EnglishEdward
Deity
Yup,
UK put forward its proposal July 2019
Introduction of the new Digital Services Tax - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
whereupon EU
Brexit Thread VIII: Taking a penalty kick-ing
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Yup,
UK put forward its proposal July 2019
Introduction of the new Digital Services Tax - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
whereupon EU
https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-l...ax-discriminates-against-us-digital-companies
Notably, this isn't a problem specifically with DST (seemingly), it seems to be more the US being disinclined to be taxed for offshore business:
But it is a good primer on how complex these things are, and why "the UK did something first" isn't necessarily something that merits praise, or even any note of any kind.
The mentioned July 2021 seems early to me.
The EU is in a big bargaining dance with the US on several topics having to do with international trade flows with strategic geopolitical consequences. These big tech taxes just part of the total equation. Nord Stream 2 a bigger one. Strategic restrictions on trade with China also a bigger one.
https://taxfoundation.org/digital-tax-europe-2020/
I'm not sure what the point is?
Several EU members (including the UK) introduced similar taxes.
Many before the UK.
The US suspended its actions against France, but continued those against the UK.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-france-idUSKBN29C2KQ
I'm not sure what the point is?
Several EU members (including the UK) introduced similar taxes.
Many before the UK.
The US suspended its actions against France, but continued those against the UK.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-france-idUSKBN29C2KQ
Whereby I see for example the French moves so far as an opening bid of France towards the EU and as an opening bid of France for the EU-US bargaining. The US suspending tits for tats to France while the EU-US bargaining is still ongoing.
There is no such need for the US to wait regarding the UK. You could see that US move to the UK as well as an US opening bid to all other global players
EnglishEdward
Deity
I am not claiming that the UK is first or ahead of France etc.
Despite the provision of digital services by tax avoiding big tech companies having been
established for years (even decades) AND the EU being larger and therefore having more
negotiating power than the UK, as one is being told, the EU has not already achieved it.
It seems that member states such as France felt that they had to initiate action themselves.
The thing is that this type of dance can be dragged out for years (compare 25 year EU-Mercosur negotiations);
with the big tech digital companies playing the inherently dishonest game of arguing that it should be agreed
internationally rather than imposed bilaterally purely as a means of forestalling member state activity AND also of
deliberately complicating the international negotiations to forestall what they claim to want, international order.
Something about elephants are best eaten in mouthfuls.
Yes, that was a good reason for France and some others to start with a mouthful to get some push on a more wider covering international agreement.
Big Corporate is very suited to act like pirates, as privateers with their letter of marque from their governments to engage countries at war with.
Trade is ofc no war, but it can be highly loaded with important country interests and happening in asymetrical trading power positions.
Nothing new, but AFAIK at least in them days privateers acted upon their own risks.
Having more negotiating power doesn't invalidate the complexity in negotiating for the size of a bloc the EU is. If it was that same power leveraged for a single member-state, that'd be different.
And honestly, I don't see the difference between "the EU hasn't achieved it yet" and "the UK is first". You're comparing the two, and putting the UK ahead of the EU in this comparison. All I'm hoping is that with my link it shows that these things aren't quick, and just because someone has a proposal, doesn't mean it necessarily works out. This applies to the EU as well, of course.
EnglishEdward
Deity
Correct.
And the EU may well discover that complexity may invalidate negotiating power when dealing with those less incompetent than the UK government.
In another recent context, the disadvantages of complexity was demonstrated in vaccine procurement.
The thing is that a three party power game: China, EU and USA is totally unpredictable.
And I believe that the UK would do well to keep out of that.
Sadly I fear that the current UK government lacks the wisdom to leave well alone.
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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Well I suspect for the average american, cutting down the tech companies would be good, alot of the economical issues/inequalities seems to be linked to the tech companies, atleast it fits the narrative and timeline better than something like Reagans neoliberalism.
