canoe? WTF makes the wealthy Londoner any more worthy of a canoe than the rest of us?
/. karma to come down on gun nuts, but this just line had me ROFL. One, WTF makes you think the government is gonna come after you? Let me be blunt here: you do NOT stand out in the eyes of the government. You are a gnat, and an armed gnat is still a gnat. If you get into a "firefight" with Big Brother, who do you think is gonna end up full of holes? Who do you think will notice if another armed gnat gets squished?
Argue all you want about how much harder he works, how much smarter he is, Social Darwinism, all that. Hooey, I say. The vast majority of "upper class" individuals (read, capitalists. See Websters if this confuses you) are far less competent than the vast majority of people in the working class. Typically, you don't get rich by being smart- you get rich by being well connected and generally nasty (ref Micro$oft).
I honestly can't speak for Mr. AC, but I'd be much happier if I knew my tax dollars were going to causes like welfare, medicaid, etc. than the military, NSA, CIA, Congress, or large corporations in the form of tax breaks. Corporate "welfare" accounts for something like 5X as much of the US budget than actual welfare going to the working-class poor.
"They've already got their foot in their door with socialist entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare."
Yeah, look at all those people just living it up on SS benefits. $600 a month, damn, that's almost enough to rent a two-bedroom apartment! Talk about the sweet life!
Get with it, AC. People get SS when they can't support themselves. There are people who cheat the system, but I'd rather support the cheaters than let the legitimate beneficiaries die on the streets.
"After they nationalize the health care system and shut down private, religious schools,"
then maybe we can get some decent funding for the education system. I grew up in Chicago in a low-income area; the schools were, in a word, SHIT. So what do I do? My parents can't afford private school, and neither could the parents of the other 1200 students. You want to close down the public schools and let them get replaced by Pepsi Cola Grammar and Microsoft High? Fuck that.
Waivers don't help either- simple supply and demand laws that a capiatalist like you probably has tatooed on his arm will tell you that. In Chicago, there are over 515 public schools. I don't know how many private schools there are, but if you shut them down, supply of schools drops, demand stays the same, therefore price goes up. A waiver for schools (which is a pittance in most proposed bills) won't cover a kids education. Fewer educated people means more desperately poor people, which means more crime.
One more thing:
"They'll be up against a firefight if they knock on my door"
It's bad for one's
What do you think the headline will read? "Patriot gunned down by oppresive governmnet agents," or "Looney with AK-47 gets what he asked for"?
I'm done now. It's just that Ayn Rand dipshits like this really get to me.
-- All hamsters are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Socrates was a hamster.
The article says that the EU will "force companies based outside the region to charge value-added (VAT) tax." How exactly can a foreign jurisdiction force me, in the US, to do anything? Besides, every web site that sells something can't be expected to know and enforce the tax laws of every country in the world. I don't see how anyone outside the EU will take this seriously.
I like to draw 'physical' world parallels to what goes on over the 'net, and in this case, I don't understand what the big hub-bub is. For YEARS, there has been no sales tax on Catalog (a/k/a telephone) sales when they are out of state. Why, all of a sudden, is the Internet to be subject to such a tax?
(and yes, I realizes that by putting a tax on out-of-state purchases, it resolves the inconsistancy. It still doesn't answer why it wasn't important until the Internet came about... Surely catalog sales are still higher than internet sales....!)
I wish governments were more driven by logic... rather than by hype and opportunity..
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
If is far better for the EU (a government body) to do this than those nefarious, "Evil Corporations".
Evil Corporations are selling things on the Internet and not paying taxes. That is not fair.
Whatever it takes to stop Evil Corporations is what matters. We must tax them and all of those people who support them. The government knows what is best to do with our money, not Evil Corporations.
If you actually read the article instead of just the headline, it turns out that this is much less sinister than it sounds. The proposal is actually that goods manufactured outside the EU that are ordered over the web should be charged VAT, which is perfectly reasonable. Otherwise, non-EU manufacturers selling over the web would have a substantial advantage over all EU manufacturers and non-EU people selling through every other channel. This is not some special tax that applies only to web users; it's applying a tax that everyone else already has to pay to web users, who weren't paying it already. IOW it's just leveling the playing field.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Some states have a use tax. In those states, you're supposed to pay taxes on anything you buy out of state and "use" in your state whether you buy it online or not. No sig yet;-(
42
Let's think for a second: how will a site tell whether you're based in the EU or not? Presumably a) by asking you and b) by checking what domain you're coming in from. It used to be possible, in the days when the NY Times charged non-US users a small fortune but was free to US folks, to defeat the differential registration by coming in from CompuServe or AOL, as the site couldn't tell the difference. My guess is that what will happen if they go through with this mad plan is something similar, so they will wind up driving traffic away from European service providers. Bright, real bright. Or someone will set up an anonymizing mirror service. or something. wg
That doesn't work. The second line had at least 8 syllables. In Japanese, a long vowel is two syllables, and an "n" not followed by a vowel usually counts as its own syllable--and senryuu is a quoted Japanese word.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
The strange thing to me is that the only difference is their color, and you can only see the color on the internet or on the TV commercials. How the hell are you supposed to know what it really looks like? I mean, what if you have the tint on your monitor all our of whack?
