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Re:EU lost up to €5.4B in tax revenues from Google, Facebook... by anonymousDan on Thursday September 14, 2017 @03:58AM (#15245818)
What I want to understand is what happens in the opposite direction, i.e. what does the tax situation look like for e.g Volkswagen cars sold in the US? Do they pay a minimal amount of tax in the US with most of the profits repatriated to Germany? If so it's just a whiney tax grab by the French and Germans who are used to getting their own way in the EU.
Re:EU lost up to €5.4B in tax revenues from Google, Facebook... by Oletros on Thursday September 14, 2017 @07:58AM (#15247022)
> If so it's just a whiney tax grab by the French and Germans who are used to getting their own way in the EU.

What? EU countries are not saying that repatriating profits is bad, what they say is that companies use strategies to avoid to pay taxes.

If USA government think Volkswagen pay so little taxes for revenue done in USA they are the ones that have the saying

Re:EU lost up to €5.4B in tax revenues from Google, Facebook... by themihai on Thursday September 14, 2017 @04:17AM (#15245906)
Well I don't see any issue repatriating taxed profits. After all they go to a different market to make a profit, right? The issue is when they don't pay their fair share of tax by using various tax evasion schemes more or less "legal".
Re:EU lost up to €5.4B in tax revenues from Google, Facebook... by anonymousDan on Thursday September 14, 2017 @09:15AM (#15247620)
The reason why they don't pay their fare share of tax is down to US repatriation laws, nothing to do with Ireland: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-biggest-tax-sc...

The reason they pay so little tax in the EU is that in line with international law they pay it in the country where most of the innovation that drives those profits occurs, i.e. the US. Or at least they would if the US wasn't basically using its weak repatriation laws as a way of giving its companies a competitive edge against the EU. The moves by France et al can be viewed as a way to address this, but I imagine it would require major changes to international accounting rules and I would be surprised if there wasn't retaliation from the US. I guess my point is you can't really blame Ireland for not doing this unilaterally. Furthermore why should Ireland increase its corporation tax rate when it is explicitly outside the competence of the EU?

Re:EU lost up to €5.4B in tax revenues from Google, Facebook... by themihai on Thursday September 14, 2017 @02:53PM (#15251267)
>> they pay it in the country where most of the innovation that drives those profits occurs, i.e. the US.

I believe that's quite unfair and wrong and pretty much BS. You ignore the fact that by allowing a "monster" company like Apple to sell in your country you undermine any potential local manufacturer. See the internet industry in China. Would there be Baidu, Alibaba, Weibo etc leaders in the industry without protectionist policies?I highly doubt it! You would see Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter. You ignore the fact the the profit made in EU helps Apple to innovate in the US. Without investment/money there is little innovation.

Paying taxes in US for products sold in EU is like Ikea planting trees in Germany to make up for the ones chopped off in Canada. The point is to give back where you make profit, at the point of sale otherwise you end-up with wastelands. You can do that by paying taxes(so that the local gov. can invest on your behalf) or by investing in the local community(i.e. jobs/R&D).