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UK Possibly Exploring "Google Tax"
The UK government is considering proposals that could hit Google and other search engines with an online advertising tax to help boost revenue for the BBC. While these proposals are still in their infancy, some are already attacking the idea of taxing a growth industry in the middle of a recession. "Sources say the proposed taxes have been discussed by officials at the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. They would also have to be approved by the Treasury before they could be introduced. The chair of the culture, media and sport committee, Conservative MP John Whittingdale, dismissed what he called a 'windfall tax' on search engines."
some are already attacking the idea of taxing a growth industry in the middle of a recession.
What, so adding more taxes to dying industries is such a hot idea?
"Hey, we're making lots of profits - don't tax us!"
the bankers.
Uhm, wait, what, who hates tax?
- These characters were randomly selected.
This or doling out huge fines to boost revenue. Maybe every major corporation will pull the plug on their UK operations and let them feel what freemarket can do; I'm normally not the type to get bent out of shape over taxing companies (I even voted for Obama) but the UK is getting on my bad side; especially after the huge funding they've decided to dump into spying on the Internet. If they're really needing more money, they should cut massive spending projects that do nothing but violate privacy.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
If it stops moving, subsidize it.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
The Daily Mail is a right wing (slightly upmarket) tabloid who attack the Labour government on a regular basis. While the idea of such a tax may or may not be true, you can be certain this particular newspaper will try to spin in in a manner that is comensurate with its Conservative politics.
Of course, the current Government has given them plenty of ammunition, so it's quite possible that such an approach being considered. The source, however, can be compared to a news outlet such as Fox News.
Except that if Yahoo, MSN etc. are willing to pay the tax they'll gain lots of market-share.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Couldn't Google et al just block the UK instead of paying the tax?
I wonder what would happen if the entire island was unable to access any search engines.
They could just shut down their UK specific service, leaving their users there with the option of google.com.
This would put the UK government in the position of ordering websites that refuse to pay them taxes to be firewalled out of the country. Which would have the effect of cutting them off the internet completely.
Corporatism != Free Market
It won't go that far. Google will simply pass it on to UK advertisers. Google marches on - end of story.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
Say NO to Tax.
They'll use this as an excuse to do it the first time and then it'll stay on come hell or high water. The only way to get rid of a tax is through revolution.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
I'm sure the Labour government lets leaks like this out on purpose to guage the media and public reaction. If it's ferocious enough they'll say "there were never any official plans for this anyway" and blame the newspapers. Otherwise they try and implement their dumb policies (won't even attempt to name them all, but I'm sure you know some of the few hundred I'm talking about).
The government needs to learn to live within its means. I love that a recession for everyone else means that the government just has to go looking for something else to tax. Well, sorry, that's not the way it works. We aren't making money and that's why you aren't getting any money yourself. So either take a pay cut, fire some of those useless sods that are just taking up space or figure out how to repair the economy. Taking more of our money is not an option.
(Yes, I said, "our" money. What, you don't think Google will just increase advertising rates to compensate for the tax? You can't tax business. There's no such thing. The cost is always just passed down through the goods that are ultimately purchased by the consumer.)
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Because it's not Google's job to prop up the BBC's revenues?
Citation?
oh, please. Push yourself away from Internet message boards for a day and join the real world.
My wife works for a radio station. She had to cover this as a news story, so she reached out to the organizers of the local protests and found their party affiliation to be pretty much split down the donkey/elephant middle -- especially since we live deep inside a "blue state." Her colleagues at other radio outlets owned by the same corp concurred: not left, not right, just angry people.
But, because it's anti-government, the pro-government shills worked overtime to paint it as some kind of partisan conspiracy. Much the same way the government shills tried to portray the anti-war protests as being manipulated by pro-left media outlets.
Y'know, as scary as the right-wing lockstep horse-blindered jack-booters were under Bush -- and they were pretty scary -- the lefty apologists are shaping up to be no less the fascist tools. I guess, as the man said, "power corrupts."
Um, people in the US actually show a higher approval rating for their government than they have in years.
Eight years, specifically. The last time a US president's approval rating were as high as Obama's was 100 days into Bush's first term.
Considering how that presidency ended, I'm not sure I'd use that fact as the basis for any pro-Obama argument.
The issue is that it is possible now to watch all of the BBC's programming on demand for a week after it is broadcast without having a TV. No TV=no TV license. And the BBC is trying to expand its tax into this new medium.
The BBC can easily change that. They just don't upload their shows for free downloads. They can either charge for downloads or stop offering them.
And I say that as an American who loves the BBC. I first got into it, and Pravda-Radio Moscow, in the '80 listening to them on shortwave.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just when "Obama Calls for New Curbs on Offshore Tax Havens [nytimes.com]".
Which won't do a damn thing except cause American companies to become foreign companies (ie: change where they are incorporated).
Corporatism != Free Market
While not another paper covering the same story, this does lend some weight to it.
Despite its former reputation as a newspaper of record, The Times is now- and has been for almost 30 years- a Murdoch-owned rag.
This is a man who, going by all available evidence, does not- and has never- believed in, stood for or supported *anything* that isn't in his own business interest.
Murdoch certainly isn't overly bothered about journalistic integrity, and he has been quite happy to repeatedly use one part of his business empire to promote or defend another; and The Times certainly hasn't been immune to this.
If The Times were to run an article attacking the BBC it would hardly be surprising- they've long been one of Murdoch's most consistent pet hates, mainly due to them standing in the way of his UK broadcasting ambition.
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