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A comment on Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants. Parent comment

Re:Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants by pjc50 on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:35AM (#18391894)
The margins of businesses like Amazon are largely a matter of fiction, since the subsidiaries can make arbitary charges among themselves: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon-fu...
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Re:Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants by friedman23 on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:40AM (#18391943)
A better solution would be to implement stricter accounting standards across the EU so that such tax dodges wouldn't be possible. This would solve the actual problem.
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Re:Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants by richardwhiuk on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:50AM (#18392038)
So they setup a business outside of the EU's jurisdiction and move the profit their? So all of the business in the EU is done at net no revenue (sales - costs - 'licensing fees' == 0).

What accounting standard means that business is making a profit in the EU?

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Re:Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants by dbdjfjrjvebd on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:55AM (#18392083)
You could apply a tarrif on the licensing fees? This might upset the WTO.
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Re:Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants by pjc50 on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @12:37PM (#18393096)
Loophole free tax law is like bug free code: much harder than it sounds. Especially since the EU countries are actually independent and can have their own tax law.
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Re:Three European Countries Block Tax on Tech Giants by unpopular42 on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @01:13PM (#18393436)
Actually, it's not that hard. It only becomes hard when you try to use taxes to induce the set of behaviours you want. And then, completely suddenly Goodhart's law kicks in.
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