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France Will Tax Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon In New Year (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: France won't wait on the rest of the European Union to start taxing big tech. French finance minister Bruno Le Maire says the country will move ahead with a new tax on Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon starting Jan. 1, 2019. The tax is expected to raise $570 million in 2019. France and Germany had originally pushed for an EU-wide 3% tax on big tech firms' online revenues, in part to prevent companies like Apple from sheltering their profits in countries with the lowest tax rates. The deal, which required the support of all 28 EU states, appeared to crumble earlier this month, with opposition from countries including Ireland, home to the European headquarters of Google and Apple.
France and Germany attempted to salvage the deal by scaling it back to a 3% tax on ad sales from tech giants. That would effectively limit the tax to Google and Facebook, excluding companies like Airbnb and Spotify that might have been harder hit under the initial proposal. In the meantime, France is moving ahead with its own tax on Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, which are collectively known in the region as GAFA. "The tax will be introduced whatever happens on 1 January and it will be for the whole of 2019 for an amount that we estimate at [$570 million]," Le Maire said at a press conference in Paris, the Guardian reported today (Dec. 17).
France and Germany attempted to salvage the deal by scaling it back to a 3% tax on ad sales from tech giants. That would effectively limit the tax to Google and Facebook, excluding companies like Airbnb and Spotify that might have been harder hit under the initial proposal. In the meantime, France is moving ahead with its own tax on Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, which are collectively known in the region as GAFA. "The tax will be introduced whatever happens on 1 January and it will be for the whole of 2019 for an amount that we estimate at [$570 million]," Le Maire said at a press conference in Paris, the Guardian reported today (Dec. 17).
France seem to be literally broke, first carbon tax, that didn't work because people started yellow vest moment, well lets tax google and wholesale has money. Some serious desperation, Macrone and his grandma are marching to the guillotine
... by raising the prices of their goods and services along with selling user data to even larger volumes of unscrupulous third parties to make up the difference. Good thinking!
That's what you do when you're poor with finances and desperate: Steal from those who are better at managing their resources, and then pretend to be righteous about it.
Namely, most politicians being literally their employees
Now it's time the make them pay for the amenities they leech on too.
Because that is what for-profit, by definition, means: Being a leech who steals wealth without working for it.
It's the part of the income, that is not earned.
In my native language, GAFA” translates as THE BLUNDER”.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
See where that will get you.
It's not like the EU won't just put their foot down even more. If necessary until Jeff & co either fucks off back to planet Bezos, or their flesh anf brains squeezes out between our toes.
I hope Google goes bankrupt.
good intention but doing the wrong thing
This will slow innovation (which I assume Google will use its wealth to create something sequential to human), and prolong human suffering. If we decide socialism is the right system, we need capitalism to be destroyed. You can't fight a system to reinforce itself, unless you push it to critical mass, and let it self destruct. When marginal profit is zero, capitalism collapse. We are not there yet, but we are ever closer. The dirty cheap silverware that I use for my dinner, no kings or queens can afford 100 years ago. The clothes that I am wearing, no kings or queens can afford 50 years ago. The smart phone that I am using today, no one can afford it 25 years ago, not even the f*ing POTUS.
Every innovation push us towards the utopia. If you don't mind living like 100 years ago, your life could be totally free. 50 years from now, your current living standard is free for all. Not because of socialist, not because of politicians who demands (like a kids who throw temper tantrum), but because of innovation, clever engineering, and visionary.
You fools! This won't be used to reduce the borrowing even a little bit. It will just be spent and the same amount of borrowing will occur!
Quit blaming companies when the problem is your voracious spending and voting habits!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
in the US we are lowering revenues and giving money back to millionaires...
US tax revenues hit record highs in 2018.
You are literally making up Fake News to fit your narrative and don't seem to care that you have to lie to make your point. Let me guess, you vote DNC blindly and don't care how much it destroys the middle class.
Force tax-cheating companies to cut their "but it is leeeegal"-bullshit and compete on equal terms as local companies.
Longterm, make EU close the loopholes that only profits big companies.
Any company that don't pay tax will of course be more successful than a company that has to pay tax.
This is like the Amazon thing about moving to Long Island City - it's not fair for everyone. GAFA in Europe have created jobs but have taken business away from other companies who just CANNOT compete. Taxes are way higher on smaller businesses. Google have got bigger tax breaks by headquartering in Ireland but really making revenue elsewhere. They also have operations and tax breaks from operating out of Luxembourg. All in all it's a direct tax on those companies to offset their (perfectly legal, but incredibly unfair) tax deals with various EU states which allow them to trade almost tax free IN OTHER EUROPEAN STATES.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
So this is not a tax, its is extortion.
So making these products more expensive, it will open the door slightly enough to get their foot in.
So Trump proposes tariffs to do the same thing and it is the most irresponsible idiotic thing any leader has ever proposed.
A socialist does it because his groups of friends has so destroyed the French economy they are desperate to get more money, and NOW its a smart idea?
That what you can love about progressives. They don't care if the idea is good or not, it only matters who proposes it.
https://www.bfmtv.com/economie/combien-d-impots-paient-aujourd-hui-les-gafa-google-amazon-facebook-apple-uber-netflix-twitter-au-fisc-francais-1586463.html
G**gle declared for France earning of 325M€ and payed 14M€ tax that is 4.3% ratio over declared earnings.
But the total market of online advertisement in France is 2G€ and G**gle is credited of 90% marketshare there. So real earnings should be around 1.8G€ only for France.