Hey there! I make it quick - i know u can only
:-)
concentrate as long as ur chewing gum tastes.
The EU Tax 77/388/EWG doesnt affect Outside-EU
Citicens at all.
(FYI:US-Citizens are located outisde)
Only we poor EU-ppl will have to pay now also
taxes for service and wares from companys
wich are located outside the EU.
(iiih-commerce-Shops) Free Sites stay free.
Until now it is tax-free to by from copyleft
sum userfriendly t-shirts - that will change
for EU-Citicens:((
Here the Details in German:
www.heise.de/newsticker/data/chr-07.06.00001/
-------FAQ for some US-ppl--------
Yes - We have cars in germany
Yes - We use also telephones - not drums anymore
No - We are not a third world country
No - hitler is dead - and not a minister in
our parliament.
Hope i cleared most questions 4 now
Sul
outside of EU.
-=the truth is out here=-
Hey there! I make it quick - i know u can only
:-)
concentrate as long as ur chewing gum tastes.
The EU Tax 77/388/EWG doesnt affect Outside-EU
Citicens at all.
(FYI:US-Citizens are located outisde)
Only we poor EU-ppl will have to pay now also
taxes for service and wares from companys
wich are located outside the EU.
(iiih-commerce-Shops) Free Sites stay free.
Until now it is tax-free to by from copyleft
sum userfriendly t-shirts - that will change
for EU-Citicens:((
Here the Details in German:
www.heise.de/newsticker/data/chr-07.06.00001/
-------FAQ for some US-ppl--------
Yes - We have cars in germany
Yes - We use also telephones - not drums anymore
No - We are not a third world country
No - hitler is dead - and not a minister in
our parliament.
Hope i cleared most questions 4 now
Sul
outside of EU.
icq: 7900265 http://teklords.org
-=the truth is out here=-
Yeah, web businesses don't want to have a web tax. But yet, when they are DoS'ed or whatever, who does eBay and Yahoo and Amazon and all those turn to to investigate?
Yeah, they don't want to pay taxes, but they still want the government's services.
Hey, I don't want to pay taxes, but I still want paved roads to drive on and fire fighters and cops, so I deal. It should be no different with these corps.
-JimTheta, jimtheta@beer.com
My stupid web site
Don't like his style? write your own fucking haiku!
Think that was flamebait? You've obviously never met me in person...
$email=~tr/.@/
I think all forms of income/capital gains tax should be removed. Instead, heavily tax all "non-essential" goods: everything except food, clothing, and housing below a certain value. This way, the poor pay _no_ taxes whatsoever because ostensibly they can't afford anything anyway; but, investors don't get hit with tax on the sale of securities until they actually try to buy something expensive (Jaguar XKR convertible, $40 million house, Faberge eggs) with the proceeds. Right now, the capital gains tax system really screws people who want to sell stock and reinvest, but can't because they would lose 20%-39% of their capital.
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
That color is damn nice!
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
The European commission seems to exist primarily for its own furtherment.
To that end it spends its time (and my hard earned money) on making up absurd rules and inventing new ways to extract yet more money from me, usually in the name of "harmonization", as though harmony is an end in itself. Of course what is really created is endless dischord.
And when push finally comes to shove, its an entirely useless organization. What happened with beef exports to France? Nothing. France told the EU to get lost, and that's exactly what they've done.
As for the Euro ... the least said the better.
Correction: Shin Tenchi Muyo (original title of the crappy thing) was not an "end to a long running series". It was a new series all of its own. Storywise, it has nothing at all to do with the other two Tenchi Muyo series (and they don't have anything to do with each other): it just uses the same characters, but with a completely different background.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
About time someone proved me right and passed a Web Tax. And I seem to recall naysayers telling me there would be no web tax for at least a decade.
...
Look, it's going to happen here too. You can either help shape what form it will be, or wake up one morning and find that it's a form you don't like.
But the Net will be taxed. And purchases of goods and services over the Web in the US will be taxed. It will happen. You can either play ostrich and deny it, rant and rave about it, tell us how it will never happen here
Or, you can help shape what final form it will be in.