That sure puts a different spin on the UK tax being "unreasonable, discriminatory, and burdensome".
yes
The corporate tax (opening bid Biden) of 28% will also put more pressure on the EU there, with Biden complaining to the EU when the EU not doing enough there.
EnglishEdward
Deity
My late father was a tax inspector working for the Inland Revenue.
I can remember him saying that the thing about taxation is that
one can really only tax people or businesses that make money.
As so much of business is for one reason or other, making a loss,
breaking even, being net subsidised or making fictional profits;
Johnny taxman (of whatever gender or nationality) has little alternative
but to turn his attention to those businesses that are profitable, and big
tech corporates paying little tax are like whales waiting to be harpooned.
I can remember him saying that the thing about taxation is that
one can really only tax people or businesses that make money.
As so much of business is for one reason or other, making a loss,
breaking even, being net subsidised or making fictional profits;
Johnny taxman (of whatever gender or nationality) has little alternative
but to turn his attention to those businesses that are profitable, and big
tech corporates paying little tax are like whales waiting to be harpooned.
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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What is the capital gains tax in US vs european countries which is maybe considered a more serious issue. Same with dividen tax. US overall tax rate look very low, no matter what year you choose Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product (FYFRGDA188S) | FRED | St. Louis Fed
Corporate tax could probably be 0% assuming the system don't allow for people to use Corporate assets. Capital gains tax and dividen tax could be very high and income tax could be very low, assuming income must be divided, like a CEO could not earn more than 5 times what an ordinary worker could and so on.
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If I make a very short digging in into capital gains tax:
I think you need a real expert or expert article to make fair benching because of the smallprint.
If the US has 20% capital gains tax for long term (shorter than 1 year is if I understand correctly ? goes by normal income tax ?) there are lowewr rates when your income is lower (than 400,000 USD ?) and 0% rates at very small income.
https://www.bankrate.com/investing/long-term-capital-gains-tax/
For European countries this link: https://taxfoundation.org/capital-gains-tax-rates-in-europe-2020/
and you see countries with 0% and countries with up to 40% or so.
My country NL listed as 30%.
But I know that this 30% listed is perhaps a fair tutti completti assessment of the OECD, but imo not correct, and in fact it is a highly complicated set of rates for different situations.
And does selling your house, the house you lived in, has a separate set of rates ?
The next factor in the total tax equation is wealth tax
Perhaps the only crude way to get a fair bench is comparing the tax income of the total government on anything not from normal income,
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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I think Sanders wanted to turn US into a scandinavian country with something like 2.5 times the tax to gdp ratio compared to currrent rate, but he did not win but he did have some popularity. Maybe too much in 8 years but I suspect in the long run US will start to move towards that direction. Now what will happen to europe is another thing but I suspect the role may be reversed a bit in the long run.
The best I hope for with Biden is that he believes that a higher equality in income leads to a bigger total pie of US prosperity.
If not he will just grow the US economy in the same way as with the WW2 and post WW2 efforts in order to stay above China and likely this benefits the poorer US people as well to some degree. But does not exclude factual less equality in terms of GINI, and perhaps even stronger less equality for the poor compared to middleclass when he goes for the rich to get the government money for the growth of the US economy.
Let's see how strong corporate defends cq takes the reigns.
Kouvb593kdnuewnd
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Even the post ww2 period was not all that good, more equal but nothing like a scandinavian country and the issues in the long run was worse, which is probably why scandinavian countries have performed well post 70s-80s while it is much less clear so in US and much of europe. The idea of some sort of golden age ca 1950 to early 70s seems to be a myth, since it tend to ignore huge part of population like the poor, non white and women and also don't even seems to hold true when you see videos about the society which indicate a what was called middle class was not all that well off. It may looked like a golden age vs 30s and 40s which was worse. I suspect it may simply be cold war propaganda, target against the Soviet to tell how good americans had it. In reality maybe the majority of americans had it quite bad, not maybe as bad as Soviet, but nowhere near what can be called a golden age and while things like supermarket would look rich to the Soviet equivalent, the lack of safety net indicate a poorer society than it may first look like.