See the article for the complete figures ... all the big ones have the same oddities in their accounts and do no contribute much to the country's finances. The government is more keen on talking about GAFA but the problem is there for all the big corps in CAC40 as well.
France only have taxes on benefits an not earnings and that's the trick here. If you find a way to have low benefits, you will get no/little tax. How ? Well, you only have to go sufficient expences to pay to your mother corp (brand rights, "bundled services", etc) to make cost higher and get less benefit and thus taxes.
One other trick is to create a "global" product or offer that is delivered acually locally by a local entity. When the real cost of the service at the local entity is X, you will bill the customer say n*X but only pay back the entity that delivered (and got the cost) X plus a tiny amount. This amount will be just enought so that the local entity does not earn too much. Hence they do not get benefit and their applied taxes. The delta is kept at the holding level usually in a "well known finacial friendly" location.
Meanwhile, small businesses that contribute the more job in a country have a tax of around 33.3% of benefits !
That one of the reason of the Gillets Jaunes protests.
Praise glorious accountability! Finally.
CAPTCHA: quality
So far I saw the term GAFA only on /.
I doubt it is a common term in any part of Europe.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The EU could just tax the US directly. You could call it reparations for offending the European lack of success.
Progressives don't care. You are a dirty deplorable that according to the voting demographics didn't vote for them, so why would they lift a finger to help you.
These are the same people that wanted a law put into place that if you didn't support Obama, you shouldn't get health care.
Same ones that if you don't support a carbon tax, they think you should be taken out and shot.
Progressives are out for their own power over you. They don't care if what they do destroys your life, you are just a deplorable to them.
Gotta pay for all the free stuff given to all the illegal aliens coming from Africa somehow.
I'm pretty sure this is going to fall apart. France is trapped in the EU and this kind of decision will cause many issues if it's doing this on its own. It's never going to work IMO. Just sounds like a bullshit announcement. It's part of the announcements to calm down the protesters which amongst many things, protest against tax injustice. As the french government refused to reactivate the "rich tax" (ISF), this is done to compensate, knowing that they most likely won't be able to enforce it anyway. EU rules promote tax optimization. The rest is just comedy.
Story
You got called out as a liar and told the truth. Then you progressives come back and repeat your debunked lie because you are literally too stupid to learn.
Do you not realize people can look this stuff up? People who lie like this and hope others are too "polite" to call out their lies are calls sociopaths, which appears to be a synonym for progressive these days.
More likely, the republicans learned that the economy and working class was getting screwed by NAFTA, and that the bankers pulling strings in the DNC don't care, so the republicans decided to care about the working class and now we have trump instead of her highness, empress Hilary.
1: micro taxes on advertising!
2: ?????
3: profit!
Top line revenue tax prevents companies from paper shuffling to avoid paying taxes.
A good thing. Simplifies the business model for the companies simplifies the tax handling of the countries.
Now to do the same for individuals, top line tax with no deductions, no exemptions, no credits.
Add in a tax on dividends when they are paid and a tax on interest when it's paid and only capital gains is left.
Use the equal tax rate on top line revenue, dividends, interest will prevent shifting income from one type to another. Reduce the size of the problem, make it simpler, no need to fix everything at one time.
Net end effect, higher GDP as companies, businesses, govt can drastically reduce the overhead for tax preparation, tax related jobs, ......
Businesses will hire based on their top line revenue and not if they can deduct 25% of a future employee's insurance cost.
How can the French Tax Office gauge and check all those companies' profits?
No way! Unless the big companies will friendly declare all their revenues.
Ah ah ah ah!
They will end up with a totally gratuitous lump sum, aka tarif forfaitaire.
You make me laugh out loud, Mr. President!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Please, Mr. Slash Dot, notice the fine UTF-8 related bug I am showing up here!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Irland and nederland are stealing french money through EU loophole so the french proEU governement is desperate at looking like he can do something about it.
Of course it can't.
As someone whose ancestors migrated to the US from France I get the impression the US knows how to provide things people around the world will pay money for and other countries -like France- know how to tax.
Who is accomplishing something here? Not France.
If you pay for an ad that generates more revenue for your business and the company that you paid money to doesn't pay a tax is that a bad thing? Let's say that you tax the company that sold you the ad and the ad price increases by the same amount. Doesn't the person who paid for the ad need to increase their prices to compensate...meaning that the customer gets charged more...meaning that the person who paid for the ad be under more stress to make more money.
France is assuming that they have the capacity to tax and not have the tax passed on to the customers of said platform, but they don't have that power. Sure they can fine that company and all manner of other tactics, but the company could just as easily shut down operations for a period of time...just as a test. Governments want to siphon cash from anyone to distribute it around...the problem is that government isn't usually the best mechanism to accomplish the re-distribution.
Let's say that France imposes a 90% tax on the service so for every 1 dollar of net income that is made as a result of French revenue 90 cents goes back to France...seems to me that if you only get to keep 10% of the net income then what's to prevent you from shutting down operations in that country and see what affect it has.
For every french fry sold at McDonald's.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The US brands offer new tech every year.
French bureaucrats create new taxes on tech.
Invest in the USA and enjoy new tech.
Invest in the France and help create a new tax.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I wonder if my town can level a tax on just the grocery store and hardware store? Or can they tax the auto parts store on the East side of Main Street, but not the one on the west side? The sandwich shop, not the burger place? Can you create a tax on select individuals? Mark, but not Bill?
I suspect the answer is yes in all cases, but that you just don't write it that explicitly in the legislation.