France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet Giants

Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by ttoinou on Sunday March 03, 2019 @01:47PM (#19296038)

> Or stop taxing "profits"

By "profits" I meant to stop business being able to claim expenses and reduce the tax. We could replace complex taxation scheme only-on-positive-profit with a simple 1% (for example) tax on all transfers, on the total amount, no matter what is the purpose of the money transfer

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by icebraining on Sunday March 03, 2019 @02:05PM (#19296162)

That incentivizes the creation of vertically-integrated conglomerates over small companies, in order to reduce the number of transactions; is that what you want to foster?

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by ttoinou on Sunday March 03, 2019 @03:20PM (#19296581)

You need to take into account all the simplification it would imply in tax collection / paperwork / regulations etc. The cost of our current ways of taxing wealth and profits is huge

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by JimmyAustin on Sunday March 03, 2019 @10:49PM (#19298627)

In the US, the IRS collected $3.33 trillion in revenue in 2018, with a total budget of 11.5 billion (2017). Thats 0.3453%, or 35c per $100 of tax revenue. Fairly minor in the scheme of things.

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by ttoinou on Monday March 04, 2019 @01:38AM (#19299258)

Monetary costs are a small subset of general costs (and the cheapest ones, easier to know and aggregate).

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by jpadkins on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @12:00PM (#19320471)

that's only one side of the ledger (collection). Now calculate the costs to the taxpayers (people and corps).

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by tonyedgecombe on Sunday March 03, 2019 @01:52PM (#19296066)

The trouble with that is it will penalise low margin businesses, Apple could easily afford it on their 30% margin but a budget PC maker with a 3% margin would struggle.

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by ttoinou on Sunday March 03, 2019 @03:24PM (#19296605)

Small businesses are already penalized by our current laws and ways of taxing profits. I believe the alternative I am proposing (that will never come to reality) is easier for everyone

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by magduf on Monday March 04, 2019 @11:48AM (#19302627)

Sure, it's easier, but it also means you'll just have a bunch of giant vertically-integrated monopolies. Easier, sure, but I don't see how that's better.

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Re:France Plans 5% Digital Tax as Governments Chase Internet... by ttoinou on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @03:57PM (#19314175)

It's better because it's cheaper for everyone to do business. More competition, everything gets cheaper.

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