US middle class seems to always been rather small, in fact the difference between past and today is not that great, there is more poor and but also more rich, which do indicate an increase in inequality, but not just one direction, but in both directions.
Also ww2 maybe gave US some advantages compared to much of the rest of the world which was damaged, however 70s did seems to expose US industry and how far it had fall behind in certain areas, lack of competition from abord may have hurt US in the long run.
Don't think Biden will fix the country, nobody in the past have fixed the country, but he could push it towards that direction that could start to reduce the major issues, but it would probably take decades of work.
UK seems to have ended up even worse post WW2, quite interesting how winning WW2 could cause major long term issues in future, but to be fair in US case the issues was always there and much more visible in 1920 and UK I don't know what happened. I suspect without WW2 they may have had performed better in the long run.
I think Biden should start with things such as scrapping the college debt, make colleges free, even if that comes at a cost of making them less accessible. Policies should focus on reducing the income gap between the poorest and the richest, the lower the better I would say since that mean stuff like healthcare should become more and more affordable and stuff like consumer goods would become more and more expensive (which may be a good things to reduce consumerism). Work conditions should be much better, like 6 week paid holiday per year, maybe reduce number of workdays to 4 and workhours to 6 and focus on employing more people rather than each person having to do more things and stop the gig economy.
If US move toward having the best work conditions, it would put alot of pressure on other countries to do the same, which may lead to a positive feedback loop. If people think this is unrealistic, keep in mind that US work conditions relative much of europe late 1880s was quite good which put pressure on european countries to improve, so now we have the opposite situation, but it can switch back. Think what difference it would have made if US decided to do that to prove how superior its system was to Soviet during the cold war instead of the red scare stuff, in fact an american worker would only need to work something like half as much as their Soviet counterpart to reach the same GDP, meaning american industries could have had 4h workdays and simply let the productivity growth improve conditions for workers overtime.
US middle class seems to always been rather small, in fact the difference between past and today is not that great, there is more poor and but also more rich, which do indicate an increase in inequality, but not just one direction, but in both directions.
Also ww2 maybe gave US some advantages compared to much of the rest of the world which was damaged, however 70s did seems to expose US industry and how far it had fall behind in certain areas, lack of competition from abord may have hurt US in the long run.
Don't think Biden will fix the country, nobody in the past have fixed the country, but he could push it towards that direction that could start to reduce the major issues, but it would probably take decades of work.
UK seems to have ended up even worse post WW2, quite interesting how winning WW2 could cause major long term issues in future, but to be fair in US case the issues was always there and much more visible in 1920 and UK I don't know what happened. I suspect without WW2 they may have had performed better in the long run.
I think Biden should start with things such as scrapping the college debt, make colleges free, even if that comes at a cost of making them less accessible. Policies should focus on reducing the income gap between the poorest and the richest, the lower the better I would say since that mean stuff like healthcare should become more and more affordable and stuff like consumer goods would become more and more expensive (which may be a good things to reduce consumerism). Work conditions should be much better, like 6 week paid holiday per year, maybe reduce number of workdays to 4 and workhours to 6 and focus on employing more people rather than each person having to do more things and stop the gig economy.
If US move toward having the best work conditions, it would put alot of pressure on other countries to do the same, which may lead to a positive feedback loop. If people think this is unrealistic, keep in mind that US work conditions relative much of europe late 1880s was quite good which put pressure on european countries to improve, so now we have the opposite situation, but it can switch back. Think what difference it would have made if US decided to do that to prove how superior its system was to Soviet during the cold war instead of the red scare stuff, in fact an american worker would only need to work something like half as much as their Soviet counterpart to reach the same GDP, meaning american industries could have had 4h workdays and simply let the productivity growth improve conditions for workers overtime.
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Verbose
Deity
2,5 huh? That would be what... a 60% taxation rate? That would put the US well ahead of any of the Scandis then. (US at 24+% taxation rate, Denmark tops the list at 45%.)
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