[RD] Europe Pushes for Extra-Territorial Taxation of Digital Economy

If an Australian walks into a shop in the UK and purchases goods, to be delivered to their Australian address, should the goods carry GST? The boundaries are a bit tricky.
Some of the American companies I buy stuff from say they're obligated to collect GST and remit it to CRA (Canada Revenue Agency).

That's why I get a lot of the books I buy from either American or UK Amazon Marketplace sellers, or other secondhand book dealers in the U.S., UK, or Australia: they're not required to collect GST.

In essence, yes, since Facebook is monetizing my data and I don't see any of that money. They're stealing money from me when I use Facebook.
But how much data did you put there that they could use? They've got my name, the city where I live, my birthday, and a photo of my late cat, which I use as my avatar. I've never posted any other photos. I think the last personal message exchanged with anyone was a few years ago - one of those "happy birthday"/"thanks" things.

The housekeeper/organizing person who comes over twice a month to help out here keeps pushing me to use the Buy & Sell groups on Facebook, if I want to find a cat or bookshelves.

I haven't done that, because I don't understand how that even works. How can you work out an arrangement with someone if everything is public? And why should anyone even know you're interested in something, other than you and the one who posted the offer?

Among the reasons (there are others, as well) I don't touch Facebook and never have. I have never created a profile or account. I have never logged in. Not once. I don't exist in Zuckerberg's Evil Empire. It even annoyed me that I actually missed my uncle's funeral because my mother, sibling, other uncles and aunts, and cousins arranged and set-up the whole affair on a Facebook coordination thingy of some sort...
Did anyone tell you he'd died in the first place? Or did they just assume you would read about it on FB?

I've told people to never assume I would see anything on FB, even if we're on each other's friends list, because I read updates so seldom. I figure that if something is important enough to need my attention or input, they can phone or email.
 
Except you consented to it when you signed up. So no, they aren't stealing from you. It's not Facebook's fault you didn't read the Terms of Service agreement.
Regardless, the point is that Facebook IS making money from the country where the people have their page, so it's absolutely normal that it pays taxes on it.
You're simply trying to justify tax evasion for multi-billion dollars companies.
 
Regardless, the point is that Facebook IS making money from the country where the people have their page, so it's absolutely normal that it pays taxes on it.
You're simply trying to justify tax evasion for multi-billion dollars companies

Right, the real question is method of calculation, which would be very difficult to establish, given some confidentiality aspects, like FB not disclosing the full chain of value creation off a single user’s data, userbase wealth inequality and so on. I don’t think that simple way, figuratively speaking, of taking all the Belgians and multiplying them by 2 cents will suffice here.
 
Regardless, the point is that Facebook IS making money from the country where the people have their page, so it's absolutely normal that it pays taxes on it.
You're simply trying to justify tax evasion for multi-billion dollars companies.

But there is no exchange of money from the user to FB. A 'fee' would make more sense than a 'tax', otherwise it really looks like double taxation. FB would be paying tax because of where the data is coming from, and a tax when they sell that data.

The multiple billion dollar lawsuits against American companies just looks like Europe can't make their own stuff so they need to steal from sue the USA.
 
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But there is no exchange of money from the user to FB. A 'fee' would make more sense than a 'tax', otherwise it really looks like double taxation. FB would be paying tax because of where the data is coming from, and a tax when they sell that data.
But there IS exchange of value : when the user accepts the EULA.
The multiple billion dollar lawsuits against American companies just looks like Europe can't make their own stuff so they need to steal from sue the USA.
It seems rather to me that it's the taxation adapting to a global information economy.
 
You guys are arguing with people who reject the premise that any taxes are just or lawful. They don't deserve serious engagement.
 
Except you consented to it when you signed up. So no, they aren't stealing from you. It's not Facebook's fault you didn't read the Terms of Service agreement.
More often than not those terms are so ridiculously leonine that they are de iure unenforceable.
 
More often than not those terms are so ridiculously leonine that they are de iure unenforceable.

That depends on the laws of the jurisdiction we are talking about. Facebook, being by and large an American company, mostly structures its Terms of Service around US law.
 
But it still operates in and profits off countries and territories not subject to US law.
 
But it still operates in and profits off countries and territories not subject to US law.

That's tricky though. I mean, does Facebook really "operate" in other countries, or is it more that people from other countries just happen to use its services? And there is a difference. An example (which I believe someone else already brought up) would be if I had a store here in the US and you came to visit my store and bought something, does that mean that I technically "operate" in your home country just because you bought something from me? Because that's really what's going on with Facebook. People from other countries are going to them (albeit digitally rather than physically) to use their services.
 
does Facebook really "operate" in other countries
Yes. To the extent that they've translated their entire interface and ‘user experience’ to several languages.
 
That's tricky though. I mean, does Facebook really "operate" in other countries, or is it more that people from other countries just happen to use its services? And there is a difference. An example (which I believe someone else already brought up) would be if I had a store here in the US and you came to visit my store and bought something, does that mean that I technically "operate" in your home country just because you bought something from me? Because that's really what's going on with Facebook. People from other countries are going to them (albeit digitally rather than physically) to use their services.
Yes. To the extent that they've translated their entire interface and ‘user experience’ to several languages.
Law codes - criminal, civil, and commercial - in pretty much every country (even wealthy First World Nations) are still pretty much in a transitional state, or phase, of trying to best adapt to the changed situations and challenges the Internet era has brought to the world, even though the Internet has been in existence and publicly, easily accessible (more or less) for over thirty years now. No nation has yet fine-tuned their law codes just right, and to their satisfaction, to deal with this yet.
 
