Slashdot Mirror
France Proposes a Tax On Personal Information Collection
Dupple writes in with a story about a French proposal to tax companies that collect personal data online. "France, seeking fresh ways to raise funds and frustrated that American technology companies that dominate its digital economy are largely beyond the reach of French fiscal authorities, has proposed a new levy: an Internet tax on the collection of personal data. The idea surfaced Friday in a report commissioned by President François Hollande, which described various measures his government was taking to address what the French see as tax avoidance by Internet companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook. These companies gather vast reams of information about their users, harnessing it to tailor their services to individuals' interests or to direct customized advertising to them. So extensive is the collection of personal details, and so promising the business opportunities linked to it, that the report described data as the "raw material" of the digital economy."
While I don't believe this is in any way viable to enforce, I think it would be hilarious to sit back and watch the aftermath.
Their biggest problem, of course, will be how to enforce the collection of this tax. If a user signs up for Facebook (etc), does that mean Facebook has to tell the French government about it so they can be billed correctly for the tax? Doesn't that mean someone can really screw Facebook up by signing up a bunch of bogus accounts registered in France, meaning Facebook has to foot the bigger tax bill? What about French citizens signing up from other countries but marking down their country of origin as France (these people wouldn't be French taxpayers any more, yet Facebook would presumably have to pay the tax on the collection of that users' data). It's not an easy one to resolve...
He's Jesus, for Christ's sake.
Google Rep: What exactly does France want?
France: We want: more... money!
French aide: Yeah! More money!
Facebook rep: More money from where?
France: Just more money! You know! France doesn't get enough money! Other countries have lots of money; we want, we want some of that money! Hu- how about- the Internet? The Internet makes lots of money! So give us some of that money!
French aide: Yeah! Give us Internet money!
When the companies decide to not collect data on French citizens, the French government will bitch them out for drying up a revenue stream.
Wont this legitimize any and all collections of personal information as long as the tax gets paid?
"But they collected data on what time of the day I poop.. dont I have any privacy?"
"There is nothing we can do sir. They paid the tax. Quite frankly, we wish more corporations would collect this data so that we could get more taxes"
"His name was James Damore."
Instead of being "frustrated that American technology companies that dominate its digital economy are largely beyond the reach of French fiscal authorities" try kickstarter-type projects encouraging your own folks to create France-based sites that can compete and dominate your own digital economy. If they're good enough then citizens of other countries might come to _your_ sites and you can charge whatever the heck you want.
Bark less. Wag more.
Forget agreeing or even having an opinion. How exactly will they enforce this?
I this is supposed to be a collection of royalties due to tax loopholes why not fix the loopholes?
Why doesn't Hollande spearhead a movement to fix the loopholes instead of pursue specific companies for being clever?
If the previous system to tax corporations did not really work and their clever folk found ways to avoid paying taxes why is this new system such a better idea??
/facepalm
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
No.
Tax is levied on alcohol and tobacco, yet there are still licences and regulations behind selling either one.
I used to work in the US office of a French company. Our subsidiary was not well known in North America, but it was well known in Europe and some other places. I have a real love/hate relationship with the French. On one hand, there's a lot to like about the country and its culture. On the other hand, the bad stuff that makes you, as a foreigner, hate them is really bad. They are very difficult people to make meaningful friendships with. My experience is that they are really good actors and excel at pretending that you and your friendship is important to them, but in reality, not so much. Almost every American I know who moved over there to work in one of our 2 main offices in France got discouraged with the whole thing and eventually moved back pretty jaded about the experience. The French will look out for their countrymen above all others. They may not say it, but yes, they do think that everybody in the world who is not French is inferior to them. This is one of the reasons that they look to target foreign companies like this. In their heart of hearts, they just don't respect foreign companies.
I'm not claiming to be an expert in French politics, but they've had a lot of bad choices for leadership in recent years. Le Pen scared everybody by making it to the final round of the elections and basically everybody had to vote for Sarkozy. Sarkozy seems to be fairly smart, but he's got a huge ego and he kept making the news for things that had nothing to do with politics. Sarkozy pissed off just enough voters that coupled with Francois Hollande's campaign of "Let's tax the rich so everybody can retire early!", Hollande won. Hollande seems to be a bit out of touch with modern realities and he seems to think that he can simply tax the rich and they'll willingly pay and he can restore the old welfare state that made it impossible to fire French citizens and let people retire at age 60. A good number of French citizens are probably out of touch with reality too since they voted for him. So given that Hollande has an unrealistic goal that requires raising vast amounts of money and the French don't really respect foreigners anyway, going after foreign companies seems obvious. If I remember correctly, some years ago when Ebay got in trouble in France for not blocking listings of Nazi memorabilia, the original French government argument was that Ebay couldn't allow such items to be sold anywhere in the world before they backed down to only asking them to block such in France. So it's no surprise to me at all that France thinks they can tell Google, etc. to pay up and they'll do it.
Services, which are basically delivered electronically, can't be taxed.? Of course services can be taxed. Take a look at your phone bill, water bill, cable bill or any other "service" you get. Oh, and what about that "sales tax" for downloading an MP3 from Amazon (in some jurisdictions).
Technically, these companies don't make money "collecting personal information", that is actually an expense they occur. They only make money if they sell something, and that is already taxed. However, the gist of the bulk of the nickleaton post is corrrect - this is about broke government casting about for money to throw at ill-conceived spending they have obligated themselves to.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Not true, in the USA, you are taxed (among other things) on your "income", whether the source of that income is legal or not. If you fail to pay can go to jail if the IRS nails you for tax evasion, even if the criminal acts are not themselves prosecuted.
This is how a lot of organized crime is prosecuted - for the underlying money and tax crimes, not the drugs or activity that generated the money.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
So you impose the tax on collection not where the data is stored. If you collect data about a french citizen/computer and your company does business in anyway in france you have to pay. Pretty simple method that is in use for lots of things.
France is doing everything possible to drive businesses and people with any bit of money out of the country.
Their tax rates have been skyrocketing - and they wonder why they have been averaging 9%+ unemployment
No they don't. Poverty isn't caused by a lack of money. Money is only representative of value. The richest 100 probably don't consume enough rice to feed the worlds starving (I certainly hope not, anyway). And even if they did, there is little reason to believe taking it from them would mean being able to give it to the poor.
If you were to take all the money from the richest 100, and give it to the poor, or spend it on the poor, or whatever, all you would get is rampant inflation.