Slashdot Mirror
UK Announces 'Google Tax'
mrspoonsi points out that the UK has announced a "Google tax" on corporations that send a significant portion of their profits overseas to avoid local taxation. Any "economic activity" that is pushed to another country would face a 25% tax.
George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer [said], "We will make sure multinationals pay their fair share of tax. We will introduce a 25% tax on profits from multinationals here in the UK which they artificially shift out of the UK. Today we're putting a stop to it. It's unfair to British people." ... [C]orporate taxes are still low, because the system does not tax sales, it taxes profits. And those profits are fiendishly difficult to pin down. Intellectual property payments to holding companies, the movement of sales activity to lower tax jurisdictions and the cost of licensing fees to holding companies all confuse the picture and allow firms with very mobile business models (such as in the technology sector) to be highly tax efficient.
Sadly it has to be done this way. Because countries refuse to stop giving the ridiculous tax benefits.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
You could just tax every transaction made with that currency at a fairly low percentage of the total transaction and do away with all the other taxes. Credit card companies figured this out decades ago.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Because some people have a hard on to hurt Google.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Absolutely correct!
Google doesn't sell anything or make any money in the UK.
Doesn't sell apps through the play store, doesn't sell any Nexus devices, doesn't sell any advertising, not a sausage.... Well, not profitably anyway, it's a strangely expensive business to be in, as there are all these funny fees and license payments they have to pay, all to other google subsidiaries in Ireland/Luxembourg/Netherlands/etc.
All seems above board to me!!
I know it sounds crazy at first blush, but I think it would make sense to totally get rid of corporate taxes. (Replaced by other forms of taxation.)
The basic idea is that a corporation is nothing but a bunch of people owning it, so instead of taxing the corporation you tax the individual owners (owners, shareholders, etc.) instead. Since corporations wouldn't be paying taxes, you could then get rid of all of the tax breaks/writeoffs for corporations, which would significantly simplify corporate accounting and reduce the incentive for large corporations to shift money around to avoid tax.
Some references:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
http://www.theatlantic.com/bus...
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/59...
The basic idea is that a corporation is nothing but a bunch of people owning it, so instead of taxing the corporation you shift the tax to the individual owners (owners, shareholders, etc.) instead. Since corporations wouldn't be paying taxes, you could then get rid of all of the tax breaks/writeoffs for corporations, which would significantly simplify corporate accounting and reduce the incentive for large corporations to shift money around to avoid tax.
How much is "fair" depends on the culture the company and government are operating in.
You could have a libertarian society with minimal government involvement and minimal taxation, but where every individual has to pay for everything they do. (Roads, fire protection, ambulance, medical, police, education, utilities, garbage collection, etc.)
On the other hand, you could have a more socialist society with high taxation and high government involvement, but where most of the services are paid for by the government.
Both are viable solutions, with different tradeoffs.
Show me anyone outside the 1% and even 99% of the 1%'ers that would choose to make less money because they where being taxed too heavily on it. That is a complete fallacy.
Tax income, and they have reason to make less. Why go get the new job that pays a tad more when 25% of your raise goes to the feds?
This has to be one of the dumbest arguments of all time and I can't imagine anyone who actually has money ever actually operates this way or they're headed for ruin rather quickly.
Of course you take the job; 75% of the extra income goes into your pocket. A business that decides not to sell more widgets at a 75% profit margin because they'd have to spend 25% to sell the widgets (taxes, overhead, etc) is a business headed for bankruptcy.
The only programs in the USA that lead to less overall income when you get a raise are ones for poor people like Medicaid where making one extra dollar can cut off your benefits.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Yeah, that kind of attitude goes down really well.
Hence why Microsoft kowtowed to the EU requests and paid millions of dollars in fines, etc.
Pulling out of one of the top two world markets (depends what you look at exactly, but Europe and the US are either 1st or 2nd in almost any product/industry), especially over a sales tax, is corporate insanity and will see stockholder lawsuits within seconds.
And, to be honest, there are countries that survive just fine without Google. Google is only really the top search engine in English-speaking countries. And Google Maps? What about it? I can name ten different companies producing maps accurate enough for almost any purpose. You think ONLY Google get the mapping and aerial photography data of a country? Maybe StreetView (because they're the only ones really doing it seriously), but maps? No.