
Austria is the next country working to impose a tech tax on companies like Apple - sahin-boydas
https://9to5mac.com/2018/12/30/austria-tech-tax-apple/
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ujjain
I am worried that this tax is partially based on jealousy and envy. I'm not so
sure we should create a very complex tax system to specifically target
companies and industries we feel deserve to pay more. Eventually this will end
up a very complex tax system where nobody feels they are treated fairly.

If tax avoidance is legal, is it really tax avoidance? We've had leftist and
rightist governments for 30 years saying they want to close tax loop holes,
but they seem to be unable to create a system that works and successfully
makes large corporations pay tax on profits.

I agree that it's messed up that Facebook and Apple make all their profits on
tax havens, but I'm concerned that we are a bit too narcissistic by believing
we can create a complex tax system that will solve this.

Humans have a dark side and seem completely unaware that their believes are
driven by self-interest, envy and hate rather than making systems that work.

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blfr
Taxes were always paid by those who could bear them. Nobility and landowners
in the past, AmaGooBookSoft today.

It could well be motivated by envy. But it can't be any other way because you
can only effectively tax people who have the money.

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ewgoforth
Actually the peasants were taxed to pay the nobility, not the other way
around.

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blfr
Peasants were obligated to provide some services to the nobility, and
sometimes taxed in nature, but real taxes were either from monopolies or the
landowners.

It's like saying that really consumers are being taxed here because they are
the ultimate source of revenue for Apple. True but you can shift the
distribution of this burden between consumers and Apple's owners.

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dandare
To put this into perspective: The tax revenue in France for 2016 was 1,013,134
million Euro (€1 trillion) [1].

The additional €500 million constitutes less than 0.05% increase.

[1] [http://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-
france.pdf](http://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-france.pdf)

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xienze
> According to dw.com, the European Commission estimates that tech firms pay
> an estimated 9% on profits, as compared to 23% for traditional companies.

Why not figure out why that is and close whatever loopholes currently exist
instead of introducing a targeted tax meant to close that gap?

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wukerplank
Because the loopholes exist EU wide, but EU legislators failed to collaborate
to close them. That's why individual nations try to find ways to level the
field.

(As an Austrian I'm fairly certain that this has nothing to do with fairness:
Everybody hates FB and Google at the moment, so the populists scream for
taxation. At the same time Austrian companies who are active internationally
get tax breaks.)

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joejerryronnie
>Everybody hates FB and Google at the moment

Serious question for OP - do you think this is because people feel these
companies are truly doing something wrong or a perception that these companies
(and their employees in California/Silicon Valley) are making so much money
that it's not fair?

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wukerplank
My perspective: Tax for the middle class is insanely high. Seeing companies
like FB, Google, Amazon, Apple, etc. pull off insane stunts to "minimize" tax
payments (because of their responsibility to the shareholder). They make (and
hoard) insane amounts of money without giving back.

You might say, "if you don't like them boycott them". For Amazon and Apple
it's easy. Google and FB are inescapable if you need to advertise.

~~~
joejerryronnie
Thanks for your perspective! Is there any local push back on the high middle
class tax rates?

~~~
zeroc8
Another Austrian here. The problem is not the rate per se, but the fact that
those tax evasion practices of international conglomerates put local small and
medium businesses at an unfair and unjustified disadvantage.

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zackmorris
If we project out even a few decades, it's looking like corporate automation
is going to put a permanent ceiling on wages for anyone working outside of
corporations. Products and services will get cheaper and cheaper (approaching
free) but nobody will have any money to buy them with. If we argue for
everyone joining corporations then we get fascism. If the majority want to
live outside corporations then we end up with Luddism and vast
underemployment. Other than global climate change and loss of biodiversity,
this will likely be the great problem of our time.

If we look at the endgame around 2040 or 2050 (assuming there's no strong AGI
singularity yet but that we have widespread weak AI) then a lot of people are
going to be out of work or doing menial work that wastes all human potential.
We're seeing that today as large swaths of the economy get eaten by non-
productive work like finance, management, bureaucracy, etc. Also roughly 5
billion people in the world work in farming, mining, timber, manufacturing,
etc but are underpaid by roughly 100:1 because they have little education or
leverage to demand more for their families.

So honestly, the next economy after unregulated capitalism is probably going
to look like highly-automated corporations that are taxed at a high rate
(perhaps 90% eventually) where the tax revenue is redistributed as universal
basic income (UBI). One reason why this is probably inevitable is that robots
don't pay into social security or other safety nets. If we don't want people
starving in the streets then that revenue has to come from somewhere, and the
most proven revenue stream we have is corporate profits. So Austria appears to
be one of the trend setters.

I don't see many other viable alternatives at this point, so am open to
suggestions!