There are no other options.
Will in Seattle
Chuck
As someone you had a program a online bookshop (for books about microwave engineering, total sales to date 5 books), I can tell you VAT in the europe is a total mess): VAT on books is 17.5% everywhere in europe except Germany 7%, and Netherlands %6. Cds are 17.5 everywhere except the Netherlands where its %16. If we book sells with a CD then you have to assign the CD and book each a norminal value that the VAT office will accept as fair. If you are a company with a VAT number you don't have to pay VAT at point of sale. This took almost as long to sort out as the rest of the system took to program! You'd think this would make me in faviour of European tax and currancy unification. But i'm not so sure. We work hard here in England and I don't particular want to fund the Welfare states of lazier EU countries, like say Greece.
Five Seven Five! Whence came
your inspiration? Perhaps
Cryptonomicon?
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
By yiminy, that's expensive gas. Don't forget though that gas sells at different prices in different regions/countries. Right now gas here is about $1.75/USG, which includes all taxes. If I drive twenty miles in any direction, the price changes dramatically. Other counties/states charge different amounts of tax, and here in Cincinnati we're funding the new baseball stadium. :( /i1040ez.pdf. The Earned Income Credit on page 19 and the tax table on the last 5 pages. The long and short of it is that the middle class pay the large majority of taxes, they can't afford the accountants to manipulate the tax laws. The rich class, of course, have accountants to do this. The poor class get money back from the government without having paid any to the goverment.
The less well off in the US pay a negative amount of taxes--they get money back from the IRS, even if they put nothing in. There is a sweet spot in income. Check out http://ftp.fedworld.gov/pub/irs-pdf
Anyhow, a system of indirect taxation does not preclude people from getting tax refunds, I certainly beleive that veterans, elderly, physically disabled, etc. people should get breaks, and for temporary problems (such as not having a job) perhaps for a while, but not forever. Here in Hamilton County, Ohio, they are finally placing limits on how long a family/person can be on welfare depending on why they are on it. But I won't get started on the corruption in that system.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
European Tax?
Perhaps it will be alright
Shout "Don't tread on me!"
He has a huge head.
Unfortunately, the popularity of derivative works like some of the songs on Play cause people to overlook Moby's true originality and musical wizardry.
Derivative? From what? That music is absurdly simple. It's embarrassing that a) he recorded that, and b) people listen to it.
Thanks. :)
No problem, dude. No problem.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I don't want to seem like a troll. But Tenchi in Tokyo was a disapointing end to a long running series. It's pure shlock.
The EU has already ruled that a purchasing services such as web hosting inside the EU should be subject to sales tax since the service technically takes place within the EU. Surely this produces the possibility of a single service being subject to the sales tax of multiple countries (especially if other countries follow suit). The fact that the Us have already raised objection, in reality means it is likely this will never become law, the suggestion that the EU can force US (and other nations) companies to register as collectors of EU VAT is preposterous at best, idiotic at worst. The proposal would require the companies to register at any EU country and pay tax at that country rate. As the news item states, different countries within the EU have different rates of sales tax, isn't it obvious that if this happened all the companies would register in the state with the lowest level of tax? If I was a gambling man I would be willing to bet $50 that this was proposed by someone representing a low sales tax state, any takers? On a side note, proposals like this further heighten my concern that the WU is attempting to shoot itself in the foot with regard to the E-Commerce revolution. How can we (inside the EU) possibly expect to compete with US businesses online if the regulators fail to understand the intricacies of what makes the internet great? Companies within the EU are already crippled by having to charge sales tax on e-commerce transactions, if the governments really want to address the balance they should lift sales tax on e-commerce entirely (at least as long E-transactions in the US are not subject from any kind of sales tax)
Yet again people see the word 'tax' and immediately jump to to the conclusion that everything for them (especially Americans) will suddenly cost more. In Canada our taxs are 45%, what do you guys have to complain about? Anyway, in conjuction with the first comment the EU is simply enforcing an already existing VAT tax standard. This is similar to the GST (Goods and Services Tax) we have here in Canada running at about 7%. The EU is trying to ensure that the proper taxes are being paid for. With online commerce the EU is simply protecting itself. My only big problem is the actual tax rate itself. The taxes on buying something online should not be greater than the taxes on buying it at a physical location. Perhaps even less due to the lessened value-added effects that are involed in electronic media. That is, we don't pay the value-added amounts as much, because there is less being using in their creation. Like, the value-added'ness' of CDs, or paper/covers on books and all those 'hidden' costs.
..Eschew Obfuscation..