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Europe Plans Special Tax For Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Bruno Le Maire, France's minister for the economy, has revealed that a plan to levy a special tax on Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon will soon be revealed by European authorities. Le Maire told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche "A European directive will be unveiled in the coming weeks, the minister reveals, and it will mark a considerable step forward." The minister told the paper that a tax of between two and six per cent has been considered, with the proposal to be "closer to two than six." The proposed tax will be levied on the four companies' turnover, rather than profits. Taxing turnover is hoped to offer a simple way to tax the companies, as all use legal-but-cynical ways to minimize their taxable income. Le Maire added that a turnover tax is seen as being quick to implement and that the four companies know they're going to have to pay more tax in Europe, so may be amenable to such an arrangement.
Why don't they all (U.S. included) just fix their existing tax laws so that these companies can't use loopholes and accounting tricks to launder their profits through countries like Ireland that give them preferential tax treatment?
Oh, we have an office in Ireland. We sold $100M in Ireland and $10B in the rest of Europe, so we'll just use a bookkeeping sleight of hand to claim all that revenue in Ireland and pay Ireland cents on the Euro. Then we'll "park" all those profits, and the money we didn't pay in the EU in a Cayman Islands bank so that we don't have to bring it into the US and pay US taxes on it. We'll just leave it sitting there indefinitely..
But it's an asset on their books, so they're happy and their share holders seem to be happy/
Actually what is good about keeping $100B sitting in a Cayman Island bank? I'm sure it earns interest and all. But it's just sitting there.
If I was a shareholder I'd be screaming bloody murder for a dividend. A fucking big dividend.
Maybe the companies should have thought about that before trying to game the rules against the interests of the people who make the rules.
Maybe the companies should have thought about that before trying to game the rules against the interests of the people who make the rules.
There's an old saying - "it takes two to tango".
But it's nice to know that enlightened European companies never try to take advantage of loopholes in the various European countries' tax laws.
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