That's tricky though. I mean, does Facebook really "operate" in other countries, or is it more that people from other countries just happen to use its services? And there is a difference. An example (which I believe someone else already brought up) would be if I had a store here in the US and you came to visit my store and bought something, does that mean that I technically "operate" in your home country just because you bought something from me? Because that's really what's going on with Facebook. People from other countries are going to them (albeit digitally rather than physically) to use their services.

Facebook is really a bad example - as already noted upthread as for customers outside north america and canada it is an irish company with physical locations all over the EU: as such they set up shop in Ireland (with shops in a number of other EU countries) and EU customers come in and use their services - so it is a EU company doing business within the EU. There is absolutely no question about them doing busines in the EU.

Your analogy also falls flat for purely non-EU based companies as it is not akin to someone walking in to a physical shop outside the EU and doing business there but more akin to someone calling into said shop from within the EU and having goods/services delivered to the EU - for any physical goods that would require customs payments at the very least and services would be taxed (VAT) as well. The problem does not stem from this setup at all but rather from the valuation and registration (for tax purposes) of nominally "free" services or goods.
 
If facebook has shops in the EU and charging for those services, absolutely that part of their business should be taxed by the EU.

Like you say, valuating the taxing of the 'free' services is the problem. Chatting on facebook I don't see as labor (or value). Perhaps ad revenue if there is advertising aimed specifically for EU users then I can understand it better, but if you are getting mostly ads for services that's mostly limited to north American users I can't see how you can put a value on how useful it is. Sure, FB can say to advertisers they have x billion users, but everyone knows some of those are bogus accounts, multiple accounts, inactive, outside the target demographic of the product they want to target, etc.
 
Did anyone tell you he'd died in the first place? Or did they just assume you would read about it on FB?

I've told people to never assume I would see anything on FB, even if we're on each other's friends list, because I read updates so seldom. I figure that if something is important enough to need my attention or input, they can phone or email.

I did know he had died, and my sister said a funeral would be prepared "as soon as possible." I spoke with her several times over the next two weeks, at the end of which she said plans would be gotten together and she would "contact" me. Apparently, the plans were made in a seeming flurry of activity in about a week-and-a-half over Facebook, and she, and several other family members I called in that period didn't answer their phones for one reason or another. When I did get ahold of my sister, she said the funeral had already happened, and "everyone had been contacted and consulted about the plans," and THEN she asked if I used "pseudonym" on Facebook, because nobody could find my account... :(
 
I did know he had died, and my sister said a funeral would be prepared "as soon as possible." I spoke with her several times over the next two weeks, at the end of which she said plans would be gotten together and she would "contact" me. Apparently, the plans were made in a seeming flurry of activity in about a week-and-a-half over Facebook, and she, and several other family members I called in that period didn't answer their phones for one reason or another. When I did get ahold of my sister, she said the funeral had already happened, and "everyone had been contacted and consulted about the plans," and THEN she asked if I used "pseudonym" on Facebook, because nobody could find my account... :(
And it didn't occur to anyone to just phone or email you?! :(

Not that email is the best way to find out these things. My mother died nearly 4 years ago, and the first I knew that she'd even been sick was when I got an email from my aunt that started out "Dear ____, We expected this. Your mother died yesterday."

Well, I sure as hell wasn't expecting it. And as for the funeral... I'm sure some people probably wondered why I wasn't there. The truth is, since she had apparently instructed "the family" not to tell me she was terminal (cancer), I figured she probably wouln't have wanted me at any memorial service either. So I didn't go, and to hell with what "the family" thought.

I don't care what her instructions were... someone should have told me her cancer had returned. Even between estranged family, that's not the kind of thing to keep quiet about and then blurt it out in an email after the fact.
 
That's tricky though. I mean, does Facebook really "operate" in other countries, or is it more that people from other countries just happen to use its services? And there is a difference.
Nope.
An example (which I believe someone else already brought up) would be if I had a store here in the US and you came to visit my store and bought something, does that mean that I technically "operate" in your home country just because you bought something from me? Because that's really what's going on with Facebook. People from other countries are going to them (albeit digitally rather than physically) to use their services.
That comparison is ridiculous. If I come to visit your store in the USA, obviously I'm in the USA and as such subject to USA laws.
If I'm at home using a service provided to me... SURPRISE, I'm not in the USA ! The service is provided in my country ! Hence the business has been done in my country, hence the profit are taxable in my country.

Seriously, just admit you want the US corporations to be above the laws of the rest of the world, it's shameful but at least it's honest.
 
Seriously, just admit you want the US corporations to be above the laws of the rest of the world, it's shameful but at least it's honest.
If it also comes with Takhisis, Inc., a company that sells stuff to USians who live in the US, but is not from the US and has no physical premises there, not being taxed for our business, that would be somehwat consistent.

Of course, Takhisis, Inc. would also like not pay service taxes on, say, shipment services used to deliver our physical products to our customers.
 
If facebook has shops in the EU and charging for those services, absolutely that part of their business should be taxed by the EU.

No one is suggesting that Facebook et al should not pay taxes for its business and the profit it makes in Europe.

The DST is, however, not a tax on business activity or profit. It is a general revenue tax, and this is what it makes it remarkable. It is a tax on the total receipts of the company, regardless of how much of those receipts are profit and how much are offset by costs.

Where Europe may wish to tax the money Facebook makes or how much business it does, there are ample existing tax systems to do so. Maybe they need modification, but inventing a whole new general revenue tax is unnecessary.

A general revenue tax isn’t a tax on making money, or doing business. It’s a tax on existing, and such a blunt instrument is unwelcome when other, more precise, means of achieving tax policy goals exist.
 
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