Slashdot Mirror
Korea Plans To Tax Google, Apple and Amazon (koreatimes.co.kr)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Korea Times: The government will move quickly to impose taxes on Google, Apple, Amazon and other global IT companies. This follows policymakers and lawmakers paying greater attention to growing criticism that the firms earn billions of dollars in sales here annually but pay no taxes. Naver, Kakao and other domestic companies have been complaining for years about "an uneven playing field," arguing their foreign rivals should pay corporate income tax on the revenue they generate in Korea. Under the law, the government is unable to tax global companies as it is not mandatory for them to disclose their sales and operating profit here. The Corporate Tax Act stipulates that global companies must pay taxes when they have fixed places of business in Korea. This law has provided global companies with an excuse to avoid taxes while they expand their businesses rapidly here as their bases are established in other countries such as the United States, China and Ireland. Ahn Jeong-sang, a policy advisor to the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, said: "Under the current law, preliminary or ancillary places of business are not regarded as global companies' offices in Korea, and this has played a role in their tax avoidance. Considering the characteristics of the digital economy, the concept of fixed places of business needs to be expanded so that the government can secure authority to impose taxes on them."
apple will soon open up in NK!
So if Koreans want their government to protect their own technology companies from competition, they'll elect the representatives that will continue that policy.
But if they preferred the domestic companies, wouldn't they just be using their products instead of those of these tax-avoiding foreigners?
finally Samsung exerts political power over their smartphone rival Apple
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
They use our roads, schools, military and police without paying a dime, it's about time they pay their dues sames as me. And SK just had a major bribery scandal so it'll be hard to just grease palms over there.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Trump will be escorted directly from the White House, to Joint Base Andrews and from there to Sherman Army Airfield near Leavenworth, KS. From there he will be transferred under heavy FBI armed guard to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary where he will be housed permanently in isolation for collusion with a foreign government and violation of the emoluments clause. Depending on what Mueller turns up, it could even be Treason and Pence may be along for the ride.
"I call Ivanka, dibs." -Donald J Traitor
And I was like WTF... that's a new tactic.
The country that literally BANNED the iPhone from being sold for years until Samsung had a competing device at the ready.
No more loopholes to avoid paying. If the revenue was from money gained from sales in the US, then they need to pay US tax accordingly.
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
why not seize them in Korea?
Always. Hell hath no fury like government denied it's cut.
Corporatism != Free Market
Nobody say Trump. His taxes are only secret because he has nothing to hide. Trust us, comrades, it's so well placed, it's like nothing this world has ever seen. You can take that on the bank next year sometime maybe, via subpoena.
What's the norm here amongst other nations? I thought Europe taxed global companies on sales via VAT. Does SK not have a sales tax?
The US taxes foreign corporations on income they derive "regularly" from operations in the US. So that also would appear to be normal. I'm honestly shocked SK didn't do this previously.
Cue Apple et al opening new factories in Singapore, Romania and some African nations.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Governments are not a good thing. Governments are evil. You can try and argue "but they do good stuff", but there is unlikely anything that a government can do via taxes that private parties can't voluntarily do without the use of violence and theft. We should not be prisoners nor slaves of government. Governments have done more to undermine the poor's ability to enrich themselves by passing burdensome regulations and taxes that keep less educated people from making a living on there own terms or performing a task they are otherwise capable of if not for burdensome costly regulations that require thrust a need to have a high level of educational attainment and significant amounts of cash/profit to pay other highly educated parties to perform specialized functions. Like accountants, lawyers, and so on. I should not have to pay a lawyer and and accountant to cut hair! I mean seriously. Nor should I have to get a license to do so. Most of the arguments over "safety" are irrational and flawed. There are plenty of places where no such licenses are required and the risk to the population is minimal to non-existent.
Korea Plans To Tax Google, Apple and Amazon
No, sorry. That is incorrect.
Korea plans on taxing Koreans *via* Google, Apple, and Amazon.
They will simply up their prices to Koreans by the amount of the tax plus enough to cover their administrative costs. Relatively few Koreans who buy or use those corporations' products and/or services now will stop buying if the prices go up, unless prices double or triple. They'll simply have less to spend domestically. Koreans who buy iPhones now will still buy iPhones even if the price goes up as it's a status thing. Apple may even increase sales as an iPhone becomes even more seen as a "luxury/top-end" item in Korea.
It will hurt Korean consumers far more than those three mega-corps. It would barely be even the impact of an accounting rounding error on the scales in which their ledgers operate.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
If you think about it, they're the same thing. You pay $100, the company gets to keep $80, the government gets $20.
Once you realize that, you realize the entire problem of multi-national corporations dodging taxes is self-inflicted. They can dodge taxes because they have no physical body and thus can exist simultaneously in multiple tax jurisdictions. This allows them to shift "their" money from one jurisdiction to another in a manner which benefits them by allowing them to avoid corporate taxes. So the loophole only exists because we insist on taxing companies.
People, unlike companies, have a physical body and can thus only exist in one tax jurisdiction at a time, meaning they can't dodge taxes this way. So closing the loophole is easy - just set the corporate tax rate to zero and implement it as sales taxes. Once you get over the "I don't want to pay for it, the company should pay for it" misconception (the company pays for it by charging you a higher price, so you're still paying for it), this is a simple problem to solve.
Yep.
Now if all the corporations could pay their shares of taxes globally, it would help.
Apple,
Siemens,
Ford,
Samsung,
etcetcetc...
They pay nearly zero taxes in many many countries by using a lot of tax loopholes and by artificially booking the profits in the countries where they aren't taxed, which is totally wrong.
aaaaaaa
Starting a civil war is probably not the best way to resolve tax issues.
aaaaaaa